Rainforests

Lord St John of Bletso Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is right about Congo. However, as with the previous question, it is about all partner countries being able to respond with severe penalties when they see illegal timber coming through their borders. Of course, the important thing is that these are conversations that continue. They are not had at one conference—it is a continuous conversation at many conferences, and it will arise again at the Durban conference in December.

[Lord St John of Bletso]

My Lords, can the noble Baroness give any indication as to whether our Government will be following the moves by Switzerland and Germany to investigate money-laundering of the proceeds of timber corruption by the chief minister of Sarawak in Malaysia? What other measures are being taken to identify and sanction those large international logging companies which do not ensure best practice in sustainable logging?

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Lord talks about a specific case, which I will not refer to. In a more general response, I would like to say to noble Lords that we are ensuring that we respond proactively to the difficulties we are all facing with this issue. The multinational companies that deal in illegal logging will find that the penalties for this will be severe. That is the agreement we are trying to get from all our partner countries so that it is not just a small group of countries that are willing to apply severe penalties, but that the penalties will be severe at every border that illegal timber comes through. It is about greater partnership but it is also about recognising that we are only a small cog when it comes to dealing with these issues and it is really for the whole world to respond collectively.