IN A bid to save the last vestiges of Scandinavia's ancient forests, some of Britain's largest paper and timber consumers agreed in December last to exert pressure on Scandinavian timber suppliers. Environmental activists reached a consensus with several companies, including Sainsbury's and the BBC Magazines chain, on adoption of methods to avoid buying timber obtained from these forests. These forests bar-hour some of the oldest trees in the world and are habitats of rare insect and fungus species.

The British companies have asked their Scandinavian suppliers for exact information about the regions their supply comes from, so that they can check against a list of old-growth areas provided by environmentalists in each of the three Nordic countries. "if we find that any of our supplies are coming from somewhere mentioned on the list, we will stop buying it," says George White from Sainsmary's.

Environmentalists have long been concerned about largescale logging in Scandivanian forests, which were widely seen as one of the 'greenest' forest tracts in the world. They are also one of the most ecologically rich forests.

These forests shelter a wide variety of tree species of all ages (from ancient to new species) and house a large proportion of dead and decaying timber. Besides, the forests are home to a great variety of insects and fungi, some of which are on the endangered species list. For example, in Norway itself, nearly 898 forest species, about hall of the country's total, have been placed on the endangered species list due to loss of habitat.

The Taiga Rescue Network - an umbrella group of green organisations of Scandinavia - is coordinating the campaign to persuade companies to boycott timber from these old-growth areas, with assistance from the UK-based Women's Environmental Network and Reforest the Earth. The UK And western 75 per cent of Europe import more than Scandinavian timber. The campaigners have alleged that throughout Scavdinavian, there remains only between two to five per cent of old-growth forests. They have brought to notice some key old-growth areas where recently rampant logging has been carried out. Some of these places are Kuusamo in Kainuu near the Finland-Russia border, where some of the trees are more than 600 years old; and Valtimo in Finnish Karelia, one of the last homegrounds of the rare flying squirrel.

Scandinavia is also exporting timber after importing them from old-growth forests in Russia. Major Finnish paper companies have imported timber from all these forests. As a detection measure, members of the Finnish Nature League stencilled the phrase 'old growth timber' on the ends of newly cut logs in Kurisamo. But after six months, the foresters sliced off the marked ends and took away the logs, said Kaisa Raitio, a league member.

Environmentalists, ironically, are not in favour of boycotting Scandinavian timber. They simply want the companies to certify that the timber is coming from sustainably managed forests- Campaigners of Reforest the Earth have decided to wait and watch for six months, and if even then the situation does not improve, they are determined to hurl their missiles at British paper and timber buyers and retailers.