U.S. Major Importer of Illegal Asian Timber, Study Says

Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News 13 May 08;

Vietnam has become a hub for processing Asia's illegally logged timber, much of which is sold in the United States as outdoor furniture, conservationists say.

In a report released in March, the U.K.-based nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and its Indonesian partner Telapak warned that the illegal timber trade is threatening some of the last intact forests in Southeast Asia, especially in Laos.

"Despite wide awareness of the problem of illegal logging and a series of political commitments to tackle the issue, demand for cut-price wood products is still fuelling the illegal destruction of some of the worlds most significant remaining tropical forests," said Julian Newman, head of the EIA's forest campaign program.

It is currently legal in the United States to import illegally sourced wood products. But legislation now under consideration in the U.S. Congress would ban imports of wood products derived from illegally harvested timber.

Endangered Species at Greater Risk

EIA estimates that the illegal logging business, which the agency says is orchestrated by cross-border criminal syndicates working with corrupt officials, costs developing countries some 10 billion to 15 billion U.S. dollars a year.

A rise in timber prices has prompted some wood-producing countries, such as Indonesia, to clamp down on illegal logging.

Other countries, such as China and Vietnam, have taken measures to sharply reduce all logging of their own forests, while importing timber from neighboring countries for their growing timber-processing industries.

Around 60 percent of the trade in tropical timber moves between the countries of southern and eastern Asia, according to EIA.

"One of the biggest shifts in the timber industry in Asia over the last decade or so has been the emergence of a huge wood-processing industry in China and Vietnam," said Newman.

The Mekong region—which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and China—has some of the most valuable and vulnerable tree species sought by the international timber trade, including rosewood, keruing, teak, and yellow balau.

Mekong forests are also home to a range of endangered animals, including the clouded leopard, tiger, and Malayan sun bear.

Many of the remaining forests in the region have been so heavily logged that they are now of critically low quality. In Laos, for example, only around 10 percent of forests remain commercially viable, according to the report.

Undercover Investigations

In Vietnam logging is restricted to 5.3 million cubic feet (150,000 cubic meters) from forests grown for timber production.

To satisfy its demand for raw products, Vietnam is exploiting the forests of neighboring Laos despite Laotian laws, which ban the export of logs and cut timber, the EIA report claims.

In the Vietnamese port of Vinh, undercover investigators found piles of huge logs from Laos awaiting sale.

At one border crossing 45 trucks carrying logs were seen lining up on the Laos side waiting to cross into Vietnam.

The agencies estimate that at least 17.7 million cubic feet (500,000 cubic meters) of logs move illegally from Laos to Vietnam every year.

"This trade is organized by informal networks involving timber brokers and government and military officials on both sides of the border," Newman said.

"The losers are the rural communities [in Laos] who traditionally rely on forests for their livelihood."

According to the Laotian government, forest cover in the country has declined from 70 percent in the 1970s to 40 percent today.

Large volumes of timber from Laos also go to China's burgeoning wood-processing industry, researchers say.

Jeff Hayward is the verification manager of the SmartWood Program for the Rainforest Alliance in Washington, D.C.

"The EIA study illustrates the ways and means for illicit timber to end up in the workshops of Vietnam, resulting in consumers [in Europe and the United States] unwittingly buying furniture that comes at the cost of forests in Laos and Cambodia," he said.

New Legislation

Vietnam's furniture exports reached U.S. $2.4 billion in 2007, a ten-fold increase since 2000.

The United States is by far the largest market for Vietnamese wooden furniture, accounting for almost 40 percent of the exports.

"Illegal logging and trade are rife, but most businesses don't ask hard questions about the source of the wood they buy, because they simply don't have to do so," said Andrea Johnson, the forest campaigns coordinator for EIA in Washington, D.C.

"Until consumer markets like the U.S. change their no-questions-asked policy, irreplaceable forests from Indonesia to Vietnam to Honduras to the Congo are going to continue to end up as dining room tables and porch swings."

The U.S. legislation being considered prohibits the import or trade of illegally sourced timber and wood products.

The bill has broad political support and is backed by virtually all major environmental organizations and the U.S. timber industry.

Illegal logging costs U.S. companies as much as a billion U.S. dollars a year in lost exports and reduces prices for timber products, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.

"This law will send a major signal to the global timber sector that the world's largest consumer market is closing its doors to illegal wood," Johnson said.

"Companies who source on the up-and-up and conduct strong due diligence will now be rewarded with market share rather than undercut by cheaper illegal products."