Greenpeace volunteer Reza Hossain

Blackburn doctor Reza Hossain is spending this week settling into his new home - the dense forests of Papua New Guinea. Reza flew across the world last Tuesday to join a Greenpeace camp trying to save the world-renowned Paradise Forests, which stretch from South East Asia, across the islands of Indonesia, on to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.

Educated at Feniscowles Primary and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, Reza has taken up a position as resident doctor at the Global Forest Rescue Station. As the Paradise Forests are destroyed faster than any other forest on the planet the Greenpeace team, including Reza, is working with local communities to take back land from the loggers.

The Rescue Station is the base camp for marking the boundaries of the Kuni, Begwa and Pari tribal lands around Lake Murray in western Papua New Guinea. The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior is also in the region patrolling the waters on the lookout for illegal and destructive timber being shipped out of the Paradise Forests.

Reza trained as a GP between 2000 and 2004 and usually works as a dermatologist, but now he's ensuring the good health of the Greenpeace team in the heart of an unforgiving forest. Emailing from the Rescue Station, he said:

"It's a bit different from Lancashire, that's for sure. This wonderfully diverse region supports hundreds of indigenous cultures and creatures found nowhere else in the world. It's an honour that the Kuni tribe has invited us here to help. Tragically the loggers are destroying this amazing place to make timber products that often end up in Europe. We're doing what we can to help the tribes claim the land that is rightfully theirs. People back home can help by checking they only buy wood products from sustainable forests."

Reza added that by checking for the Forest Stewardship Council logo (FSC), western consumers can make sure they don't buy products that wreck the world's ancient forests.

More than 1000 languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea alone - around one sixth of all the living languages on Earth today. Greenpeace volunteers from around the world are living and working alongside local landowners and eco-forestry trainers at the Rescue Station, helping the tribes establish their rights over approximately 300,000 hectares of tribal territories by identifying, marking out and mapping their boundaries. This will help them protect the forests from destructive and illegal logging.

In Papua New Guinea, less than one per cent of the forest has any form of protection and more than a quarter of a million hectares of primary forest are destroyed each year.

Reza has been an active Greenpeace supporter for about five years. He says the reason he wanted to work in the Papua New Guinea rainforest in particular was because the rainforests contain the greatest biodiversity on the earth, and contain about two-thirds of all the world's species. "My mum had one instruction for me," he adds. "She told me to make sure I'm not bitten by leeches because she thinks I'm too thin already!"

For more information contact Greenpeace on 0207 865 8255

Papuans welcome the Rainbow Warrior as it arrives in Jayapura for the first time

The Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior, sailed into the Indonesian province of Papua for the first time today as part of a global campaign to help protect the world's last ancient forests.

Greenpeace is on a mission to protect the Paradise Forests, the last ancient forests in Asia-Pacific, from illegal and destructive logging, and is launching an eco-forestry program in Papua to offer community-based forest management as an alternative to large-scale, industrial logging. Scientists from Conservation International recently discovered a 'Garden of Eden' in Papua's Foja Mountains, an area untouched by man and full of new species, including frogs, butterflies, plants and a new type of bird called the orange-faced honeyeater.

"The Paradise Forests of Asia Pacific are brimming with unimaginable diversity of life," said Emmy Hafild, Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. "But these forests and the life they support are being destroyed faster than any other on Earth, driven by demand for timber in Europe, US, Japan and China."

Dr. Jatna Supriatna, Director of Conservation International Indonesia, said: "Our discovery of new species underlined the importance of saving the pristine forests of Papua. Possibilities are high that we will find more new species in the area. These forests, however, are under threat from large-scale destruction before we may fully know what kind of flora and fauna live in them."

Deforestation rates in Indonesia are among the highest in the world with at least 1.9 million hectares of forest destroyed every year for the last five years, equivalent to five football fields a minute. In total, Indonesia has already lost more than 72 per cent of its large intact ancient forest areas and 40 per cent of its forest have been completely destroyed. Much of the logging in Indonesia is illegal and, according to Indonesia Forest Minister, Malam Sambat Kaban, "defrauds" the country of US$4 billion each year.

Greenpeace is calling on governments in both timber producing countries, like Indonesia, and timber consuming countries, like China, Japan, US and the EU member states, to adopt strong measures to combat illegal and destructive logging and to establish a comprehensive network of protected areas around the world with effective law enforcement and management.

"Timber producing and consuming countries must work together to stop illegal and destructive logging. It is only through regional and international cooperation that we can protect the world's last ancient forests for future generations," said Greenpeace Southeast Asia Forest campaigner, Hapsoro.

As well as exposing forest crimes, Greenpeace is working with communities in Papua and Papua New Guinea to set up responsible forestry initiatives. In Papua, Greenpeace will host a forum that aims to build a network of communities working together on eco-forestry enterprises. On the other side of the island, meanwhile, Greenpeace volunteers from around the world have built a Global Forest Rescue Station in Lake Murray, Western Province, Papua New Guinea, where they are helping customary landowners mark the boundaries of their land, a first step towards protecting it from the logging industry and a basis for eco-forestry in the area.

Greenpeace forest crimes unit is also on patrol in the Amazon, exposing the devastating impacts of deforestation in the lead up to the Summit for Life on Earth, the meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity which begins on March 20 in Brazil.

Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organisation, which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force solutions essential to a green and peaceful future. It is committed to protecting the world's last ancient forests and the people and animals that depend upon them.

For more information on our work in the Paradise Forests go to http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/asia-pacific

Images are available on request.

Malaysian rainforests are still under threat from illegal logging

Greenpeace today (17th May 2005) released Missing Links, a report that identifies serious gaps in the certification standards of the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC), and highlighting its lack of credibility as a certifier of legal or environmentally responsible forest management.

The report shows:

• MTCC procedures do not ensure certified products are legal.
• The MTCC chain of custody system does not require independent tracking of wood from forest to first point of timber processing - a missing link that means all MTCC chain of custody claims have no credibility.
• There are no requirements to ensure independent verification of the chain of custody of MTCC timber exported to the Europe or elsewhere.
• There are no credible checks on the origin of uncertified material that is allowed to be mixed with certified material timber. This means that illegal timber can enter the chain of custody and be sold as MTCC-certified.
• Contrary to international treaties and standards, the MTCC system does not address indigenous peoples land rights.

Click here to download a copy of the report in .PDF format.

The MTCC recently awarded certification to a company, Samling, for controversial logging operations in the tropical rainforests of Borneo, despite two decades of protest by indigenous people including the Penan tribe.

A review of new rules, to be phased in during 2006, will not require an effective chain of custody from stump to sawmill, or third-party checks on the origin of uncertified timber. This means that illegal timber may continue to enter European markets as MTCC certified.

"European timber buyers should be aware that MTCC certification is not a guarantee of either legality or environmentally responsible forest management, and worse still MTCC timber may be stolen from indigenous peoples' lands," said Pat Venditti, Senior Forest Campaigner at Greenpeace. "This also calls into question paper assessments by the UK government that MTCC wood can be deemed legal."

Greenpeace urges timber buyers, governments and public authorities to preference the standards and requirements of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and to avoid buying, specifying or recommending MTCC timber. The FSC is widely recognised as the international standard for responsible forestry and currently the only credible certification scheme.

For more information contact:
Pat Venditti, Greenpeace UK Forest Campaigner: +44 207 865 8250.
Greenpeace UK press office: 00 44 207 865 8225.
Grant Rosoman, Greenpeace International Forests Campaigner and certification advisor: +643 382 5476