Logging illogic.

• Author: Haugen, Christine
• Position: Illegal logging - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Money doesn't grow on trees, but some trees might as well be pure gold. The world's voracious (and growing) appetite for wood, paper, and other forest products is driving a stampede to mow down forests.

Much of this logging is illegal. Illegally cut wood accounted for up to 65 percent of world supply in 2000, according to the World Resources Institute. Estimates of illegal logging as a share of the total range from 35 percent in Malaysia, to 50 percent in Cameroon, 50 percent in eastern Russia, 70 percent in Gabon, 73 percent in Indonesia, and up to 80 percent in parts of Brazil. About 40 percent of the wood processed in the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia is of questionable origin, and up to 46 percent of the domestic demand in the Philippines is supplied from illegal sources. Precise global data are unavailable, but in terms of commodity value, illegal logging may be the most serious transnational environmental crime.

Illegal logging activities include logging in national parks and protected areas; harvesting protected timber species; overcutting and underreporting of timber volume, grade, and species; logging for illegal commercial charcoal and fuelwood production; logging without permits; smuggling; and violating forest laws and restrictions. Like money, timber can be "laundered;" in May the BBC reported on illegally logged Indonesian timber that was imported openly into Malaysia, processed into garden furniture, and exported as of Malaysian origin.

National governments have taken a range of measures against these crimes--overhaul of forest legislation, reforming permit processes, adjusting tax codes and royalty systems, various bans--with mixed success. Indonesia, for instance, banned log exports last year and in May declared a temporary moratorium on logging concessions. Logging persists, however, to supply. pulp and paper mills and (via bulldozing and burning) to clear forests for palm oil plantations. Logging bans often increase illegal logging in neighboring countries; a recent Chinese logging ban has boosted demand, for timber from Cambodia, Vietnam, and far eastern Russia. Thailand's logging ban in the 1990s encouraged the extraction of timber in Laos and Myanmar, especially teak.

On the plus side, in northern Tanzania, pilot village forest management programs were so successful in...