25 February 2006

Sergio, Greenpeace campaigner, Italy

My name is Sergio Baffoni, and I have worked for Greenpeace Italy since 1992. In 200, I started to work on forests, and it is a challenge. Our country is the main exporter of furniture in the world, importing a lot of timber - including illegal timber. At the time, no other Italian organisation was working to protect the world’s ancient forests, and the people who live there, from environmental destruction and injustice.

We work to stop this import of illegal timber. For this reason, in the past years we organised investigations on the ground in African forests, to denounce the illegal activities done by Italian timber companies.

It is always sad to see wonderful forests ravaged for quick money, but I'm optimistic. Since we began, we have successfully raised public awareness of the problem and we moved some companies towards sourcing timber responsibly. We also formed a coalition with many Italian authors, asking them to publish their books on recycled paper. And they actually did it!

The Paradise Forests are far away from Italy, but the flooring coming from these beautiful forests are commonly sold in our stores. I want to show this link, and encourage people to think about it, when they buy timber products. People in consumer countries must be made aware about what's happening here. They should know the story of local communities, they must see the forests are being chopped down for cheap products.

They'll understand, and they'll surely change their habits.

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