Information Landmine

"The Americans keep telling us how successful their system is. Then they remind us not to stray too far from our hotel at night." - An un-named EU trade representative quoted during international trade talks in Denver, Colorado, 1997.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Wednesday morning and business as usual here in This Septic Isle (sic). Here's some typically eco-friendly news from The Mother of Parliaments (which, contrary to its nickname, did not give birth to George Clinton aboard The Mothership at any time in its illustrious past):

"From the office of the South-East England’s Green MEP Caroline Lucas
October 11th, 2006

PARLIAMENT REFIT USING ILLEGAL RAINFOREST TIMBER
MEP DEMANDS BLAIR HALTS WORK AND STANDS UP FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

REBUILDING work at the House of Commons is using plywood containing illegally logged rainforest timber from Papua New Guinea, an investigation has revealed.

According to environmental NGO Greenpeace, two tonnes of plywood are being used to protect stairs, floors and walls during construction work. Euro-MP Caroline Lucas, who previously campaigned about illegally-logged timber being used in the building of the European Commission’s new Brussels HQ opened in 2004, said Blair must personally intervene to halt work.

'Tony Blair himself must intervene and halt construction work using rainforest timber if he is to retain a vestige of credibility on the environment.'

The South-East England Green Party MEP added: 'If the Government is serious about conserving threatened rainforest habitats around the world it must adopt strict procurement guidelines to ensure illegally-sourced wood is never again used in its own construction projects.

'The use of illegally-logged timber must be stamped out across the country – not just in public construction projects - by enacting and enforcing new legislation to ban its import into the country in the first place.'

Note to Editors:
More details of the Greenpeace investigation can be found at:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/forests.cfm?ucidparam=20060928153937"


Of course, had Her Majesty's Government sourced the timber from Papua New Guinea's friendly neighbour, they possibly could have got a better deal by swinging an exchange for British armaments.

Where exactly did New Labour's ethical foreign policy go?

1 Comments:

Blogger James said...

www.lookmumtwohands.blog.com

11 October, 2006 13:43  

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