Green group lobbies U.S. firms to stop buying Indonesian wood

Green group lobbies U.S. firms to stop buying Indonesian wood

Michael Erman, Reuters, New York

Environmentalists trying to halt illegal logging in Indonesia
are asking Georgia-Pacific Corp. and Home Depot Inc., to stop
buying wood from the region.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) said on Thursday it was
calling on the two U.S. companies to "halt all purchases of
Indonesian wood and pulp until the rights of indigenous
people ... are recognized and the Indonesian government agrees to
stamp out illegal logging".

Home Depot and Georgia-Pacific told Reuters that Indonesian
products account for a small percentage of their wood purchases
and that they stand by their environmental policies.

Georgia-Pacific spokesman Greg Guest said that the building
and consumer products maker does not own or contract from logging
operations in Indonesia and has been working to implement an
environmental policy on tropical wood since 2001.

"We are simply buying wood for customers here in the U.S. from
Indonesia," said Guest. "But we're not involved with the
logging ... We're not knowingly buying any wood that has been
harvested illegally."

According to RAN, Georgia-Pacific is the largest U.S. importer
of Indonesian plywood.

Forestry authorities say illegal logging in Indonesia has
reached 50.7 million cubic meters (66.3 cubic yards) per year
with a predicted annual loss of US$3.42 billion.

Indonesia's forests cover more than 120 million hectares (296
million acres) but the annual degradation in the past four years
has reached two million hectares.

Most of the woodlands are located in far-flung areas of the
world's largest archipelago, where monitoring is weak and
corruption rampant.

Mark Wilde, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said there are "some
real legitimate reasons to be concerned about the way that these
Indonesian forestry operations are running".

"Most of them are running ... off of harvesting native
tropical forests, but always with the promise that they are going
to replant plantations. There's an issue whether they replant or
not, but there's also an issue about whether you want all these
native forests hacked down," Wilde said.

Guest said Georgia Pacific's policy is to follow the law of
the countries where wood is forested, as well as U.S. law, and to
take steps to make sure only legally harvested wood products are
purchased. If a supplier does not meet the requirements in a
reasonable time frame, Guest said, Georgia Pacific will stop
doing business with the vendor.

Home Depot's vice president in charge of merchandise for
lumber and building materials, Ron Jarvis, told Reuters that the
company has been concerned with the sustainability of Indonesian
forests, as well as illegal logging issues. He said it has taken
steps to reduce its purchases from Indonesia by more than 70
percent.

However, the home improvement retailer, which buys about 1.5
percent of its wood in Southeast Asia, continues to buy wood from
Indonesian suppliers that are becoming certified by the Forest
Stewardship Council for sustainable forestry.

"We think that we are better off being over there, then if we
completely turn our back and walk away," said Jarvis. "Because if
we walk away they are still going to sell the wood from the
forest, there is just not going to be any incentive for them to
be certified."

But RAN representative Jennifer Krill said the group would
keep the pressure on the companies until they stopped importing
Indonesian wood entirely.

"Either these companies are with the movement to save
endangered forests or they are against it," she said. "It is
unconscionable for American companies to be harboring illegally
logged wood and call that 'constructive engagement.'"