Mr Speaker Tena koe
He mihi nui ki te whare paremata .
I am proud to introduce the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill and would like it to be referred at the appropriate time to the Local Govt and Environment Select Committee. The Bill has a clear purpose which is to regulate the import of timber and timber products at our border.
Only products that are both legal and certified sustainable by a robust certification scheme will be accepted.
Deforestation of the planet requires countries to do more than invent voluntary codes and labelling schemes. We must stop wasting time and set up a regulatory framework before we have lost the rainforest and the other old growth trees of the world forever.
As we stand on the brink of the Copenhagen talks we have this opportunity to take a specific action to reduce world climate emissions by saving forests. The carbon storage capacity from these forests which are often described as the lungs of the world is vital to the whole of humanity.
Daily forests are being logged and then replanted as palm oil plantations and we are the customers for these unsustainable products. Regulation can help us end a war against the natural world, against the forest peoples and ultimately against ourselves.
This sounds like an exaggeration but its is worth thinking about the one hundred and thirty seven different species of plants, animals and insects becoming extinct every day as a result of forest destruction. This collapse in biodiversity includes our remarkable second cousins the orangutan of Borneo and Sarawak. It includes the colourful cassowary of West Papua and all those tiny unique unknown species which are lost as a direct result of our refusal to see the bloodstains on the barbecue furniture and decking in our very own backyards.
But primarily I am motivated by the statistic that 60 million forest peoples globally depend on the forests for their survival. The forest is their entire world. It may not be literal genocide to cut down their forest but it's within a hairs breadth. I came to understand the extent of this loss when I met a West Papuan woman now living in exile. Paula Makabory showed me the recent pictures of citizens of West Papua who had tried to resist illegal logging and who were macheted to death for their courage.
As their kwila forests are devastated and sold into our retail outlets the people in the way who are standing up to the Indonesian military and the corporate forestry companies are risking death.
In this country not far away no foreign journalists are allowed, no international Red Cross and you can be jailed for 15 years for raising the Morning Star (which is the West päpua flag). Illegal logging is steeped in blood and in phoney cortication paper trails and we need to cut the link that fills the pockets of the people who are controlling the trade.
One other exceptionally good reason for stopping this devastation is to help our own forestry industry which is undermined to the tune of $270 million per year by the effects of illegal and unsustainable logging While cheap and nasty timber is widely available and can cross all borders our own bona fide products are undermined and can be seen as expensive by comparison. There is a 2008 Cabinet paper based on research undertaken in 2007 to asses the economic impacts of illegal logging on our own forestry producers.
The total revenue by 2020 to the NZ forestry sector could be around US$178 million per year if cheap illegally logged wood products were removed from international markets.
Not surprisingly this Bill has the strong support of the forestry organisations, environmental groups and the tropical timber importers group who have a legitimate self interest in ending this trade, and supporting good wood products. These groups include:
NZ Forest Owners Association
Wood Processors Association of New Zealand
NZ Farm Forestry Association
NZ Pine Manufacturers
Forest Industry Contractors Association
The Douglas Fir Association
Forest & Bird
Greenpeace
ECO
WWF NZ
Ecologic
So why legislate? Why not just educate the consumer, the importer and the retailer? At this time it is extremely difficult for all these parties to even identify where timber products have come from. Trees logged in West Papua pr Borneo may be processed in Vietnam and marketed from China. How can we be sure without any regulation where these items have been logged? A great deal of dedicated work has gone into educating retailers and consumers.
I would particularly commend groups such as the Indonesian Human Rights committee, the Green party membership, the Auckland Rainforest Coalition and the leadership of Ecologic, Guy Salmon, on the issues.
Also to the totally dedicated Wellington rainforests activists who have worked with me on this Bill since it was drawn from the ballot. I have also been inspired by the campaign led by Russel Norman nearly two years go in naming and shaming ANZ for investing in companies whose involvement with rainforest destruction is legendary.
But my special thanks must go a man who was born on the denuded Hauraki Plains whom has give so much of his life to forest protection in the Pacific . Grant Rosoman is a champion of robust forestry certification and, thanks to Grant and Greenpeace, this issue has stayed on the agendas through years of government inaction and denial. Grant is the first to say that education is not enough. It has lifted the performance of companies such as the Warehouse and the Barbecue Factory. It has led them to recognise that a robust certification must meet the standards of the internationally rigorous Forest Stewardship Certification scheme known as FSC.
In Schedule 11 of this Bill FSC and others robust schemes would be listed so that Customs can be sure that any product entering the country meets their requirements.
These requirements are that a product is ecologically, economically, socially and culturally sustainable and not something made up in the offices of dodgy corporate raiders...
However if the timber outlets can start taking steps you have to ask why the Parliament of NZ cannot help them out and save the rainforest ? As someone with some vague political influence was once heard to say "Yes We Can".
Please support this Bill to the Select Committee.
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