Alister Doyle PlanetArk 16 Jul 10;
Illegal logging has fallen by 22 percent worldwide in the past decade but remains a huge problem from Brazil to Indonesia, a study showed on Thursday.
It also said that China was the main importer and processor of illegal timber, often sold to companies in countries including the United States, Japan and Britain as plywood or furniture worth billions of dollars a year.
"Total global production of illegal timber has fallen by 22 percent since 2002," according to the report by the British Chatham House think tank focused on Brazil, Indonesia, Cameroon, Ghana and Malaysia.
It said that 17 million hectares (42 million acres) of forests -- the size of Uruguay or Florida -- had been preserved by the slowdown. Trees also help to slow climate change by storing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
"Illegal logging remains a major problem," Sam Lawson , a co-author of the report, told Reuters.
"The report shows that stopping illegal logging ... is reasonably cost efficient in terms of the climate and development." Better enforcement of logging permits helps to raise tax receipts as well as protect forests.
The report said that illegal logging had "dropped by 50 per cent in Cameroon, by between 50 and 75 per cent in the Brazilian Amazon, and by 75 per cent in Indonesia in the last decade."
Trends in Ghana and Malaysia were unclear. Together the five account for 40 percent of world illegal production in 2002 -- the study assumed that illegal felling rates were unchanged in other nations from Russia to Papua New Guinea.
ROUND THE WORLD
But the 154-page report estimated that more than 100 million cubic meters of illegal timber were still chopped down annually worldwide. "If laid end to end the illegal logs would encircle the globe more than 10 times over," it said.
Illegal timber still accounted for between 35 and 72 percent of logging in the Brazilian Amazon, 22-35 percent in Cameroon, 59-65 percent in Ghana, 40-61 percent in Indonesia and 14-25 percent in Malaysia.
In 2008, five importers studied -- the United States, Japan, Britain, France and the Netherlands -- bought 17 million cubic meters of illegal timber and wood products worth around $8.4 billion, much of it from China.
"China is the world's top importer and exporter of illegal wood," it said, estimating annual Chinese imports of 20 million cubic meters.
In the United States, the 2008 Lacey Act makes it illegal to handle illegally harvested timber and the European parliament approved similar legislation on July 7 this year. Lawson said other nations, including China, should tighten laws.
The report said that cracking down on illegal logging was often far cheaper than incentives to preserve forests as stores of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Plants soak up carbon as they grow and release it when they burn or rot.
Illegal logging of tropical forests in decline: study
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 15 Jul 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Illegal logging of tropical woodland has fallen sharply, providing welcome news in the fight against climate change and a lifeline for a billion poor people who depend on forests for survival, a report released Thursday said.
Since 2000, international efforts to stem the illicit felling of trees has spared some 17 million hectares (42 million acres) in three countries alone, amounting to a preserved area larger than England and Wales, the London think tank Chatham House said.
In Brazil, which contains more than a quarter of the planet's tropical cover, outlaw logging over the last decade dropped by between 50 and 75 percent, mainly due to stricter laws and tougher enforcement.
The rate of decline in Indonesia was 75 percent, and in Cameroon pirate logging was cut in half.
But in two other countries covered by the study, the level remained roughly unchanged over the same period.
In Ghana, the problem continues to be endemic, accounting for around two-thirds of overall timber production. And in Malaysia, illegal harvesting still represents 14 to 25 percent of total output, the lowest of the five nations under review.
Overall, illegal logging remains a serious challenge. In 2009, a total of 100 million cubic metres were illegally harvested in these countries alone.
The stakes are high, said lead author Sam Lawson.
"Up to a billion of the world's poorest people are dependent on forests, and reductions in illegal logging are helping to protect their livelihoods," he said.
The findings also highlight the critical role of forests as a bulkhead against global warming: deviation from 'business as usual' has kept at least 1.2 billion tonnes of heat-trapping CO2 from leaking in the atmosphere, he said.
Further efforts on forest preservation are being pursued under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Loss of forestry accounts for between 12 and 20 percent of annual greenhouse-gas emissions.
But illegal logging remains a relatively small part of the problem -- conversion of forest land to crops, cattle ranching and urban construction are bigger factors.
Globally, about 130,000 square kilometres (50,000 square miles) of mainly tropical forests were lost every year over the last decade, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The Chatham House study estimates that five consumer nations -- the United States, Japan, Britain, France and the Netherlands -- together purchased 17 million cubic metres of illegal timber in 2008 worth about 8.4 billion dollars (6.7 billion euros).
Most of the wood entered these countries in the form of furniture and plywood, mainly from China, which has become the largest importer, processor and exporter of illegal timber in the world, according to the study.
Recent legislation in Washington and Brussels may help to curb traffic in illicit tropic woods even further.
In 2008, the United States became the first country to prohibit all trade in plants and plant products -- furniture, paper, lumber -- sourced illegally. The Lacey Act requires importers to indicate exact origin of wood products, and provides for stiff penalties.
The European Parliament this month approved similar legislation, widely hailed by environmental groups as a critical step in the protection of tropical forests.
In parallel, a group of wealthy nations led by France and Norway have pledged 3.5 billion dollars from 2010 to 2012 to provide financial incentives for poor tropical countries to preserve their forests rather than chop them down for timber or to make way for farms.
Illegal Logging Down, New Report Reveals
Andrea Mustain livescience.com 15 Jul 10;
The unauthorized destruction of the planet's tropical forests has dropped by more than 22 percent in the last decade, boosting hopes that international efforts to fight illegal logging are succeeding. That's according to a new report by an independent London-based think tank.
Researchers examined five major producers of contraband timber: Ghana, Malaysia, Cameroon, Brazil and Indonesia. Although unauthorized logging is down in all five nations, the latter three countries exhibited particularly steep declines, between 50 and 75 percent.
Sam Lawson, lead author of the report, said the results from deforested Indonesia were especially encouraging.
"We looked at five national parks where illegal logging had been incredibly rampant, and it had been almost completely halted," Lawson said.
However, this precipitous drop in a few places doesn't mean the contraband timber trade is disappearing. In 2009 alone, the five nations studied harvested more than 3.5 billion cubic feet of forbidden lumber.
"If laid end to end, the illegal logs would encircle the globe more than 10 times over," said Larry MacFaul, co-author of the report.
An awful lot of those logs are ending up in China, where they are "processed" and turned into furniture and plywood. And although China is the world's top importer and exporter of banned wood, Lawson said much of the blame for the continuing black-market timber trade lies with the "consumer" countries that buy China's ill-gotten goods.
In 2008, the study says, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands spent a combined $8.4 billion U.S. on illegal wood products.
The United States is making efforts to keep contraband timber out of the country. In 2008, a federal law targeting illicit logging made it illegal to import or sell wood of unknown provenance. However, it's difficult to track illegal wood's murky origins once it's a pressboard bookshelf in a store.
"Supply chains can be quite complicated," Lawson said. And although some innovative, scientific techniques for tagging and tracking timber on its journey from forest to factory are in development, Lawson said international cooperation in both the public and private sectors offers the best weapon against illegal deforestation.
"Our study shows that consumer interest and pressure combined with action by producer countries can yield very positive results," Lawson said.
