As Chinese buildings rise, Asia's forests fall.

• Author: Halweil, Brian
• Position: ENVIRONMENTAL Intelligence

"The great sucking sound continues," wrote David Kaimowitz in a recent e-mail to forest policy experts about China's unquenchable thirst for forest products. That demand has propelled China in the last decade from the seventh largest importer of forest products worldwide to the second, in terms of value. (China has already eclipsed the United States in volume of imports.) "That has provided new opportunities for many exporters, but it has also fueled illegal logging and forest destruction," added Kaimowitz, who is executive director of the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, Indonesia.

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Construction companies need this wood for the thousands of hotels, residential towers, office buildings, and malls springing up throughout China. Some city officials and real estate analysts have boasted that the construction crane may be the new national bird. China's burgeoning export industries also need cardboard packaging for everything from DVD players to children's toys to garlic, and a wealthier Chinese population is reading more books and newspapers.

China still gets about 90 percent of its wood from its own forests, but the domestic harvest has been restricted by a 2001 law. Chinese importers have responded by buying up lumber from the Russian Far East, Malaysia, Indonesia, and other countries. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Chinese imports of roundwood (finished and...