Researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK analysed data from 824 harvest areas in private and community-owned forests scattered throughout the 123 million hectare Brazilian state of Para, which is the source of almost half of all timber production in the Brazilian Amazon. The results demonstrate that it is crucial to manage yields of selectively-logged forests for the long-term health of forest biodiversity as well as the financial viability of local industries. The analysis shows that even so-called ‘reduced-impact logging’ in tropical forests can rarely be defined as sustainable in terms of forest composition and dynamics in the aftermath logging.
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Even reduced-impact logging in the Amazon may be unsustainable
Austrian timber giant ransacking Romania's forests
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.