Wagons brimming with logs accumulate in the Siberian railway station of Dalnerechensk, more than 8,000km (4,971 miles) east of Moscow. They are waiting to cross the nearby Chinese border.
Once in China, they will be processed and used for construction or turned into garden furniture and other products to be sold in European and US shops.
More than a third of all Russian logs are smuggled by mafias, a practice that doubled between 2005 and 2007, according to official figures... [Continue]
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Poor record keeping and illegal logging is raising concerns of over-exploitation of Merbau, finds a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.
Merbau, a tropical hardwood, is popular in Europe and elsewhere as a flooring material. Roughly 30,000 cubic metres of Merbau timber entered the EU in 2005, half of it direct from Indonesia, the remainder from Malaysia and, after processing, from China... [Continue]
Beijing, China - China and the US today agreed to work together in combating illegal logging and the associated wood trade to promote sustainable forest management in a move Washington described as 'ground breaking'.
In a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed after their third strategic economic dialogue, the two countries agreed to share information on shipments of timber, step up law enforcement against illegal activity and encourage private-sector partnerships... [Continue]
USA - The Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit group based in Washington D.C., said Wednesday that it found Chinese makers of Wal-Mart's wood products are using timber from a Russian region rife with illegal logging of protested forests.
Is there a toy tiger in your baby's crib? If that crib came from Wal-Mart, an environmental group says the wood it's made from could be endangering real Siberian tigers... [Continue]
Washington, USA - The United States and China sealed their first deal to stop illegal logging in a bid to ease deforestation, fight climate change and preserve wildlife, the US State Department said Wednesday.
The US and Chinese governments reached a memorandum of understanding on illegal logging and associated trade at a meeting this week of the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, it said in a statement... [Continue]
Nongdao, China In eight weeks the quiet narrow road that hugs Nongdao's sugarcane fields on the way to the ancient jungles of Myanmar will be overrun with Chinese trucks loaded down with illegal timber.
The large wheezing diesels will dump their logs in this southwestern border sawmill town where it will be processed, then shipped to Chinese furniture makers on the seaboard before being exported for Western consumption... [Continue]
At the EU-China Conference on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance held last week, China and the European Union met other major timber producers worldwide to discuss joint efforts to combat illegal logging and promote sustainable forestry.
At the EU-China summit in 2005, leaders of the two sides "pledged to work together to tackle the problem of illegal logging in the Asian region"... [Continue]
