what Jewsons Ltd would prefer you didnt know

[Stuart]

I feel strongly that it is not my place to lecture people on what they should and shouldn’t be concerned about and thus I do not normally post on these forums to express my personal opinion of environmental and ethnical issues.

Today however I learned of the part being played by the British company Jewsons in the destruction of the rainforests of sarawak and the homes of the Penan people

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2165890,00.html

Dying tribe takes on timber giants over lost habitat
By Richard Lloyd Parry and Devika Bhat

'Your suppliers are killing us,' Asian forest dwellers tell a British lumber group.


ONE of the world’s poorest and most isolated tribes is pleading with a British company to stop using timber from their home in the rapidly disappearing Borneo jungle.
Chiefs of the Penan, Asia’s last nomadic people, have written to the head of the lumber company Jewson Ltd, appealing to him to stop buying wood from the Samling Group, a Malaysian company accused of stealing the Penan’s lands and destroying their forest.



“By purchasing Samling timber, you and your company are making yourselves part of the crimes committed against us,” says the letter, arranged by a Swiss NGO, to Peter Hindle, Jewson’s managing director. “The Samling group is extracting timber from our forests against our declared will and without our consent.

“Despite our repeated protests, Samling does not respect our boundaries, continues to encroach on our traditional land and disregards our native customary rights.”

The headmen of 17 communities on the Baram river in the Malaysian state of Sarawak have signed the letter with their thumb prints, since most of them are illiterate.

The Penan are the human equivalent of an endangered species: the last hunter-gatherers in Asia. For thousands of years they have lived in the deep interior of Borneo, the world’s third largest island, surviving by hunting wild animals and harvesting jungle plants. From the ipoh tree they extract poison for their blowpipe arrows. Only a few hundred continue to live a fully nomadic life beneath temporary shelters too simple even to be called huts. Most of the 9,000 Penan have settled down in simple villages to a life of hunting combined with rice farming.



Many have been forced to abandon their nomadic traditions because of the destruction of their habitat by logging companies. Trees are pulped into plywood and sold on to construction companies for use in hoardings and building sites.

There has been a rainforest in Sarawak for ten million years, but in the past 45 years more than 90 per cent of the virgin jungle has been logged.

“Without our forest, we, the Penan, cannot survive,” the chiefs wrote. “We depend on the clean water from our rivers, the wild boar we hunt in the forest and the fruits and the jungle produce we collect.”

The area from which Jewson’s plywood originates includes the last patch of primary rain forest in Malaysia. Logging destroys the forest plants, food for men and the animals they hunt, while the animals flee from the noise of the chainsaws. Those that remain are hunted by the logging workers.

Deprived of plants and trees, the soil washes down into the rivers that become polluted. “When we set up road blocks to stop the company from entering into our land, Samling attempts to bribe some individuals to split our communities and buy their way into the concession,” the letter says. In 1990, the Prince of Wales called the Penan victims of “collective genocide”.

There is nothing illegal about Jewson’s purchase of the Borneo plywood. It is sold with the approval of the Malaysian Timber Certification Council, which has approved Samling’s logging operations in the middle and Upper Baram river. But the Penan leaders complain that the council has ignored an unresolved law suit asserting their land rights.

Jewsons said last night that the region’s wood accounted for a “very small” portion of its sales. In a statement, the company said that it promoted best practice in timber procurement and was keen for the case involving the Penan to be heard and the situation resolved.

Its not really a surprise that the Malaysian government supports the logging when you consider that most of the members of the government own shares in logging companies including Chief Minister, Deputy Minister of Defence and Assistant Minister of Land Resources. And in a stunning demonstration of corruption Malaysian Minister for the environment Mr Datuk Amar James Wong owns one of the largest logging companies!

You can learn about the Penan here:
http://www.rimba.com/nomads/nomads2.html


To learn about Mr Wong see here:
http://www.newint.org/issue184/steal.htm

Then just for your own amusement you can read about the award given to him by the Malaysian government for outstanding contribution to environmental protection , if these doesn’t leave you shaking your head nothing will :
http://www.mtc.com.my/news/pr11.htm


if you wish to e-mail Jewson and register your displeasure at their action you can do so here http://www.jewson.co.uk/en/forms/emailUs.jsp please be aware however that Jewson Ltd. has blocked their e-mail contact form for messages containing the words "Penan" and "Samling", so do not use these words when sending an e-mail to them.

Those aren’t rivers in the picture they are the logging roads and there isn’t a single area of the jungle that doesn’t look like this from the air, more than 90% of the forest has already been cut down and astonishingly the vast majority of the tropical hardwood trees cut from this forest are actually used to make ply board!

 

[yarrow]

First it makes me mad, then sad. Still I think I will stick with mad :aargh4: Time for e.mail action. I say we all sound off to Jewsons, they need to know we give a sh**!

 

[Stuart]

just keep in mind when e-mailing them that Jewson Ltd. has blocked their e-mail contact form for messages containing the words "Penan" and "Samling", so do not use these words when sending an e-mail to them.

 

[Abbe Osram]

Stuart, with you knowleadge and contact could you not set up a e-mail or other type of mailing action we all could take part in? I would like to send my letter to one of the officals in Malaysia or if we all would write to the english company asking too that they stop buying wood? My willingness is there to help but I dont know where to start.

cheers
Abbe

 

[Jack]

Good man, Stuart and just to push the point more have a look at my friends site who is global photographer

This deforestation is for window frames and plywood

http://www.edward.parker.btinternet.co.uk/ep2002/subjects/deforestation/pages/chile05.htm

http://www.edward.parker.btinternet.co.uk/ep2002/subjects/deforestation/index.htm

Email sent.

 

[Abbe Osram]

I mailed them a letter!
cheers
Abbe

 

[BorderReiver]

It would appear that you have to register before sending an e mail to the swine.

 

[Abbe Osram]

It would appear that you have to register before sending an e mail to the swine.

yepp, I did it but you dont have to give them your real name.
As an e-mail I used my hotmail account.

cheers
Abbe

 

[British Red]

Stuart,

I don't know if this is helpful, but there is an organisation (The Forestry Stewardship Council) that describes itself as follows:

About FSC
FSC is an international, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world's forests. It was founded in 1993 in response to public concern about deforestation and demand for a trustworthy wood-labelling scheme. There are national working groups in 28 countries including the UK. FSC UK is a registered charity. It is supported by NGOs including WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Woodland Trust.

The UK arm of this body has a website here:
http://www.fsc-uk.org/

A little research allowed me to find that they list many distributors of FSC certified plywood. I don't know if Jewsons material is FSC certified or not - however you might want to enquire (the FSC lists many DIY stores as using FSC certified products as indeed do these stores own websites). If Jewsons supplier is not FSC certified, it might be worth enquiring why they don't use a supplier from one of the 10 listed pages of such suppliers!

Just a thought as, if this manufacturer is FSC certified, then I suspect the FSC are well placed to bring pressure to bear, if not, then pointing out the ethical alternatives might embarass Jewsons into switching away from this supplier!

Hope that is some sort of contribution to your efforts

red

 

[KevB]

Thanks Stuart for bringing this to our attention. I think most of us are aware that 'Deforestation' is an issue, but to what extent ? It's helpful to have this sort of information handed out periodicaly to emphasise just how bad things are becoming. Posts like this are needed to re-focus these issues.

It's certainly 'raised my hackles' and I shall be joining what I hope will be an expanding group of e-mailers !

 

[Jack]

Stuart,

I don't know if this is helpful, but there is an organisation (The Forestry Stewardship Council) that describes itself as follows:

About FSC
FSC is an international, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world's forests. It was founded in 1993 in response to public concern about deforestation and demand for a trustworthy wood-labelling scheme. There are national working groups in 28 countries including the UK. FSC UK is a registered charity. It is supported by NGOs including WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Woodland Trust.

The UK arm of this body has a website here:
http://www.fsc-uk.org/

A little research allowed me to find that they list many distributors of FSC certified plywood. I don't know if Jewsons material is FSC certified or not - however you might want to enquire (the FSC lists many DIY stores as using FSC certified products as indeed do these stores own websites). If Jewsons supplier is not FSC certified, it might be worth enquiring why they don't use a supplier from one of the 10 listed pages of such suppliers!

Just a thought as, if this manufacturer is FSC certified, then I suspect the FSC are well placed to bring pressure to bear, if not, then pointing out the ethical alternatives might embarass Jewsons into switching away from this supplier!

Hope that is some sort of contribution to your efforts

red

Just be very careful of these guys. Would be good to have a chat with Ed Parker my photographer friend above who has infact just come back from an assignment for the FSC.

He was asked to record what was going out in the rainforests and then to present his finding to the FSC and Number 11 Downing Street which he did last Thursday.

He was amused by the fact that bordering countries were shipping trees over the border.....so they could be certified as FSC timber, the trunks coming over on the backs of lorries were the 'size of petrol tankers'.

..........don't you just love the politics of that

 

[British Red]

Jack,

I don't think the FSC scheme is perfect, but I do think its better than not having one. I'd be very interested to find though if Jewsons are using FSC certified materials. If they are, I think theres a case for lobbying the FSC to investigate that particular manufacturer. If they aren't...well...why not? I guess I was trying to get to a root cause of the problem (e.g. is this "couldn't care less" on Jewsons part or is it "we're doing what we can buy only buying certified timber and timber based materials but it needs more on the ground enforcement?"). The effect may be the same, but the resolution might be different...anyway, just trying to help .

Red

 

[Jack]

I am with you Red, pleased that you bought the FSC up............B&Q 'work' the FSC label very well.

They even use FSC charcoal as opposed to locally produced charcoal, the public just doesn't know the connection between burnt sausages and the amazing people Stuart spent time with :aargh4:

 

[bambodoggy]

I believe the main ITV News is running a "Green" campagne at the moment, they have a green living family that they're following for a year and have just sent a reporter round the world (not sure how green all that air travel is but that's another story ) to tell us all about global warming and what it's doing in real terms to different places on the planet.....point being....if Jewson aren't going to listen to us, which clearly they aren't as they've bloked emails with those words in them, then maybe a pile of emails to ITV News might be in order....seeing if we can't get ITV to shame Jewsons into doing something about it....it'd tie in nicely with their global warming special reports and might even do some good.

Might be worth a try and bad publicity is much more likely to have an effect on Jewsons than a few moaning emails.

Hope that helps,

Bam.

 

[BorderReiver]

"You and yours" radio 4 might be interested too.

 

[demographic]

I know that it's not excuse but does anyone think that Travis Perkins or whatever are any better?

 

[KevB]

Looks like Jewson have added more filters to their e-mail. I could send a message that said simply 'Test' but my carefully and diplomaticly worded letter of protest would not 'send'.
I didn't use any aforementioned words and even replaced 'Malaysia' with 'Far East' as well as using very general terms.
Guess we must have hit a nerve here.

 

[Womble]

Funnily enough a thread has just started on the Guardian Unlimited talkboards (some of the largest in the english speaking world), highlighting this story. Co-incidentally, the starter of it ALSO has the word "Womble" in his username.

Funny that.

 

[Abbe Osram]

Worked for me, started up another account and wrote a second letter trying to avoid some typical words. I wrote in the letter that I expect them to answer me what they are going to do. In that way I can ask again and again about their action.
I registered as a farmer. ;-))

Think in terms of company and which terms a customer would use. I used these terms but made clear my point too. ;-))

cheers
Abbe

 

[bushwacker bob]

Erm.... Jewsons is a subsidiary of Saint Gobain(belgium). You would be better off emailing the organ grinder rather than the monkey.Especially as Saint Gobain are big on the stock exchange(they wouldn't want to upset share holders!) Saint Gobain provide half of europes windscreens and All the budwiesser bottles amoungst other stuff.
Jewsons basically do what they're told to.Any Builders merchant that sells far eastern(hardwood WBP) ply wood are also contributing to the problem.
There is a good alternantive called WISA plywhich is a structural grade softwood ply from European forests