Unfortunately the timber ban will hit the UK leisure marine industry because it will remove Burmese teak from circulation. While there are teak substitutes available, it’s unlikely high-end boatbuilders could take the risk of not using top quality teak for decks and other woodwork.

As Neil Wason of Marine Hardwoods says: ‘There is simply no substitute for Burmese Teak and that has been proven by a 150 year precedent.’

On the other hand, companies that buy Burmese teak are being highlighted by the Burma Campaign UK, which is fighting for human rights and democracy in Burma. And those companies find themselves put onto a 'Dirty List'.

On October 2, teak products manufacturer D A Watts & Sons posted a notice on the Burma Campaign website to say it had stopped selling Burma teak. The Watts announcement followed similar announcements from Timbmet and K J Howells & Son that they will also no longer purchase teak from Burma.

Watts has now been removed from the Burma Campaign’s Dirty List and Timbmet claims to have found alternative sources of teak of equal quality.

The Burma Campaign says all companies featured on its Dirty List directly or indirectly fund the military junta in Burma and that timber exports are a major source of revenue for the regime.

The ministers’ statement concluded the recent EU moves: ‘do not harm the general population but...target those responsible for the violent crackdown and the overall political stalemate in Myanmar.’

While it’s easy to jump on the democracy bandwagon, the other side of the argument could see a loss of boat sales and a loss of employment in the industry as boat buyers choose to buy elsewhere to get ‘proper’ teak woodwork on their very expensive purchases. If you’re spending a few hundred thousand (and more [maybe loads more]) on a boat, do you want it equipped with a substitute?

‘When this type of legislation was passed in the USA the marine industry lobbied successfully to allow material to be refinished in a third country,’ says Wason, ‘and it’s my belief that unless there is a very fast reaction from our industry, we’ll shortly see European yachts looking somewhat unfinished at the world’s boat shows.’

Wason urges boatbuilders to support the move to get the teak ban quashed, pointing to some iniquitous exclusions to the proposed sanctions.

‘Although timber is about to be banned there has been an exemption made for gas and oil, which means primarily Total oil, which generates huge revenues from its investment in Burma totalling many billions of dollars,’ he told BB. ‘By my reckoning, the UK absorbs far less than £2m worth of teak a year and this is essential to producing the world class yachts of which we are justifiably proud.’

The next meeting of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) committee on this subject will be this Thursday, October 25 and Wason recommends all interested parties – especially British Marine Federation (BMF) members – should take action before the EU does and teak is no longer an option on our boats.

Wason urges interested parties to lobby Jill Morris, the 1st secretary at the FCO who is dealing with this particular thorny problem. She can be reached by telephone at +32 (0)2825587 and can also be emailed at Jill.Morris@fco.gov.uk

I wonder how much Total has allocated this year alone to lobbying the EC to protect its interests in Burma, Wason wonders?