China Major Conduit For Illegal Wood - Reuters (No!)

[hatrack]

JAKARTA - China is a major conduit and the United States, Japan and European Union key markets for furniture and wood products from countries where illegal logging is common and human rights records are poor, a new report says. The report issued on Friday, "China and the Global Market for Forest Products", is based on five years of research by Forest Trends, the Centre for International Forestry Research, the Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy, and other groups.

It found about 70 percent of all timber imported into China, now the largest consumer of wood from tropical developing countries, is converted into furniture, plywood and other processed products for export.

China has captured about a third of global furniture trade over the past eight years, and the booming business, coupled with China's domestic demand for paper and wood products, is devastating forests and forest communities elsewhere, the report says.

EDIT

In Indonesia alone 80 percent of the timber harvest is estimated to be illegal, with poor forest management and murky laws adding to wood industry problems in a country where deforestation threatens the environment of indigenous tribes and many rare species. At present cutting rates, natural forests in Indonesia will be logged out in 10 years, Papua New Guinea in 13 to 16 years, and the "situation in Myanmar is no better, and may be even worse", the report says.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35781/story.htm

[DainBramaged]

1. Wonder what happens when the oxygen goes away

I guess the Chinese government won't care very much.

[msongs]

2. interesting article about all the throwaway chopsticks in china

in the LA Times recently. the goverment is taxing them , trying to get people to switch to metal or plastic. Imagine a pile of 3 billion disposable chopsticks (one pair for each person) times more than one meal a day.

that's a LOT of trees!

Msongs
www.msongs.com/impeachbush.htm

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Now we know why only 5% of the shipments in our ports gets inspected.

Here we're looking for WMDs hiding in the wood crates, and it's the wood crates that are the contraband.