While China has improved management of its forestry sector, expanding forest plantation cover and banning harvesting of natural
forests, China's recent growth as wood-products exporter is built on
timber imports — much of which are illegal — argues a researcher from
the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in a letter to Science.
Noting that Chinese imports quadrupled over the past decade — from an
estimated 12.5 to 45 million cubic meters — Dr. William F. Laurance
says much of the growth in China's timber supplies has come in
unprocessed logs from developing countries, which offer relatively
economic benefits to timber-exporting nations and are often linked to
illegal trade.
"Most logs imported into China are effectively stolen, with no
payment of government royalties to exporting nations or environmental
control over harvest operations. At least 80% of Chinese timber imports
from Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea,
Gabon, Indonesia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands
are illegal, according to recent estimates, with somewhat lower values
(50 to 60%) for Malaysia and Russia," writes Laurance. "Unprocessed
logs are easy to acquire and smuggle, and corruption in the log trade
is far more prevalent than that for processed forest products."
Laurance says the illegal timber trade is driving forest degradation
and deforestation in the tropics by providing impetus for road building
which "increases access to forests for slash-and-burn farmers, hunters,
and land speculators that in turn destroy or severely degrade forests
and their wildlife."
Laurance argues that developed countries are playing a key
role in the destruction: it is their demand for cheap wood products
that is fueling China's wood products industry. As such, says Laurance,
efforts to rein in the illegal timber trade will have to target
consumer preferences in wealthy nations.
"Chinese wood products corporations will have little incentive
to alter their predatory behavior so long as consumers in wealthy
nations blithely continue buying their products," he concludes.
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