Timber pledge plea

ARE other readers aware that some of the City of York council tax might be supporting an illegal and unsustainable timber trade which destroys the world’s most pristine forests?

If our council commits to choosing wood and paper from legal and sustainable sources, this can be avoided. The way our council sources its timber products could really help to protect forests, wildlife and local communities in places such as Indonesia and the Congo Basin.

Local authorities have huge purchasing power – they use up to 25 per cent of the timber consumed in the UK. It is therefore clear that councils like ours should make sure they’re buying responsibly sourced wood and paper.

I am calling on our council to join more than 65 other councils in the UK who have made a pledge with WWF UK’s sustainable timber campaign to improve their timber and paper purchasing.

Other readers can also help by visiting the website wwf.org.uk/timberpledge

Callum Roberts, WWF UK Ambassador and Professor of Marine Conservation, University of York.

Comments(12)

Ichabod76 says...
12:24pm Thu 25 Oct 12

Are you the same twerp who said that there are only 100 cod left in the North Sea ?

NickPheas says...
12:38pm Thu 25 Oct 12

Almost certainly not, The twerp that said there were only 100 cod in the North Sea was a Telegraph journalist completely misunderstanding a report.
It was quite thoroughly debunked on Radio 4's excellent programme 'More or Less', who concluded "Just 436,900,000 cod left in the North Sea" would have been a more accurate headline.
http://www.bbc.co.uk
/news/magazine-19755
695

NickPheas says...
1:19pm Thu 25 Oct 12

I wonder what happened to my previous comment? How odd that it's OK to insult your correspondants, but not to defend them.

NickPheas says...
1:19pm Thu 25 Oct 12

Oh. Now it reappears. Bloody computers...

Ichabod76 says...
2:33pm Thu 25 Oct 12

Thanks for the link

but unfortunately it was the same twerp

Quote from the Daily Telegraph article

"Callum Roberts, professor of marine biology at York University, told the Sunday Times that intense industrial fishing meant that few fish survived beyond the age of four, when they reach sexual maturity."

NickPheas says...
5:07pm Thu 25 Oct 12

Well it was the academic who issued the report that the idiot at the telegraph completely misread. Not convinced that being misread by a telegraph reporter makes you a twerp.
There are very few cod more that 12 years old in the North Sea. Since they're sexually mature well before that, so what?

Silver says...
8:26pm Thu 25 Oct 12

Ugh please let this council not do what Scarborough Council did and pay over the odds for ipads for councillors. Plus internet expenses

Ichabod76 says...
4:32pm Fri 26 Oct 12

NickPheas wrote:
Well it was the academic who issued the report that the idiot at the telegraph completely misread. Not convinced that being misread by a telegraph reporter makes you a twerp.
There are very few cod more that 12 years old in the North Sea. Since they're sexually mature well before that, so what?
But it was the academic (a professor of marine biology) that didn't know the difference between a North Sea Cod and a Baltic Cod

Ageing Hippy says...
6:27pm Fri 26 Oct 12

What a completely pointless letter! Wouldn't it have been prudent to actually find out whether CYC do or do not purchase from sustainable sources before putting pen to paper (fair trade paper I hope!)

capt spaulding says...
5:49am Sat 27 Oct 12

Ichabod76 wrote:
Are you the same twerp who said that there are only 100 cod left in the North Sea ?
95 now I caught 5 yesterday on a charter boat out of Whitby.

Magicman! says...
1:36am Sun 28 Oct 12

Also why actually quote the number of Cod in the sea when people on one side of the water don't have any restrictions on how much fishing they can do, unlike us? Good old EU, the evil overlords of nonsense.

--

BTW, getting wood from certified sources puts up the price... compare timber costs from Wickes or B&Q before you could track the plank of two by four back to it's original tree to what the costs are now and just having that certification stamp on the wood has put up the price by a notable chunk.... just like Cadbury's chocolate going Fairtrade notched up the price by about a third.

Friedrich Hayek says...
8:56am Sun 28 Oct 12

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a tree is legal or not.

There you are, swaying around on the edge of the dance floor in the semi-dark with a head full of ethanol and other exotic substances, and you see this cute little tree, dancing around with its friends.

And so you go over and one thing leads to another, and the next thing you know, some ecofag is telling you that what you did was wrong.

tl;dr - nobody cares.

click2find

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