Environment
Greenpeace accuses Ikea of destroying forests in Romania
The environmental organization Greenpeace accuses Ikea of being involved in deforestation in Romania. photo
© -/Greenpeace CEE – Romania/dpa
According to Greenpeace research, the wood for popular Ikea furniture comes from protected virgin forests in the Carpathians. The Swedish furniture store wants to investigate the allegations.
The environmental organization Greenpeace accuses Ikea proposes to be involved in the deforestation of virgin forests in Romania for furniture production. According to Greenpeace research, the Swedish company uses wood from old forests, including virgin forests in the Carpathians, to make furniture. Several external manufacturers working for Ikea are said to use wood from the valuable forests for furnishings such as certain chairs and baby beds.
According to Greenpeace, 30 products from these suppliers were found in furniture stores in 13 countries, including Germany. “Ikea must not destroy Europe’s last virgin forests for furniture,” said Greenpeace forest expert Gesche Jürgens.
For the research, Greenpeace teams said they tracked the path of the wood from the forests of Romania to the shelves of Ikea stores using logging permits, satellite images and wood depots. Greenpeace activists wanted to hand over the research results to the Ikea administration in Hofheim am Taunus on Wednesday.
Ikea said it was taking the allegations very seriously. “Illegal wood and irresponsible forestry practices have no place in the Ikea value chain,” the company said when asked. “We immediately investigate any indication of this. If we discover irregularities, we take immediate action, including terminating business relationships.”
Greenpeace: Ikea must live up to its own responsibility
The Carpathians are home to significant populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois, lynxes and many plants worth protecting, according to Greenpeace. Only about 2.4 percent of Romania’s Carpathian forests are currently protected from deforestation, it said. Romania has lost an estimated half of its virgin forests to logging in the past 20 years. The European biodiversity strategy aims to protect old, near-natural forests and virgin forests in particular.
According to Greenpeace, it is the EU’s responsibility to ban deforestation in old-growth forests. But companies also have a responsibility. “Ikea claims to be sustainable, but is currently benefiting immensely from the weak nature conservation in the Carpathians,” said Jürgens. Ikea must live up to its sustainability promises.