'ETHICAL' SHOPLIFTING IN MANCHESTER
Wednesday, April 9th, 1997

International Timber has a 7-acre timber yard in Manchester, UK, where they sell wood from many companies including Interfor and MacMillan Bloedel, both of which clearcut log within Nuxalk Territory, an indigenous peoples on the west coast of Canada. The Nuxalk have not ceded their territory, and have not given consent to the 1 million cubic metres of old growth rainforest clearcut every year in their territory by these and other companies.

Because the companies do not have consent of the Nuxalk Nation, they consider it to be stolen.

40 activists entered the yard at 2:00pm, and began to seize some of this this stolen timber, marked with Interfor and MacMillan Bloedel, to return it to the Nuxalk chiefs.







The Nuxalk brought the timber to the police station and demanded that the police start an official investigation to determine who the rightful owner is.


The chief of police refused to consult with the Nuxalk, due to the highly charged political nature of the event, however they appearantly consulted with the Canadian High Commission. The status of the seized wood remains in question.






TRADE SEMINAR
Tuesday, April 8th, 1997





The Forest Action Network (Canada and UK), Reforest the Earth, and the Nuxalk Nation hosted a trade seminar for UK timber trade retailers. Members of the "Group of 95 Plus", representing 20% of UK retail sales of timber products, were asked to stop purchasing from the British Columbia temperate rainforest, and in particular from the 6 large logging companies operating in Nuxalk Territory: WFP/Doman, MacMillan Bloedel, PFP/Avenor, Timber West, and Interfor (International Forest Products).

As expected, the timber industry reacted strongly to this briefing, flying over reps from various industry PR associations, and Western Forest Products flew over their chief forester, just to counter FAN and the Nuxalk.

The "Group of 95 Plus", set up by WWF and concerned companies, can't be fooled easily, however. They have committed to sell only eco-certified wood and paper products by the year 2000, preferably through an international certification body called FSC (the Canadian timber industry has created its own certification body called CSA, but this isn't good enough for most members of the 95+ group). If Canadian companies don't drastically change their practices, a potential $2 billion market is at risk in the UK.