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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:20 am
Time: 12:20 am
Results for illegal logging (vietnam)
1 results foundAuthor: Environmental Investigation Agency Title: Borderlines: Vietnam's Booming Furniture Industry and Timber Smuggling in the Mekong Region Summary: EIA/Telapak have been probing the trade in stolen timber in East Asia since the late 1990s. Over the last decade, governments around the world have made a raft of pronouncements regarding the seriousness of illegal logging and their determination to tackle it. Yet the stark reality is 'business as usual' for the organised syndicates looting the remaining precious tropical forests for a quick profit. This report contains new information from field investigations carried out by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and its partner Telapak. It exposes how the rapid growth of Vietnam's wood processing industry is threatening some of the last intact forests in the Mekong region, especially those in neighbouring Laos. Since the mid-1990s, Vietnam has taken steps to conserve its remaining forests, whilst at the same time hugely expanding its wooden furniture production industry. Furniture exports from the country were US$ 2.4 billion in 2007, a startling ten-fold increase since 2000. It is unfortunately inevitable that due to the lack of controls on the global timber trade, illegal timber constitutes a significant component of the imported raw materials supplying Vietnam's furniture factories. Vietnam has an unenviable track record when it comes to dealing in stolen timber. In the late 1990s it was caught importing illegal timber from neighbouring Cambodia. In 2003 EIA/Telapak documented shipments of stolen logs from Indonesia entering Vietnam. As the price of raw timber increases, and some wood producing countries like Indonesia take steps to combat illegal logging, the trade in stolen timber shifts. New evidence from EIA/Telapak reveals that Vietnam is now exploiting the forests of neighbouring Laos to obtain valuable hardwoods for its outdoor furniture industry. This trade is in direct contravention of laws in Laos banning the export of logs and sawn timber. During 2007 EIA/Telapak investigators visited numerous furniture factories and found the majority to be using logs from Laos. In the Vietnamese port of Vinh, EIA/Telapak witnessed piles of huge logs from Laos awaiting sale. At the border crossing of Naphao, 45 trucks laden with logs were seen lining up on the Laos side waiting to cross into Vietnam. EIA/Telapak estimate that at least 500,000 cubic metres of logs move from Laos to Vietnam every year. It is not just Vietnam which is exploiting its neighbour. Traders from Thailand and Singapore are also cashing in. Posing as investors, EIA/Telapak investigators met with one Thai businessman who bragged of paying bribes to senior Laos military officials to secure supplies of timber worth potentially half a billion dollars. The cost of such unfettered greed is borne by poor rural communities in Laos who are dependent on the forests for their traditional livelihoods. They gain virtually no income from this trade: instead, the money goes to corrupt officials in Laos and businesses in Vietnam and Thailand. The ultimate responsibility for this dire state of affairs rests with the consumer markets which import wood products made from stolen timber. To some extent the dynamic growth of Vietnam's furniture industry is driven by the demand of end markets such as the European Union and US. Until these states clean up their act and shut their markets to wood products made from illegal timber, the loss of precious tropical Details: London: Environmental Investigation Agency; Bogor, Indonesia; Telepak, 2008. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 15, 2012 at: http://www.greengrants.org.cn/file/pub/Borderlines[1].pdf Year: 2008 Country: Vietnam URL: http://www.greengrants.org.cn/file/pub/Borderlines[1].pdf Shelf Number: 125268 Keywords: Illegal Logging (Vietnam)Offences Against the EnvironmentOrganized CrimeTimber Smuggling |