Protest halts work on museum
Wednesday 08 September 2004
Refurbishment work at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery was stopped by campaigners from Greenpeace this week, who were protesting over alleged use of rainforest timber. Almost 100 activists from the NGO’s ‘Forest Crime Unit’ descended on the museum and removed packs of the timber, which was set to be used as flooring, leaving FSC-certified wood as a replacement. Protesters also hung banners from the roof of the building.Work on the gallery, which is the UK’s most popular museum outside of London, is being funded by the National Lottery. The timber in question – Merbau - comes from South East Asian rainforests, which have been ravaged by deforestation for overseas markets.
"The National Lottery should be using people's money to support good causes, not supporting the destruction of the world's last rainforests,” said Belinda Fletcher, Greenpeace forests campaigner. "If we don't want to confine the world's rainforests to history it's essential that all National Lottery funded projects in the UK insist on the use of FSC timber, like the timber that Greenpeace has brought here today," she added.