Climate GDA: Auckland demonstration against Kwila

"Western demand for kwila is not only killing the forests, it is also killing our people. The forest is seen as our mother, which provides us with food, water and shelter - and when that is taken away, our people lose everything."

Saturday 06 December 2008
13:00pm - 15:00pm
Design Warehouse
136 Fanshawe Street
Auckland
aspaceinside@gmail.com

This summer a rag-tag bunch of activists will attempt to impose a people's ban on the selling of Kwila in Auckland City, a mostly illegally logged rainforest hardwood sold across the Western world as outdoor furniture or decking timber.

We are launching our campaign on Saturday December 6th, a Global Day of Action on Climate Change. We will be holding a protest outside Design Warehouse, 136 Fanshawe Street, a major seller of Kwila Furniture.

Come along and be part of the global movement against climate change and ecological destruction.
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Scientists agree that the world’s rainforests are the best natural defense against climate change because they store vast amounts of carbon. For example, Indonesian old-growth rainforests store almost 750 tons of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of 620 flights between New York and London – per acre. When cleared, rainforests release that carbon into the atmosphere, furthering global warming rather than curbing it.
http://ran.org/campaigns/rainforest_agribusiness/resources/fact_sheets/g...

"Western demand for kwila is not only killing the forests, it is also killing our people," he said. "The forest is seen as our mother, which provides us with food, water and shelter - and when that is taken away, our people lose everything."

Mr Manufandu said the illegal logging activities has caused much suffering and devastation among his people, and migrant workers of logging companies also spread diseases such as Aids to the forest people.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/forests/news/article.cfm?c_id=211&objectid=105...

"Stop buying kwila. Support indigenous people. Destruction of the forest is like killing people because they lose everything. They cannot have food, they can’t get water. Logging companies pollute the water too."
http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/interview/2008/06/art100020587.php

On June 16 Harvey Norman wrote to the IHRC to announce that they will no longer source 'any new Kwila products from any suppliers' and that they will 'cease all our sales of Kwila products 21 March 2009.'
http://indymedia.org.nz/feature/display/71861/index.php

Last summer the Indonesia Human Rights Committee conducted a retail survey and found that Auckland was awash with outdoor furniture and decking made from kwila sourced from Indonesian controlled West Papua. Kwila has already been stripped out of the rest of Indonesia and other South East Asian nations and there is a strong international drive for kwila to be listed as an endangered species. Greenpeace estimates that the wood is only 35 years away from extinction as a species.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0708/S00284.htm

The problem of logging of engdangered timber crosses the full gamut - the dislocation and intimidation of indigenous people, the destruction of ancient rainforests and biodiversity, the knock on effect on climate change as these old growth forests are stripped bare, governmental and private industry corruption, and the effect on foresters and manufacturers who do attempt to use sustainably and legally logged timber and find their products unable to compete.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2007/04/22/killing-kwila/