WWF-Russia recommends companies to not source nor use wood obtained from salvage logging, and to take additional measures to verify the legality of sanitary wood felling, such as increasing company field audits, until the risk of illegal wood from salvage logging entering supply chains has been minimised drastically.

The UK government has proposed to introduce a new law to prohibit large business operating in the UK from using products that are from illegally deforested land as per local laws. Businesses that fail to carry out due diligence on their supply chains and make that information public would face fines. This proposed legislation will be on consultation for six weeks. Critics say that the proposal is flawed partly because the local laws on forest protections might be absent or have loopholes.

This report by independent environmental charity Earthsight finds illegal logging in FSC-certified supply chains in Ukraine. Focussed on the Carpathian forests, it found around 100 sites are being felled illegally each spring, when silence periods should protect several endangered animal species including brown bears, wolves and Eurasian lynx. While regulations require Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) before sanitary felling is conducted, no EIAs were found to have been carried out. Evidence sited by Earthsight includes the Ukrainian State Environmental Inspectorate (SEI), local environmental organisations, and research commissioned by WWF Germany.

Earthsight claims this illegal logging has not been picked up in FSC audits because of systematic issues with FSC that go beyond Ukraine: conflicts of interest as auditing bodies are paid by the logging companies they certify; inadequate oversight by Assurance Services International (ASI) which should be holding the auditing bodies to account but is argued to have failed to do so. The report documents a wide array of cases where FSC-certified firms have been accused of illegal logging, clearance of High Conservation Value (HCV) forests, and human rights abuses from all over the world – including in places such as Brazil, China, Congo, Indonesia, Peru, Romania, Russia, Ukraine. Earthsight highlights that FSC has only investigated 13 companies in its 27-year history – 0.02% of the more than 44,000 it has certified.

In response, FSC states it is fully aware of the issues in Ukraine, and insists that whenever illicit acts are identified or reported they are investigated. IKEA says it has started its own investigations, commissioned audits from a 3rd-party independent audit company, asked questions to ASI, and pledges that if any illegal wood is indicated in its product it will take immediate action.

Earthsight’s report focuses on IKEA because, as the biggest buyer of wood in the world, it has the most influence to drive positive change. However, the issues found by Earthsight apply to the publishing industry as much as they do to IKEA. Therefore, the Book Chain Project will further look into Earthsight’s findings and update you as soon as we decide what further action to take.

The UK is to spearhead a major global crackdown on illegal timber and deforestation, with plans to form a coalition of developing countries against the trade as part of its hosting of crunch UN climate talks this year. All countries are expected to come forward with tougher plans to reduce global emissions as part of COP 26, and experts have said this will only happen if the UK takes the lead in forming a coalition of small and big developing countries, including forested African nations and Indonesia, as well as major economies such as the US, China, India and the EU. Offering assistance to developing countries, in the form of finance and technical expertise, will be vital to that effort.

This speech by Brian Schatz, Senator from Hawaii (D) was part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 21—24 January 2020. Seeing that half of tropical deforestation is illegal, illegal and unsustainable timber and goods are flooding global markets. Voluntary commitments cannot achieve zero-deforestation without regulation. Regulation is one of the key drivers of sustainable forestry. This year, Schatz will introduce legislation that will make it illegal for companies to import the products of illegal deforestation.

China, the world’s largest timber importer, issued a new draft of its first Forest Law update in 20 years that adds a prohibition on buying illegally sourced timber. It will be effective on 01 July 2020. Issues around enforcement, such as the burden of proof being on government departments, traders being out of scope, and low penalties, remain.
Please find more details about the law here. (EH&CH)
P.S. Recently, we attended an APEC region workshop hosted by APEC Expert Group on Illegal Logging and Associated Trade (EGILAT) in Malaysia on forest law governance. This table captures the major and emerging forest law regulations in the region.

A four-year investigation by the US Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) uncovered evidence of an illegal timber trade stretching from Chinese-owned Dejia Group in West Africa to major hardware stores located across the USA.
The timber was from the okoumé tree, classed vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, with a range limited to just four African countries. US Federal officials are investigating the importers, Evergreen Hardwoods and Cornerstone Forest Products. The Dejia Group also exports to European countries where the EU Timber Regulation is in force, including France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Greece.

In the recent Forest forum meeting we shared Complicit in Corruption - a recent report written by non-profit Earthsight, highlighting the widespread corruption in Ukraine's forests, and revealing how illegality permeates the timber supply chain in Ukraine from harvest to export.

Earthsight spent two years running field and undercover investigations in Ukraine. Approximately 70% of Ukraine's timber exports enter the EU and Earthsight's investigations indicate that 40% of this timber is being illegally harvest or traded. The report also claims that a significant volume of illegally harvested timber has received the FSC stamp - the former chief of one of the largest timber producing state-forest enterprises admitted to Earthsight he had found it easy to circumvent FSC checks.

A new study finds that illegal logging, coupled with weak state-run timber licensing systems, has led to massive timber harvesting fraud in Brazil, resulting in huge illicit harvests of Ipê trees. Ipê wood is largely shipped to the U.S. and Europe with the high value (up to $2,500 per cubic meter at export). Buyers all along the timber supply chain turn a blind eye toward fraud, with sawmills, exporters, and importers trusting the paperwork they receive, rather than questioning whether the lower prices they pay for Ipê and other timber may be due to timber laundering. This process is doing major damage to the Amazon. To reduce document fraud, the Brazilian federal government required that all states register or integrate their timber licensing systems within a national timber inventory and tracking system known as Sinaflor. While this should reduce fraudulent paperwork, better oversight of forest management plans and more onsite inspections of timber operations are needed also.

Earlier this year Vietnam initialled a timber trade agreement with the EU that will see Vietnam implement legislation to address imports of illegally harvested and traded timber in return for timber exports to the EU. According to a recent EIA investigation, Vietnam continues its role as a serial offender in the illegal timber trade, with large volumes of illegal timber still flowing across the Cambodian border unhindered. EIA have identified three main areas within Cambodia where substantial illegal logging operations continue. EIA tracked timber from these sites is being smuggled out of Cambodia and into Vietnam across informal crossings.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) says decking on luxury yachts made in the UK have illegal wood on them. EU rules dictate that point of origin in the chain of sale must be legally-sourced teak from Myanmar. Princess Yachts International and Sunseeker International, both singled out by the EIA in their statement, will be at the London Boat Show this week.

Long known as a hotspot for rapid and largely illegal deforestation, Cambodia was singled out in a May 2017 EIA report. The report was the result of months of undercover investigations which found that from November 2016, more than 300,000 cubic metres (nearly 10.6 million cubic feet) of timber have been illegally felled in a wildlife sanctuary and two protected areas in Cambodia. Most of the timber was sold to Vietnam and generated $13 million in payments from Vietnamese timber traders. Environmental experts believe that a much-publicized crackdown on illegal logging launched in Cambodia in early 2016 had very little effect.

The EU and Vietnam conclude negotiations on a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT). The agreement will help improve forest governance, address illegal logging and promote trade in verified legal timber products from Vietnam to the EU, and other markets.

The yearlong ban on logging across all of Myanmar since April 2016 was lifted at the end of March 2017, and now the Myanmar government says it is on its way to bringing verifiably legal timber to the international market. Although a number of illegal activities were prevented by the government, illegal logging continued during the ban due to insufficiently collaboration. International buyers and local NGOs are concerned that Myanmar is not doing enough to keep its forests safe.

Vietnam has largely succeeded in reforestation within its border. Started in the 1980s, accompanying the transition to a market-driven economy, forestry management moved to a multi-sector approach with NGOs, businesses, local communities and management boards involved from originally government control. In 2008, Vietnam become a REDD pilot country, and both Forest Trends and FAO have recorded the increase in forest cover in Vietnam. However, challenge still exits. The demand for wood products in Vietnam is high, and now the country imports much from Cambodia, where illegal and unsustainable loggings happen frequently.

Interpol has released a purple notice on 30 August about an illegal timber trading operation involving four companies in Brazil, which stems from an investigation by the Brazilian Federal Police that uncovered a technique employed by illegal timber traders in the country. The method in question involves obtaining fraudulent forest management plans that declare a higher density of a high-value timber species within a timber concession than actually exists on the ground, allowing criminals to harvest timber from unauthorized areas and report it as if it was legal. These false forest management plans are obtained through bribery or by the operators who forge them.

Myanmar’s National League for Democracy-led Government announced a national logging ban, effective immediately, which will run until the end of March 2017. Satellite data shows the tree cover in Myanmar has lost nearly 5 percent (2 million hectares) from 2001 through 2014. In 2014, Myanmar enacted a ban on raw timber exports. A driving force of Myanmar’s illegal timber trade is demand from China, and Myanmar was once China’s biggest supplier of rosewood in 2013. The demand from china declined in 2015 since China’s economy slowed, and currently, China’s timber trade with Myanmar is officially suspended.

The Department of Agriculture and Water Resource of Australia has decided that certified businesses are required to maintain an equivalent due diligence system under PEFC Chain of Custody standard, and also AFS (Australia’s PEFC-endorsed national forest certification system), which means that PEFC-certified companies in Australia are now recognized as automatically meeting the due diligence requirements in the illegal logging regulation of Australia, and no separate due diligence system prepared for the illegal logging regulation specifically is not required.

Fern have produced a report outlining China’s efforts in combatting the trade of illegally sourced timber. The report covers the forest policies and timber trade trends in China as well as the engagement from national and international bodies. Strategies for China-EU efforts in tackling illegal logging and forest governance failure and other drivers of deforestation are also shared. One recommendation includes a robust enforcement of the EUTR in imports from China.

More than 30 environmental groups have signed a statement against the renewal of regional forest agreements (RFAs) for the logging of Australian native forests. A report shared last week by the National Park Association of NSW showed that the logging has resulted in an increase of threatened species. It also noted that the agreements designed in 1990 didn’t acknowledge how the loss of forests would contribute to climate change. The environmental groups stand firm and will not accept any extensions, rollovers or renewals.

Leaders from international indigenous and forest communities gathered in London to address the violation of human rights and land grabbing associated to the global trade of palm oil. A report last year from Fern showed that 18% of palm oil produced from illegal tropical forest destruction ends up in the EU. The community leaders are calling for the London Stock Exchange to stop trading with companies who act outside of the law as well as improvements in certification schemes in responding and investigating community complaints.

Leaders from international indigenous and forest communities gathered in London to address the violation of human rights and land grabbing associated to the global trade of palm oil. A report last year from Fern showed that 18% of palm oil produced from illegal tropical forest destruction ends up in the EU. The community leaders are calling for the London Stock Exchange to stop trading with companies who act outside of the law as well as improvements in certification schemes in responding and investigating community complaints.

According to satellite data analysed by researchers at Michigan State University, tree cover increased significantly on about 1.6% of China’s territory between 2000 and 2010, while tree cover dropped on only 0.38% of China’s land. The researchers attributed the forest gain to China’s Natural Forest Conservation Program, which has banned logging in many of the country’s forests and set up systems to prosecute illegal logging. The NFCP also compensates businesses and households for monitoring forest health and conserving trees rather than cutting them down.

The EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) News have provided an update on the operation of the EU’s law to address illegal logging from March 2015 to March 2016. This issue outlines the support from the European Commission and the implementation of the regulations by its’ member states, indicating how they insure its’ proper application. Relevant publications and updates in international laws against illegal logging are also reported.

Indonesia’s anti-graft commission said government agencies have agreed on a plan to combat corruption in the forestry industry that costs the state billions of dollars in lost revenue and is behind fires that pollute Southeast Asia. The plan leans heavily on technology to build an accurate picture of where illegal deforestation and conversion of peatland into farmland is occurring, using Landsat satellites, drones and LIDAR pulsed laser-based mapping.

The Montagnes Blanches endangered forest has become a focus area for conservation organisations due to threats on its unique features by illegal logging. According to satellite data provided from 2000-2013, almost 50% of the intact forest landscape has been lost or degraded. Furthermore the species, woodland cari-bou within this forest is now being identified as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk 2.

China, which logs about 49.94 million cubic meters of natural forest each year, initiated a landmark pilot program to ban all commercial logging of natural forests in key forest zones in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province in April 2014. Now the country will implement a ban on commercial logging of State-owned natural forests by end 2016.

The article points out that over 50% of the timber China consumes and processes comes from imports much of it thought to be from illegally harvested sources. There is a concern that this domestic logging ban may lead to an increase in those illegally harvested sources.

Auditors say EU scheme to tackle $100bn global trade in illegal timber is poorly designed, badly managed and largely ineffective. Four EU countries – Greece, Spain, Hungary and Romania – have still not implemented an EU timber regulation proposed five years ago, allowing an easy passage to market for the fruits of deforestation. While on the supply side, part of the problem rests with a poor prioritisation of aid, the auditors say. Liberia received €11.9m to tackle illegal logging, when its yearly wood exports to the EU only averaged €5m.

Austrian timber company Schweighofer is linked to large-scale illegal logging which accounts for half of Romania's timber production. An EIA investigation finds that almost all the illegal timber ends up in the company's mills. Romania still has an estimated 218,000 hectares of old growth forests. A recent Romanian government study estimated that 80 million cubic meters of timber have been cut illegally in the past 20 years, representing a loss to the Romanian economy of over €5 billion. Following the report’s publication, WWF filed a complaint at the Federal Forest Office in Vienna for violations of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) and calls for a full investigation of the allegations against Schweighofer.

The largest hardwood flooring retailer in the United States, Lumber Liquidators, agreed to plead guilty to several violations of the Lacey Act. The company will have to pay a combined $13.2 million for importing illegally harvested timber from areas including forests in far eastern Russia and other compliance issues. The raids that led to the charges followed investigations and reports by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and WWF. Lumber Liquidators faces separate allegations that it imported laminated wood products with illegal levels of formaldehyde.

Environmental Investigation Agency, London-based, released a report saying that an alarming escalation of timber flowing into China has been there over the last three years. The majority of trees being cut down was driven by very wealthy Chinese people, who consider luxury products as a status symbol. 153 Chinese nationals were arrested for illegal logging in Myanmar, but were released in July after receiving a presidential pardon.

Regions along the porous Myanmar-China border have been a source of smuggled illegal timber to satisfy the growing demand from Chinese industry. Stripping natural resources in this way has prompted some resentment in Myanmar towards its more prosperous neighbour, and China has since protested at the harsh sentence. The border regions, which include Kachin state, have seen higher levels of conflict since 2011 between the Myanmar government and Kachin separatists. This escalation may provide sufficient cover for the illegal logging activity to take place.

Drones are increasingly being used in the fight against deforestation and illegal land clearing in some counties, including Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil trader Cargill has begun using drones to monitor fires near to its plantations and plan to use drones to identify protected forests. It is thought that local law enforcement agencies in Indonesia might also turn to drones as they currently rely on satellite imagery to identify hotspots but can often encounter delays in receiving information and poor resolution of images.

Indonesia has long been accused of not managing forests in a sustainable manner and of failing to curb illegal logging and trade in regard to the export of forest-sourced products. The demand to implement sustainable forest management policies is getting stronger. The voluntary PEFC/IFCC (the Indonesia Forest Certification Co-Operation) certification has been seen as a “passport” for the companies to allow their products to entre countries that set sustainable forest management preconditions. Forestry companies’ policies need to be tested on the ground.

Imazon’s newest study shows that, between August 2012 and July 2014, 90% deforestation in Brazilian Amazon happened in protected areas, while 10% occurred outside protected areas. During the two years’ period, forest loss was heavily concentrated in areas where infrastructure was expanding and management plans and funding were lacking. The study also recommends possible measures to against the deforestation, including law enforcement, eviction of non-traditional settlers from illegally occupied forests, and state resettlement schemes, etc.

32 indigenous villagers in Cambodia’s north-eastern area, Stung Treng province, called on local forestry officials to crackdown on illegal saw mills and to provide them with protection after they received death threats from unsanctioned loggers of luxury timber. The 32 villagers are community activists, and they vowed to keep fighting illegal logging in their local area despite the threats. The environmental watchdog Global Witness said in a report in February that China’s voracious demand for luxury furniture is the driver behind the multimillion-dollar illegal trade in rosewood in Cambodia.

Despite government plans to eradicate illegal logging that have been in place over the past five years, encroachment on the country’s forests remains rampant, a recent report says. The report, released by a number of NGOs grouped under the Coalition against Forestry Mafia and the Washington-based Forest Trends, said that more than 30 percent of the timber used by the country’s industrial forest sector could be considered illegal. According to the report, while the source of this illegal wood was unclear, it was likely from trees harvested during the clear-cutting of natural forests from new oil, palm and pulp plantations. In order to meet the demands from the industrial forestry industry, the government had pledged to boost the number of industrial forestry plantations as the primary source of legal wood in Indonesia. The plantations produce fast-growing species of trees like acacia. However, the report found that the plantation sector was dramatically underperforming. In 2007, the forestry ministry predicted that by 2014, plantations would be producing at almost twice the rate reportedly achieved.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is working with environmentalists to combat illegal logging in the country’s Far East. Activists from WWF described long term collaboration with officials from Russia’s former KGB service in the effort to combat corruption and illegal timber exports as “unusual” but also unavoidable. WWF has been providing training for local customs officials on how to spot illegal species. A 2013 report by the Environmental Investigation Agency estimated that 96% of the valuable hardwoods harvested in the Russian Far East end up in China, while at least 80% of all felled trees have been logged illegally.

For decades, mahogany, ebony, rosewood and other rare tropical hardwoods have been extensively logged to produce valuable wood products, particularly guitars and other instruments. Increasingly aware of the impacts to forests and communities from over-harvesting, many instrument manufacturers have taken steps to make their supply chains more sustainable. Now, musicians are joining the call to make sure guitars and other instruments are made from legal, sustainably sourced wood. Last week the Environmental Investigation Agency and REVERB released a video featuring artists such as Jason Mraz and Michael Franti urging consumers to find out where their wood comes from.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has been documenting and exposing the illicit trade in stolen timber in Indonesia for more than 15 years. According to a new EIA report, it’s all a huge illusion that Indonesia appears to bring rainforest logging under control. Traditional logging has been replaced by the mass clearance of rainforest for oil palm plantations, creating massive supplies of hugely profitable but often illegal timber. And lurking beneath the surface is a pervasive network of criminality and corruption. NGOs and progressive government figures have emphasised the need to look beyond sectoral legislation and to corruption laws in order to address this.

According to Myanmar military officials 122 foreign national (mainly Chinese) and 20 Myanmar citizens were arrested for illegal logging and other alleged crimes in northern Myanmar. Along with the arrests, authorities seized 436 logging trucks and 14 pickup trucks loaded with logs, stimulant drugs, raw opium and Chinese currency. Locals blame the continuous illegal logging on the lack of enforcement as authorities and rebel officers are commonly bribed in exchanged for permission for illegal logging in the area. Unfortunately the insatiable Chinese appetite for hardwood furniture and a lengthy and porous border enables this illegal activity to continue.

A report has claimed that the Peruvian government is ignoring the real drivers of deforestation and failing to safeguard the rights of indigenous people who rely on, and are best-placed to protect, the country’s forests. The report, Revealing the Hidden: Indigenous perspectives on deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, was issued by Peru’s indigenous peoples’ organisation (AIDESEP), and international human rights NGO Forest Peoples Programme (FPP). Conflicting with previous reports that suggest agriculture is mostly to blame (see above), this report suggests the invisible drivers of deforestation have a much more significant impact. These include infrastructure projects, such as the Transoceanic highway, oil, gas and mining projects, palm oil plantations, illegal logging operations, and mega-dam projects. According to the report, roughly 75% of deforestation in Peru occurs within 20km of a road. The report goes on to suggest practical steps to address this deforestation and violation of indigenous peoples’ rights, including: resolving territorial demands; providing legal, financial and technical support; close legal loopholes; and implement robust and independent planning mechanisms to ensure economic interests do not over-ride all other considerations.

The recent rediscovery of a giant rock bearing the likeness of a face has provided a cultural weapon for Peru's Harakmbut Indians as they struggle to protect their Amazonian homeland from deforestation, illegal mining and oil companies.

Campaigning organisation Greenpeace has spent two months placing GPS trackers on illegal loggers in the Amazon using GPS tracking technology and satellite surveillance. The operation was designed to uncover the activities and movements of illegal loggers near Santarém, the centre of the logging industry in the Amazon. The investigation found that the timber is transported by trucks on highways at night to evade the police and that fake documentation is used to launder the timber.

A 49-year-old journalist reportedly investigating illegal logging in Kratie province was shot dead early Sunday morning after he and five other journalists went to investigate reports of illegal logging. Within hours, police arrested three men – a commune police chief, a military police officer and a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldier – for the murder, officials said. The murder follows two other similar cases in Cambodia from 2012. The director of the Cambodia Institute for Media Studies, said there are many freelance reporters based in the provinces who investigate illegal activity and often work independently, which can leave them vulnerable. While some reporters in the provinces, often unsalaried, are tempted to betray their journalistic ethics and profit from the information they dig up, journalists who refuse to be bought off run the real risk of being framed – or attacked – when they uncover a crime.

The reputation of Australia's $2 billion timber export industry is in question after four Queensland workers were fined and sentenced to jail for illegally exporting timber. Three directors and an employee of a wholesale timber and flooring company in Brisbane pleaded guilty to falsifying Commonwealth documents to send timber to a number of countries between 2006 and 2009.

British businesses from the high street and timber, construction, publishing, DIY and grocery industries are among the first UK firms committing to responsible forest trade to help end deforestation around the world with a shift to 100 per cent sustainable timber and wood products by 2020. The existing loopholes in the current legislation to combat illegal timber means some industries are exempt from ensuring that their wood or products have come from legal sources. In 2015 the timber regulation is due to be reviewed and WWF and its campaign supporters are calling on the UK government to demand the EU makes the necessary improvements to the regulation to ensure that all timber products are covered and thus end the import of illegal wood.

Liberia is to become the first African nation to stop cutting down trees in return for development aid. Liberia is the home to a significant part of West Africa’s remaining forest, with about 43% of the Upper Guinean forest, and it is also a global diversity hotspot, home to the last remaining viable populations of species. Illegal logging in Liberia stared from 2003 after the civil war ended, and some researchers have connected the outbreak of Ebola with the widespread deforestation, which brings people into contact with natural reservoir of the virus. Now Norway has reached agreement with Liberia government that Norway will help Liberia to build up the capacity to monitor and police the forests. With widespread corruption and a government struggling to impost its authority, it should be recognized that stopping all the logging in Liberia will not be easy.

A new report by Forest Trends, a US based NGO, found out that around five football fields of tropical forest have been illegally cleared every minute between 2000 and 2012, which losses have been driven by consumer demand for beef, leather and timber in Europe and US. The values of this trade in commodities including timber, leather, beef, soy and palm oil, accounting for $61bn a year. The majority of the illegal deforestation for commercial agriculture has been in Brazil and Indonesia. The local governments are lack of capacity to enforce laws to against illegal logging. Report found that licences and permits to cut the trees are often acquired through corruption. Authors believe that consumer countries in EU could have done more to tackle the problem. Strong regulations rather than voluntary actions is the better solution. The biggest concern for campaigners now is the spread of illegal deforestation to new countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

According to the 2012 World Bank report, an estimated 80% of Peruvian timber export comes from illegal logging. Despite the fact that the law requires loggers to show where the timber has come from, the activity of illegal logging is still rife here for many reasons. Authorities rarely patrol the remote and inaccessible areas where the activity occurs, and, as explained in this article, many officers are happy to accept bribes to turn a blind eye.

WWF is urging the European Commission to use the results of the recent surveys on implementation of the EU Timber Regulations to put more pressure on national governments and take legal action against non-compliant countries. WWF’s EU Government barometer shows that only 11 EU countries have so far adopted national legislation and procedures considered robust enough to control the legality of timber and timber products, thus leaving 17 without robust legislation. The most recent EU survey on implementation highlights Hungary, Poland, Spain, Malta, France, Greece and Italy as being among the countries failing to fully implement the regulations.

Recognising the severe impact illegal logging is having on tax revenue generation, the Lao government has launched a pilot program to track the source of timber from sawmills and wood-processing plants. Demand for the valuable hongmu (redwood) timber from neighbouring China is thought to be driving illegal logging in the country. The pilot program requires all logs in sawmills and wood-processing plants to be inspected before export and to lay a framework for documentation that they are derived from legal sources, according to the reports.

Kenya has recently seized a shipment of $13 million worth of rosewood illegally harvested in Madagascar and bound for Hong Kong. The writer highlights the trend of illegal shipments through Hong Kong and notes that as neither Hong Kong nor China has laws banning illegal timber, border authorities cannot intercept it unless it is CITES-listed. According to estimates only 16 per cent of China’s processed timber is then exported, so there is a huge domestic market that is not subject to regulations preventing the use of illegally-harvested timber.

The start-up Rainforest Connection (RFCx) has announced a partnership with a Brazilian NGO to bring its alert system to the forest homeland of the Tembé people. Rainforest Connection's system is built using a network of recycled Android smartphones, which are modified to detect specific sounds, including the audio signatures to chainsaws, gunshots, and vehicles. When the system registers one of these sounds, it sends a signal – in real-time – to local authorities, who can then potentially take action to stop illegal logging or poaching as it happens. Each RFCx device can monitor roughly three square kilometers of forest. The project has received celebrity endorsement from musician Neil Young.

Cambodia has the 5th fastest rate of deforestation in the world. By law, the government have to put any wood that is seized from illegal logging activity up for auction with the proceeds deposited in the state treasury. However these auctions are not transparent, and corruption is rife. Illegal wood is often sold to government officials at cheaper than market prices, which actually promotes further illegal logging activity. The investigative report highlights cases of corruption and the attempts to stop the trade of illegally sourced wood by NGOs.

A new paper by Chatham House and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has found that timber harvested illegally in Africa, Asia and Latin America continues to be sold on world markets, despite international efforts to curb the trade. Experts say that the EUTR and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) are complementary. However, there is a lack of coordination between the agencies involved in enforcing the rules of the two systems. One of the biggest loopholes identified is that both CITES- and FLEGT-licenced timber is exempt from the due diligence requirements under the EUTR, so fraudulent paperwork could escape scrutiny.

Rainforest Connection, a non-profit based in San Francisco, plans to install used Android smartphones in rainforests to help curtail illegal logging. The phones have been configured to trigger an alert for noises that match the sound signature of a chainsaw within an area of about a third of a square mile. The organisation claims this can be done at minimal cost – for example, in Indonesia unlimited data for one phone costs just $2.89 per month – and the phones can be powered using solar energy. The venture is seeking funding through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

A recently published paper in the journal Science assesses how Brazil managed to reduce its deforestation rates by 70% over the course of a decade and points to a three-stage process in which bans, better governance in frontier areas and consumer pressure on companies worked, if fitfully and only after several false starts. While the Brazilian Forest Code from the mid-1990s mandated that 80% of farm land had to be set aside as a forest reserve, deforestation rates reached their highest as the code was not enforced. However, from 2005 Brazil’s President Lula da Silva made halting deforestation a priority which led to better cooperation between enforcement agencies and public prosecutors. At the same time, improvements in the efficiency of cattle breeding, a fall in export earnings from soybeans and an NGO campaign to boycott Brazilian soybeans caused deforestation to plummet. Then in 2009, once soybean expansion resumed, the government focused its efforts on the counties with the worst deforestation rates and banned them from getting cheap credit until the rates fell. Other reinforcing factors included a proper land registry, a cattle boycott, an amnesty for illegal clearances before 2008 and money from a special $1 billion Amazon Fund financed by foreign aid.

Almost 80% of logging in the state of Pará is illegal, but loggers and sawmills here have clever scams that give illegal timber a cover story. Greenpeace discovered that the DIY chain Jewson was selling decking made from ipe, a rare tree found in the Amazon. Jewson buys its ipe from International Timber, who admitted to buying the timber without any third-party check to verify the chain of custody. Greenpeace have asked the NMO to investigate Jewson and International Timber, as well as other companies importing and selling timber from the Brazilian Amazon.

Following a two year investigation, Greenpeace have uncovered evidence of systematic abuse and a flawed monitoring system in Brazil, a country whose government claims to be coping with deforestation. The loggers use a variety of techniques, including over-reporting the number and size of rare trees and logging trees that are protected by law. Greenpeace’s new report, entitled “The Amazon’s silent crisis” can be accessed here.

Brazilian municipalities are turning to drones as they prepare to implement the new Forest Code which requires farmers in the Amazon to preserve up to 80 per cent of the forest on their land. The country’s biggest municipality in the Amazonian state of Pará has already purchased a drone at a cost of more than R$100,000 (over £25,000). The drones can fly for five hours at a time and photograph in detail 20,000-30,000 hectares per flight. The company manufacturing the drones said that demand has experienced a sharp increase in the past year, much of this coming from hydropower companies looking to monitor their vast properties in the Amazon against invasions by illegal settlers, deforestation and other problems.

Thailand's Dong Phayayen-Khoyai Forest Complex is in danger of losing its World Heritage status because illegal logging is destroying the forest. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says there is ineffective management to prevent the illegal logging of Siamese rosewood that was once abundant in the area. The IUCN is also concerned about plans to build a hydroelectric dam in the forest although the director of the Cultural and Natural Environmental Management Bureau said that there is a high possibility that the construction of the dam will not go ahead.

A new report titled ‘Logging Concessions Enable Illegal Logging Crisis in the Peruvian Amazon’ has found that the Peruvian Forest Law is being exploited for illegal purposes. Loggers are required to declare which individual, GPS-referenced trees will be cut in a one or five year period. As a result many have invented the existence of trees, they then log in other areas and claim trees came from inside their concessions and use the paperwork from these concessions to “prove” it. In over half the cases violations have related to CITES-listed cedar species. Nearly 70% of the concessions inspected have been suspected of “major violations”. This follows what was supposed to be a strengthening of the law through a trade agreement between Peru and the United States in 2009. The report’s authors say the root of the problem is that the authorities only check the regulatory documents in transport or at port arrival well after the logging has taken place. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has previously been highly critical of Peruvian logging practices highlighting the abuse of migrant workers and strategies designed to confuse the authorities in order to cover up illegal logging.

A new Global Witness report, ‘Deadly Environment’, shows there has been a surge in the killing of activists protecting land rights and the environment over the past decade with three times as many deaths in 2012 compared to the previous 10 years. Between 2002 and 2013, at least 908 activists were killed in 35 countries with only 10 convictions. The most deadly countries in the scope of the report were Brazil (448 since 2002), Honduras (109), Philippines (67), Peru (58) and Thailand (16). The deaths are linked to activism against a range of activities including illegal logging, cattle ranching, soy bean farming, mining and the building of hydroelectric dams.

Experts are concerned that a new export ban on raw timber from Myanmar which came into effect from 1st April could have little effect due to a lack of clarity from the government on how the ban would work in practice and the effects of the ongoing conflict in Kachin state in the north of the country which borders China. NGO EcoDev claims that very little of the timber that crosses the border into China is actually sourced in border areas where the government are fighting the Kachin Independence Army on the pretext of cracking down on illegal logging. Field research has found that many of the logs actually come from government-controlled areas suggesting collusion between the authorities and the rebels. They also note that it is very hard to track the chain of custody of logs to determine their legality as so much comes from the deep jungle.

Indonesian civil society groups have called on their government to reform its legal timber certification system, pointing to widespread illegal practices among certified companies and an auditing system that is “almost impossible” for companies to fail. The Anti Forest-Mafia Coalition, a group of Indonesian NGOs, has published a 63-page assessment of SVLK which finds that SVLK-certified companies had illegally cleared natural forests inside the habitats of protected species, in deep peat areas, and in forests zoned for conservation, and had intentionally started fires in some cases while in others their certificates were linked to officials sentenced for corrupt practices in issuing licences. The report also criticises SVLK’s failure to address human rights concerns such as land tenure issues and the fact that certified mills are not required to source timber exclusively from SVLK-certified timber concessions.

A recent news briefing by the EIA, entitled “Data Corruption: Exposing the true scale of logging in Myanmar”, which scrutinises official figures on log harvests and timber exports over the past 15 years has indicated widespread criminality and official corruption in the area. The report found that between 2000 and 2013, only 28% trade was recorded, suggesting that the remaining 72% of log shipments were illegal. These illegal exports were worth four times the combined 2013-14 education and health budgets for the entire of the US, at a value of US$6 billion. The EIA has called on the Government of Myanmar to vigorously enforce a log export ban effective from April 1st 2013, as well as significantly increasing transparency in the management of forest resources.

Monks and villagers in Ubon Ratchathani’s Khemmarat district of Thailand have teamed up to protect their 100-year old Siamese rosewood forest from illegal logging gangs. The rosewood trees in this area have grown naturally for 100 years, and most are more than six metres high. By closing the temple doors during the night, the monks are preventing illegal logging gangs from entering the temple and cutting down the trees. Most illegally cut rosewood trees are transferred to China via Laos and Vietnam. During 2008 – 2014, over 27,000 pieces of Siamese rosewood have been confiscated by police and some 395 offenders arrested.

A study by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford has found that forests are better protected when local communities manage them locally. The research was undertaken in Cambodia, a country that has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. Alternative methods of forest protection, such as community forestry, are needed in countries that have high levels of corruption. The study found that sites maintained by locals had fewer signs of man-made damage, such as stumps and burned trees.

Following a long-running international campaign, government troops in Brazil have begun to evict illegal settlers from an area belonging to one of the world's most endangered tribal groups called the Awá. Six months ago Brazil’s military had launched a ground operation against illegal logging around the land of the Awá. The forces closed down at least eight saw mills and confiscated and destroyed other machinery, but they did not remove the loggers and ranchers from inside the Awá’s land.

West Africa's biggest rainforest has won a reprieve from destruction with Liberia's government cancelling dozens of illegal logging permits, saving up to 10,000 square miles from being cleared. Earlier in the year the government had granted licences allowing companies to cut down 58 per cent of all the primary rainforest left in the country. The licences were handed out in breach of Liberia’s own law, generally to companies backed by Malaysian and Chinese investors. The case was first highlighted by Global Witness.

Lumber Liquidators, the top-selling flooring retailer in the US, is currently under investigation over whether it has been importing illegally logged wood products from the Russian Far East in violation of the US Lacey Act. The company is now facing class action lawsuits from investors following criticism from a noted hedge fund adviser who has argued that the recent increases in the company’s profit margins have come, in part, by increasing imports of illegally harvested wood from China and the Russian Far East.

The Myanmar Timber Merchants Association claims that illegal logging incurs costs Myanmar US$ 200m every year. The most affected areas in Myanmar are Kachin and Shan states near the Myanmar-China border as well as Kayin and Kayah states near the Myanmar-Thai border.

Officers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the corporate headquarters of Lumber Liquidators, the top-selling flooring retailer in America, in Toano, Virginia. ICE agents were investigating whether the company had imported illegally logged wood products from eastern Russia. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has published a sobering report which gives details that Lumber Liquidators has allegedly purchased millions of square feet of illegally logged hardwoods in the Russian Far East.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce has revealed that US$ 17 million worth of timber was recently found to have been smuggled from Myanmar to China via illegal routes avoiding official checkpoints along the road to Muse, Myanmar's border town with China. Most of Myanmar’s trade is with China and Thailand and with Chinese import restrictions on some agricultural products from Myanmar, local exporters find it difficult to get health recommendations from China for their exports, creating a growing illegal trade.

Illegal logging has fuelled the rapid disappearance of commercially viable forests and threatened indigenous livelihoods in the Solomon Islands. But local communities are confronting the companies responsible and taking them through the courts.

Global Witness has accused Danish timber company, DLH, of illegal timber purchases worth $305,000 in 2012. The investigation showed that the timber was felled using outdated permits that were deemed illegal in Liberia because of widespread misuse, fraud and corruption. These accusations put DLH in breach of its FSC certification, and any further imports of this kind would make the company liable to criminal sanctions under the EU Timber Regulation.

A report from the UK- and US-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has said that up to 80% of the hardwood harvested in the Russian far east is logged illegally. The EIA say the demand for this material comes from Chinese sawmills and subsequently their western customers. The material that is of most concern is illegally logged Russian oak. US wood flooring retailer, Lumber Liquidators, was named in the report as being heavily reliant on Chinese suppliers who allegedly mainly sell illegally logged material. The EIA say the US and EU regulations on illegal logging are important pressure points where they now have the ability to intervene – before now, and without this pressure, illegal logging in Siberia has seen rapid expansion. Despite industry incentives from the Russian government, incredible demand from China has led to Chinese sawmills establishing just over the China-Russia border. EIA’s investigations suggest that most of these mills rely on a supply of illegally logged timber.

New checks on Indonesian timber are being introduced by the EU to curb illegal logging. The EU is Indonesia’s biggest export market for timber, with Germany, the UK, France and Italy among the major importers.
From now on, only Indonesian timber compliant with the EU’s verification system, called Forest Law Enforcement Governance (FLEGT) will be imported into the EU. The European Commission says the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with Indonesia commits both sides to only trade in verified legal timber products.

In response to the dramatic decline of forest cover in West Africa, 15 member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have agreed to work together across borders to protect and manage the region’s forests and wildlife. The Convergence Plan for the Sustainable Management and use of Forest Ecosystems in West Africa was adopted alongside the Sub-regional Action Program to Combat Desertification at a meeting on 12 September 2013.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Global Forest Assessment 2010 reported that 870,000 ha of forests were lost in the sub-region each year between 2000 and 2010. The convergence plan notes that these losses were due primarily to illegal cutting, brush fires, extensive agriculture (farming over large areas of land with low productivity) and transhumance (moving livestock from one grazing area to another), as well as legal, political, technical and economic limitations.

Aerial footage of the Peruvian Amazon shows large-scale forest clearance as a result of gold mining operations. The rate of expansion of gold mining operations has tripled in recent years, and reports suggest the majority of mining is illegal.

According to a new Global Witness report, two Japanese companies were buying illegally-logged timber from Malaysia's rainforests and labelling much of it as 'legal' under a government-sanctioned certification scheme. The report highlights the role of Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud in the transactions. The two companies have denied the allegations, while the state of Sarawak said there was no proof to the allegation.

The actor Harrison Ford, who has been filming a documentary called ‘Years of Living Dangerously’ in Indonesia, has been threatened with deportation after confronting the forestry minister in an interview. The actor asked the minister why deforestation was occurring in protected areas after he had witnessed illegal logging taking place in Sumatra. The documentary will air on the US television network Showtime in April 2014.

The only suspect for the 2012 murder of Hang Serei Oudom, a Cambodian environmental journalist, has been acquitted by a court in Cambodia. Oudom had been investigating the role of military police in illegal logging and timber smuggling. His death came only five months after prominent environmentalist Chut Wutty was shot dead when accompanying two journalists to an illegal logging site.

Regional instability in Myanmar has led to growing incidents of illegal timber extraction, with the products being sold in to China. There are a lack of incentives for state and regional governments to properly enforce forestry operations as they are not entitled to benefit from the resources that are legally extracted. Ministers in the Myanmar central government want to see more autonomy given to state and regional governments to encourage stronger local policing and tighter control of the country’s resources.

Four Russians have been charged with smuggling timber valued at $3m per month into neighbouring China. The four are accused of using dozens of different companies and fake documents to smuggle 150 freight cars of lumber every month. Police believe the four are part of a much larger smuggling ring. Trade across the border is driven by huge Chinese demand for raw materials, and illegal trade increased dramatically after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Illegal timber trade from Russia to China in 2011 was valued at $1.3 billion, accounting for around 10 million cubic metres of logs and sawn timber.

With deforestation up by 90% on 2012’s rate of loss, Brazil has bolstered the number of environmental inspectors in the forest to curb illegal clearing. Landowners clearing forests are struggling to escape detection by the government’s near-real-time satellite forest monitoring system, DETER, but are starting to clear smaller forest areas that the system cannot see at its 25-hectare resolution. A higher resolution system that would detect this clearing, known as PRODES, is only used annually. Environmentalists believe the more relaxed revisions to the Forest Code, implemented in 2012, accounted for this rise in clearing.

Russian police have busted an international group suspected of costing the state over 2 billion rubles ($60 million) through the illegal purchase and sale to China of timber, Russia’s Interior Ministry reported on Wednesday.
“It has been established that a group of Chinese citizens in Russian regions bordering China was paying cash for large volumes of illegal timber and legalizing it for export to China using documents forged by their Russian accomplices,” the ministry said in a statement.

Germany’s EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) competent authority, BLE, is investigating suspected breaches of the law.

BLE was apparently tipped off by its Belgian counterpart and Greenpeace about several consignments of wenge (often referred to as Congolese Rosewood) delivered via Antwerp to a number of German customers.

Greenpeace alleges that the timber comes from an illegal source in Democratic Republic of Congo and contravenes the EUTR.

One report showed a complicated supply chain with the timber being imported from the Congo to Belgium by a Swizz trader, and from there on to Germany.

BBC One's Panorama investigates illegal logging in the tropical forests of West Africa and the timber's journey as it makes its way to Western Europe.

Short opinion piece on the major themes that were discussed at a recent Forest Legality Alliance meeting in Washington DC between members and experts involved in the harvest, manufacturing and trade of forest products. Illegal logging rates worldwide have declined by about 20 per cent since 2008. The main drivers indicating a shift were deemed to be that legality requirements are now in the mainstream (already in the US, EU and Australia and they are being explored in China and Japan), proactive companies are taking control of their supply chains, and the introduction of public procurement policies in some of the world’s major cities, in particular in Latin America, that require the sourcing of legal timber products.

A Brazilian company which designs technology to track and trace expensive goods has created a device which can be placed inside felled trees found in protected areas. When the felled trees are then transported to sawmills by illegal loggers, location updates are sent to a central server. Law enforcement agencies closed one sawmill and made several arrests during a pilot last year of 20 of the devices and the company hopes this will convince the government to roll out the technology.

Greenpeace is cautious in response to the announcement by the President of Indonesia that the ban on deforestation in the country will be extended by two years. It claims that almost half of Indonesia’s primary forests and peatlands will have no protection from illegal logging even with the ban in place. The ban is only on the granting of new concessions and does not affect the rights of those who already have concessions to clear trees on that land. Greenpeace is also concerned about the low levels of enforcement by the Indonesian authorities against companies involved in illegal logging.

The debate led to a disagreement between The Forest Trust (TFT) and WWF. Jason Clay from WWF US referred to FSC as a success story in halting deforestation. However, Scott Poynton from TFT, while acknowledging FSC as the strongest forest management standard, accused it of allowing illegal timber through thousands of Chinese Chain-of-Custody certified factories with the help of WWF’s GFTN programme, FSC accredited certification bodies and the FSC itself. Clay did not respond to the allegations.

The Indonesian government plans to introduce “wood terminals” dealing only in certified lumber as part of its efforts to reduce illegal logging. Wood accepted by the terminals would include the lumber’s origin, the time of logging, the type of wood and the date it was registered. This development follows the implementation of a Timber Legality and Verification System (SVLK) as part of Indonesia’s voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) with the EU.

An overview of rainforest-related news stories in 2012 including coverage of the main research publications on the impacts of rainforest logging, global trade and deforestation, deforestation-free sourcing policies and country-by-country summaries.

The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has published a report accusing China, the world’s biggest importer and consumer of timber, of fuelling the trade in illegal timber with at least a tenth of imports coming from illegal sources. Over 75 per cent of China’s timber imports are processed for domestic consumer markets and are not affected by legislation in the US and EU. The EIA urges China to bring in similar legislation to ensure real progress in curbing the trade in illegal logging.

Analysis reflecting on the global state of illegal logging and the importance of Australia joining the EU and the US in implementing anti-illegal logging measures through its own Illegal Logging Prohibition Bill. It draws attention to the flood of illegal timber which is exported to Australia from South East Asia and the difficulty legitimate timber producers in Australia and New Zealand have in competing domestically and internationally.

‘Green Carbon, Black Trade’, a joint report from UNEP and INTERPOL says that $30-$100 billion of revenue are lost by key logging countries each year to the illegal timber trade. The losses are mainly attributed to key logging countries in Central Africa, the Amazon Basin and South East Asia. An editor of the report highlights how organised crime has become more sophisticated over the past decade with government websites hacked to extract logging permits, falsifying certificates and laundering timber by selling it through plantations.

A Cambodian journalist, Hang Serei Oudom, who wrote a number of stories uncovering forest crimes linked to businessmen and powerful officials has been found murdered in his car. Cambodia’s forest cover has dropped from 73 to 57% between 1990 and 2010 according to the UN. His murder follows that of prominent local environmentalist, Chhuth Vuthy. In the last story before his death, Oudom accused the son of a military police commander of smuggling logs in military-plated vehicles and extorting money from people who were legally transporting wood.

The US House of Representatives will vote this week on a bill called the RELIEF Act (The Retailers and Entertainers Lacey Implementation and Fairness Enforcement Act) which would significantly weaken the use of the Lacey Act to regulate against illegal logging by allowing manufacturers to keep illegal wood and limiting the species and country declaration requirements to solid wood (i.e. pulp and paper would be excluded). The article points to World Bank estimates which suggest that government and businesses suffer more than $10 billion in lost revenue each year due to illegal logging, $1 billion of which is lost by the US.

The Russian government has committed up to $12.4 billion over the next eight years to be spent on forestry protection. This will include restoration and improvement of species composition in forests, reducing illegal logging and addressing the black market in timber, improving aerial monitoring, cultivating trees for restoration and creating fire ponds to protect against wildfires. In response to the announcement of the policy, the CEO of the forestry company RusForest called for privatisation of the country’s forest, saying that this would incentivise longer term investment in the management of Russia’s forests. The current model is for companies such as RusForest to manage areas of forest on relatively short-term leases from the government. Russia currently imports more paper than it produces despite having around 700 million hectares of forest.

Local officials have blamed flooding in Indonesia on illegal logging in the area surrounding a dam which overflowed. Residents were forced to flee as their homes were submerged by up to five metres of water. The officials are working with police to crack down on illegal logging and there are plans to reforest some areas later in the year.

The Viet Nam Administration of Forestry announced that over 13,700 violations of forest protection and timber management laws were reported in the first six months of 2012. Around 623ha of forest land have been lost in this period as a result of changes in forest use purposes, illegal logging and forest fires. Government ministries working on the issue aim to tighten controls on the wood processing industry and local authorities have been ordered to review existing forestry projects and ensure that forest protection programmes are adequately funded.

Burmese authorities detained eighty Thai citizens who were suspected to have engaged in illegal logging in Burmese territory. Seizures of timber-cutting machinery, bulldozers and trucks were also made by the Burmese security forces. Since the arrests, 31 have been released but 49 are still being detained following negotiations with Thai authorities.

Two forest managers and a businessman have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the illegal logging of 500 cubic metres of protected forests along the Laos border. The arrests follow those of six others who the Vietnamese police have proposed charging with violations of forest management and bribery.

Press release by WRI for their new Forest Legality Risk Information Tool. The risk tool provides details about where forest products come from and what issues a buyer might encounter. The tool allows searching by country or species to find specific information. Future additions to the tool will provide interactive supply chain profiling tools, such as decision trees.

A partnership between the UN Environment Programme and Interpol called Project leaf (Law Enforcement Assistance for Forests) has been announced. The initiative recognises the transnational character of many cases of illegal logging. It is intended to support enforcement agencies in countries with the biggest problems.

A partnership between the UN Environment Programme and Interpol called Project leaf (Law Enforcement Assistance for Forests) has been announced. The initiative recognises the transnational character of many cases of illegal logging. It is intended to support enforcement agencies in countries with the biggest problems.

Article highlighting suspicions about the Cambodian government allowing or abetting illegal logging after the fatal shooting of environmental activist Chut Wutty.

Two ecologists in Switzerland have designed and built a flying drone which they believe could be used to monitor illegal logging in remote and hard-to-reach regions. It was initially intended to video and photograph orangutans from the air in order to monitor their populations. However, on its debut flight over Sumatra it recorded evidence of rainforest logging. Flight launches are planned in Malaysia and Borneo in the coming months and the researchers will make public the instructions for assembling similar crafts.

The Surui Forest Carbon Project (SFCP) is the first UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) project to directly pay indigenous tribes to protect the rainforest. It provides carbon income to tribes protecting the Amazon against illegal loggers. However, Surui leaders claim that loggers have increased their threats and are trying to bribe dissenting members of the tribe with firearms. The tribe hopes that calling in the police will send a clear message to illegal loggers and also encourage other Amazonian tribes to adopt the SFCP model.

Lord Mandelson said his work with APP related to the new EUTR VPA requirement for Indonesian companies to supply only legally harvested timber. He said he would be advising APP on how to make the new regime a success and how to communicate it with customers and stakeholders.

According to an Indonesian weekly news magazine the Ministry of Environment is preparing a civil suit against fourteen pulp and paper companies – twelve linked with APP and two with APRIL – for illegally clearing forests on Sumatra. The value of the timber only represents four per cent of the damages being claimed, the balance is for ‘ecological losses’. The Ministry of Forestry is opposing the lawsuit.

More than 8,500 Brazilian troops are taking part in an operation along Brazil’s remote northern border to tackle drug trafficking, logging and illegal mining. Part of the operation will involve looking for illegal logging in protected indigenous land.

Letter from Purwadi Soeprihanto, Executive Director, Association of Indonesian Forest Concessionaires
Published on the Chatham House Illegal Logging website this letter draws attention to the new certification system for Indonesia’s timber sector called SVLK (or TLAS using the English acronym). It is intended to address the requirements of the EUTR, which comes into force in March 2013, by providing assurance that Indonesian wood products are produced in a legal and sustainable manner.

Article covering the new campaign by Survival International, backed by Colin Firth, which looks at the plight of one of the last remaining nomadic hunter-gathering Amazonian tribes whose existence is under threat from the activities and violence carried out by illegal loggers and cattle ranchers. Despite the overall decrease in the rate of deforestation in Brazil, the state which is home to the threatened tribe has recorded a sharp rise in deforestation.

Feature on the state of illegal logging in Cambodia looking at how villagers are making efforts to protect their forests against deforestation in the face of corruption, inactivity from the government and threats from illegal loggers. It also draws attention to the concessions the government has begun giving to private investors on protected areas, legalising unsustainable cutting. The World Bank estimates that 94% of logging in Cambodia by volume is illegal.

Central African Republic and Liberia become the fifth and sixth countries to sign Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with the EU. Under the EU Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT), VPAs commit partner countries to establish systems and a licencing scheme to ensure only verified legal timber products (including pulp and paper) are exported from that country from 3rd March 2013 (globally; not just to EU member states). VPAs with Ghana and Cameroon are close to being signed and VPAs with four more countries are currently being negotiated.

Press release for a report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists called ‘Logging and the Law: How the U.S. Lacey Act Helps Reduce Illegal Logging in the Tropics’. The report draws attention to how illegally harvested wood distorts prices of legal wood and has a negative impact on the US wood industry.

Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) has come up with a user-friendly website for Malaysians to monitor rainforests and alert the authorities over suspicious activities.

A remote sensing company has signed a deal with the Brazilian space agency to deliver near real-time satellite imagery to monitor forest clearing in the Amazon rainforest and target illegal logging as it happens. Illegal loggers have grown smart to the current monitoring system by clearing smaller areas to evade detection but the new system will provide a much higher level of granularity in its imaging. Such technology is seen as important in the development of an effective REDD+ programme.

Investigation underway into illegal logging of natural forest in central Viet Nam. It is thought that illegal logging in the region is on the rise, in part due to access being opened up by reservoirs for hydro-power projects. These projects have also displaced local farmers who have then deforested land to set up new farms.