Protesters set up timber blockade

Greenpeace posed an obstacle for Defra staff

Environment protesters have barricaded government offices with a ton of illegally logged timber.

Greenpeace is pressing the government to ban imports of wood illegally felled in rainforests.

Campaigners blocked the front entrance to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in Westminster.

Environment Minister Elliott Morley said trade in illegal timber was "wholly unacceptable" and that the UK was "pressing for action" to stop it.

Obstacle course

Some staff at the environment department offices tried to clamber over the timber blockade to get into work, but were advised to use the building's rear entrance.

Greenpeace forests campaigner Nathan Argent, standing padlocked to the block of wood, said the protest would continue throughout Wednesday.

He said the timber in the blockade was illegally logged in Papua New Guinea and made into plywood in China before being imported to the UK.

"We were easily able to pick this illegal timber off the shelf of a builders' merchant despite the fact that it's been illegally logged," said Mr Argent.

European ministers were due next week to discuss the possibility of a voluntary code to prevent imports of illegally logged wood, he said.

But he warned: "The proposals are too weak and they will not stop this problem."

Greenpeace has been campaigning on the issue for the last eight years, warning of the dangers to the world's last remaining rainforests.

It says ministers must live up to their rhetoric on the issue.

Mr Morley said: "The UK is the first major government that has taken firm steps to ensure central government departments buy timber that is verifiably legal.

"This is a success and has been the single most important driver of change of behaviour in the UK private sector and the rapid expansion of the market for certified timber."