Prestigious UK Garden Show Awash In Illegal Burmese Teak - Independent

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Exhibitors at Britain's biggest garden show, the Chelsea Flower Show, are selling hardwood from the unprotected rainforests of Asia, a trade that has been condemned by one of the country's leading environmental bodies. Secret tape-recordings made during an undercover investigation by Greenpeace and The Independent found sales staff taking orders for teak garden furniture logged in Burma, whose brutal military regime is condemned globally. One trader said a teak table tucked at the back of his stand - behind more regular timber - had come from Burma because of "corruption". To the outrage of environmental groups, the Burmese military junta allows widespread logging of endangered rainforest.

The organiser of the show, the Royal Horticultural Society, backs the certification of timber to ensure garden tables and chairs on sale there are environmentally friendly and meet standards on child labour and human rights. But several traders are exploiting the high profile of the Chelsea Flower Show to promote Burmese teak - even though the main certification body in the UK, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), refuses to certify the country's timber. One salesman claimed the teak tables on show at his stand were FSC-certified from Thailand, even though the FSC does not certify any teak from Thailand. Exhibitors routinely get round RHS rules on sustainable timber by submitting documents for a "sample" of their products, while ensuring the main supply comes from cheaper sources, according to one garden furniture supplier who sells only legitimate timber. Evidence about the availability of wood not proven to be environmentally or socially responsible comes amid rising concern over the fate of the world's great forests, which are under ever increasing threat. Yesterday the International Tropical Timber Organisation released figures showing that less than 5 per cent of the world's tropical forests are being sustainably managed.

To gather evidence The Independent and Greenpeace visited four stands at the Chelsea Flower Show yesterday morning fitted with secret tape-recording equipment. At one of the stands, TFT Garden Furniture had a teak table at the back of its stand, which it was ostensibly using for administration. But when The Independent asked whether the company had any teak for sale the furniture was shown as an example of the teak that could be ordered in the styles of other tables on show.

Asked whether the table was "plantation" (made from certified timber), the salesman, Peter Doherty, replied: "This is not. It's Burmese teak. It's the best teak you can get because it's so corrupt out there. It's easier with this than this type of wood which is hard wood, because it's so driven by demand. There's so much going out and there's just not enough people to produce the paperwork for it leaving the country and going here, there and everywhere." He offered to sell the table for £799, saying: "It's hard to get FSC teak."

EDIT

http://www.ecoearth.info/articles/reader.asp?linkid=56817

[CanuckAmok]

1. Related...

When we were shooting a TV movie last year in somebody's home, we damaged a step in the main staircase which was a single, 2' deep plank of teak.

We had to replace it with another single plank of similar teak, and that had to come from Burma. Teak is expensive as it is, but even more so when you want to get a flawless 2' x 5' x 1 1/2" single plank of it.

The cost of a "sample" (aka black market) plank of the same teak was going to be $1,700. To get a legitimate "plantation" certified piece was going to cost over $8,000. The insurance company who underwrote the production company's coverage would only pay for the $1,700 piece, even though it was clearly black market.

I hate to say this, but if they're going to protect the teak forests, they have to be better able to compete with the black-marketeers, bring punitive action against buyers of 'illegal' teak or eliminate the black marketeers all together.

To be realistic, the last two ain't gonna happen.