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.

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.

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.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have joined forces to promote viable forestry investment and innovation in the Russian Federation's Far East based on sustainable use of forest resources. Improving legal frameworks and the inventory of forest resources; developing modern forestry infrastructures and supporting services, in particular railway transportation networks; introducing modern logging, as well as harvesting and wood-processing technologies; providing adequate training at local level; clearly designating and protecting forest areas of high biodiversity value are among the key Roadmap recommendations.