Most of the timber, wood and paper used in countries such as Britain comes from Canada, Russia, the US and Scandinavia. However, the UK, along with other 'northern' countries continues to import timber cut from tropical rainforests.

Rainforest timbers such as mahogany, sapele, teak, meranti, greenheart and ramin are used for a variety of purposes, ranging from furniture manufacture, window sills, sea defences, doorframes, flooring, garden furniture to toys, kitchen utensils and picture frames.

Most commercial felling of timber from rainforests is done on a 'selective' basis; this means that only the preferred trees are taken, and others are left behind. However, even this limited extraction can be very damaging to the rainforest, as often much forest has to be destroyed for roads to access the desired trees. These roads may subsequently be used by people wishing to clear the forest for farmland.

The use of heavy machinery, and careless felling of trees, also often results in the fragile rainforest ecology being so badly damaged that the original structure and species composition of the forest cannot be re-established. This means that the forest is not exploited 'sustainably'. Some of the most popular species of rainforest timber have become threatened with extinction.

Timber companies often come into conflict with indigenous people and other local communities living in the forest. Because much tropical logging is 'unsustainable', logging companies have to continue moving into unexploited areas - sometimes these are areas that have been protected by tribal peoples. The allocation of permission to log areas of rainforests has often been done by governments without recognising the rights of people already living in, and depending on, the forest.

In many of the main countries producing and exporting rainforest timber - including Brazil, Cameroon and Indonesia - much of the cutting is done illegally. Timber companies often fell more timber than is allowed, or move illegally into conservation areas or forests set aside for indigenous people.

Forest 'certification' is aimed at improving these problems. Logging companies are assessed by independent 'auditors' to ensure that they are protecting the environment, felling timber sustainably, and respecting the rights of people living in the forest. Companies which pass these tests are certified, and their timber labelled such that the public can buy wood which is from acceptable sources.

However, even the best of these certifcation systems - the Forest Stewardship Council - has so far been unable to reliably detect serious problems such as illegal logging and abuse of the rights of people living in the forest of certified logging companies.

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