A logger cuts tropical hardwood for an Indonesian timber company. (Photograph by Kate Davison/Greenpeace)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4215504.html?page=1
Source : Popular Mechanics
Source : Popular Mechanics
In a grainy undercover video (click here to watch), the smuggler stands surrounded by stacks and stacks of lumber, large bales of freshly milled planks held together with steel bands. His gold watch glints as he begins counting money, methodically placing each bill on a desk. Sitting nearby, his partner watches through Coke-bottle glasses. They both appear to be in a good mood, laughing and joking with their clients.
"This smuggling," the money counter says, "is better than drug smuggling."
After all, trafficking a rain forest wood such as ramin through Singapore can be just as profitable as running heroin, but it doesn't carry the mandatory punishment of death.
The unwitting star of the video, Frankie Chua, managed an import/export business. The men Chua regarded as potential clients were, in fact, undercover employees of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The nongovernmental organization, headquartered in London and Washington, D.C., had spent months tracking the export of "dirty" timber from Indonesia, and suspected that Chua was a central player in a burgeoning class of activity called forest crimes: the illegal harvesting, transporting, processing, buying or selling of timber.
This multibillion-dollar black market business occurs in more than 70 countries, and contributes to the annual destruction of more than 32 million wooded acres — an area nearly the size of New York state. "We are losing forests around the world at an alarming rate," says Sally Collins, associate chief of the U.S. Forest Service, which sometimes sends personnel to assist agencies combating timber theft internationally. Clearing the land of trees decimates wildlife and alters a region's climate system and water balance. The arrival of clandestine loggers in pristine areas also disrupts indigenous communities, erodes their source of food and income and sometimes leads to violent conflicts.
The EIA met with Singapore government officials after compiling a report of its 2003 operation, and pressed them to crack down on timber smugglers such as Chua. "We were pretty disappointed with their lack of action," says EIA forest campaigner David Groves. "They seem to take the view that because they don't have any forests, illegal logging isn't their problem." Frankie Chua has since disappeared.
Though precise numbers are hard to come by, forest advocates fear a large portion of the illicit timber moving through Singapore and other ports is destined for the United States. The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of wood, importing $24.5 billion in forest products annually — and demand is rising. To ensure that the flooring, furniture and lumber reaching stores is legitimate, consumers, conservation groups and retailers, such as Home Depot, have begun to band together.
But for black market barons, it is all big profits. In 2003, chain saw crews in Peru received less than 7 cents per cubic foot of mahogany — a wood that brought up to $52 per cubic foot on the international market last year. Traffickers go to almost any lengths to protect their lucrative trade. In Honduras, two local forest advocates were shot dead last December.
Latin America, West Central Africa and Southeast Asia are home to the majority of the world's tropical hardwood reserves: trees such as teak, mahogany, merbau and ramin. They are also home to the majority of illegal loggers. According to a commission sanctioned by the Peruvian government, an estimated 95 percent of logging in Peru is conducted illegally — and more than 90 percent of that wood ends up in the United States. Similarly, though the Indonesian government outlawed the export of unmilled wood in 2001, and of milled wood in 2004, an EIA analysis of customs data shows that the United States imported 6731 tons of Indonesian logs and sawn timber in 2005.
Powerful, politically connected logging syndicates take advantage of Indonesia's weak law enforcement system to clear-cut hardwood species. More than 73 percent of all logging in Indonesia's Papua province is illegal. In the case of merbau, black market logs are trafficked to Malaysia, where the EIA suspects that companies such as Kim Teck Lee (KTL) manufacture the merbau into flooring.
According to the EIA, KTL bosses admitted to undercover investigators in 2005 that 80 to 90 percent of the company's merbau arrives as Indonesian sawn timber (a claim KTL later denied). That same year, all of the merbau used by Junckers, the world's fourth largest flooring distributor, came from KTL, according to the EIA — most likely by way of Singapore. Junckers's Web site says the company is working toward purchasing timber exclusively through sustainable-forest growers. At the time of publication, however, it still advertises merbau products. Neither KTL nor Junckers responded to calls or e-mails from PM.
Unfortunately, more than 99 percent of imported wood products are not from species protected by CITES. "To make things worse, we are signing free trade agreements with countries with the worst illegal logging," says EIA's Groves. "These agreements are actually increasing the amount of illegal wood imported." The EIA analysis of customs data showed that during the first year of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement imports of Indonesian logs and sawn timber rose 62 percent.
In the end, consumers may hold the key to restricting the market for illegal wood. "One reason there is so much illegal logging is because consumers don't know how to find products that are legal," says Rainforest Alliance green building specialist Rick Hilton. Rainforest Alliance is one of a number of groups that track and certify legitimately logged lumber in order to provide consumers with a more informed choice. The group's SmartWood program is the leading certifier for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a nonprofit organization that runs the gold standard of sustainable-forestry certification systems.
"If you buy an FSC-certified piece of furniture, 2 x 4, or stair spindle, the wood it is made from has been traced back to the stump in the forest it came from, anywhere in the world," says Ned Daly, FSC's vice president of operations. FSC currently certifies more than 200 million acres of forest worldwide and 5400 manufacturers and distributors of wood products.
Two organizations that track and certify wood logged in North America are the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), founded by the American Forest & Paper Association, and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The 66-year-old American Tree Farm System, composed of private forest owners, is the oldest forestry certification in the United States. But only FSC is recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council, the coalition that certifies environmentally friendly buildings, because it had the most stringent standards when the council developed its criteria in 2000.
When land is cleared, decaying vegetation releases carbon dioxide directly into the atmosphere. More important, forests absorb 20 percent of the planet's carbon dioxide output; deforestation robs the Earth of a valuable mechanism for reducing this greenhouse gas. According to a 2007 OECD report, in recent years deforestation has been responsible for at least one-fifth of the world's annual carbon dioxide emissions — an amount greater than that produced by all forms of transportation.
As consumer awareness of these issues has grown, major retailers have begun to respond. Home Depot pulled merbau from its stores in December 2005, and the company reports that 80 percent of the wood it now carries meets various certification standards for sustainable forestry.
"We don't want consumers to be faced with choosing between ‘good' and ‘evil' wood," says Ron Jarvis, Home Depot vice president for environmental innovation. "We're using our purchase order power to make that choice before the product reaches our stores."
Many people, inspired by an interest in green building, have also switched to nonwood alternatives for home projects. These include decking and railings made from recycled plastic, such as Trimax Hemisphere (milk jugs), Boardwalk (vinyl) or Trex (grocery bags and reclaimed wood). Bamboo, a plant that's quick to regenerate, is likewise gaining in popularity for flooring and furniture.
Consumers also can turn to urban jungles for alternatives. California-based companies TerraMai and EcoTimber specialize in supplying reclaimed wood — often old-growth oak or redwood — from sources such as derelict buildings, barns, bridges and railroad ties. "Reclaimed wood is no more fragile than new wood," says EcoTimber's marketing director Brad van Unen. "Quite the opposite."
Wherever Frankie Chua is now, he may find his old business endangered. If passed, The Legal Timber Protection Act, introduced in Congress this March, will ban the import of timber taken illegally from its country of origin. "The bill closes a big loophole," says Ari Hershowitz, the director of the Latin American BioGems project of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "A massive, lucrative trade in contraband has been happening under the nose of customs, and this will really give the agency the tools to stop it."
The legislation is long overdue, agrees cosponsor Rep. Earl Blumenauer. "In the United States, consumers are quite sophisticated, and in many cases willing to pay a premium for a certified-sustainable wood product. Absolutely, people want to do things right."
"This smuggling," the money counter says, "is better than drug smuggling."
After all, trafficking a rain forest wood such as ramin through Singapore can be just as profitable as running heroin, but it doesn't carry the mandatory punishment of death.
The unwitting star of the video, Frankie Chua, managed an import/export business. The men Chua regarded as potential clients were, in fact, undercover employees of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The nongovernmental organization, headquartered in London and Washington, D.C., had spent months tracking the export of "dirty" timber from Indonesia, and suspected that Chua was a central player in a burgeoning class of activity called forest crimes: the illegal harvesting, transporting, processing, buying or selling of timber.
This multibillion-dollar black market business occurs in more than 70 countries, and contributes to the annual destruction of more than 32 million wooded acres — an area nearly the size of New York state. "We are losing forests around the world at an alarming rate," says Sally Collins, associate chief of the U.S. Forest Service, which sometimes sends personnel to assist agencies combating timber theft internationally. Clearing the land of trees decimates wildlife and alters a region's climate system and water balance. The arrival of clandestine loggers in pristine areas also disrupts indigenous communities, erodes their source of food and income and sometimes leads to violent conflicts.
The EIA met with Singapore government officials after compiling a report of its 2003 operation, and pressed them to crack down on timber smugglers such as Chua. "We were pretty disappointed with their lack of action," says EIA forest campaigner David Groves. "They seem to take the view that because they don't have any forests, illegal logging isn't their problem." Frankie Chua has since disappeared.
Though precise numbers are hard to come by, forest advocates fear a large portion of the illicit timber moving through Singapore and other ports is destined for the United States. The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of wood, importing $24.5 billion in forest products annually — and demand is rising. To ensure that the flooring, furniture and lumber reaching stores is legitimate, consumers, conservation groups and retailers, such as Home Depot, have begun to band together.
Global scale
Because illegally logged timber isn't burdened with taxes and duties, it undercuts the world market, depressing prices by up to 16 percent. That, says the 30-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), results in an annual loss to the global economy of $15 billion; the U.S. economy alone takes a $1 billion hit.But for black market barons, it is all big profits. In 2003, chain saw crews in Peru received less than 7 cents per cubic foot of mahogany — a wood that brought up to $52 per cubic foot on the international market last year. Traffickers go to almost any lengths to protect their lucrative trade. In Honduras, two local forest advocates were shot dead last December.
Latin America, West Central Africa and Southeast Asia are home to the majority of the world's tropical hardwood reserves: trees such as teak, mahogany, merbau and ramin. They are also home to the majority of illegal loggers. According to a commission sanctioned by the Peruvian government, an estimated 95 percent of logging in Peru is conducted illegally — and more than 90 percent of that wood ends up in the United States. Similarly, though the Indonesian government outlawed the export of unmilled wood in 2001, and of milled wood in 2004, an EIA analysis of customs data shows that the United States imported 6731 tons of Indonesian logs and sawn timber in 2005.
Powerful, politically connected logging syndicates take advantage of Indonesia's weak law enforcement system to clear-cut hardwood species. More than 73 percent of all logging in Indonesia's Papua province is illegal. In the case of merbau, black market logs are trafficked to Malaysia, where the EIA suspects that companies such as Kim Teck Lee (KTL) manufacture the merbau into flooring.
According to the EIA, KTL bosses admitted to undercover investigators in 2005 that 80 to 90 percent of the company's merbau arrives as Indonesian sawn timber (a claim KTL later denied). That same year, all of the merbau used by Junckers, the world's fourth largest flooring distributor, came from KTL, according to the EIA — most likely by way of Singapore. Junckers's Web site says the company is working toward purchasing timber exclusively through sustainable-forest growers. At the time of publication, however, it still advertises merbau products. Neither KTL nor Junckers responded to calls or e-mails from PM.
Domestic problem
Once illegally logged wood reaches U.S. territorial waters, there is really only one way to stop it from entering the country: The wood must be identified as a species listed in either Appendix I or II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) — meaning that trade must be closely controlled to protect the species from becoming threatened with extinction.Unfortunately, more than 99 percent of imported wood products are not from species protected by CITES. "To make things worse, we are signing free trade agreements with countries with the worst illegal logging," says EIA's Groves. "These agreements are actually increasing the amount of illegal wood imported." The EIA analysis of customs data showed that during the first year of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement imports of Indonesian logs and sawn timber rose 62 percent.
In the end, consumers may hold the key to restricting the market for illegal wood. "One reason there is so much illegal logging is because consumers don't know how to find products that are legal," says Rainforest Alliance green building specialist Rick Hilton. Rainforest Alliance is one of a number of groups that track and certify legitimately logged lumber in order to provide consumers with a more informed choice. The group's SmartWood program is the leading certifier for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a nonprofit organization that runs the gold standard of sustainable-forestry certification systems.
"If you buy an FSC-certified piece of furniture, 2 x 4, or stair spindle, the wood it is made from has been traced back to the stump in the forest it came from, anywhere in the world," says Ned Daly, FSC's vice president of operations. FSC currently certifies more than 200 million acres of forest worldwide and 5400 manufacturers and distributors of wood products.
Two organizations that track and certify wood logged in North America are the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), founded by the American Forest & Paper Association, and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The 66-year-old American Tree Farm System, composed of private forest owners, is the oldest forestry certification in the United States. But only FSC is recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council, the coalition that certifies environmentally friendly buildings, because it had the most stringent standards when the council developed its criteria in 2000.
Individual choice
Illegal logging causes a catastrophic loss of uniquely biodiverse habitats: Ramin forests, for example, are the last stronghold of the orangutan. The practice is also an often overlooked contributor to global warming.When land is cleared, decaying vegetation releases carbon dioxide directly into the atmosphere. More important, forests absorb 20 percent of the planet's carbon dioxide output; deforestation robs the Earth of a valuable mechanism for reducing this greenhouse gas. According to a 2007 OECD report, in recent years deforestation has been responsible for at least one-fifth of the world's annual carbon dioxide emissions — an amount greater than that produced by all forms of transportation.
As consumer awareness of these issues has grown, major retailers have begun to respond. Home Depot pulled merbau from its stores in December 2005, and the company reports that 80 percent of the wood it now carries meets various certification standards for sustainable forestry.
"We don't want consumers to be faced with choosing between ‘good' and ‘evil' wood," says Ron Jarvis, Home Depot vice president for environmental innovation. "We're using our purchase order power to make that choice before the product reaches our stores."
Many people, inspired by an interest in green building, have also switched to nonwood alternatives for home projects. These include decking and railings made from recycled plastic, such as Trimax Hemisphere (milk jugs), Boardwalk (vinyl) or Trex (grocery bags and reclaimed wood). Bamboo, a plant that's quick to regenerate, is likewise gaining in popularity for flooring and furniture.
Consumers also can turn to urban jungles for alternatives. California-based companies TerraMai and EcoTimber specialize in supplying reclaimed wood — often old-growth oak or redwood — from sources such as derelict buildings, barns, bridges and railroad ties. "Reclaimed wood is no more fragile than new wood," says EcoTimber's marketing director Brad van Unen. "Quite the opposite."
Wherever Frankie Chua is now, he may find his old business endangered. If passed, The Legal Timber Protection Act, introduced in Congress this March, will ban the import of timber taken illegally from its country of origin. "The bill closes a big loophole," says Ari Hershowitz, the director of the Latin American BioGems project of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "A massive, lucrative trade in contraband has been happening under the nose of customs, and this will really give the agency the tools to stop it."
The legislation is long overdue, agrees cosponsor Rep. Earl Blumenauer. "In the United States, consumers are quite sophisticated, and in many cases willing to pay a premium for a certified-sustainable wood product. Absolutely, people want to do things right."
1 comment:
Great post, very informative, hopefully it will being some of those lurkers out into the open.
Merbau Timber
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