Greenpeace investigations reveal China's pivotal role in laundering illegal timber
Beijing, March 28, 2006 -- China is central to the laundering of illegal timber from some of the world's most endangered
forests, according to a new investigative report by Greenpeace. The trade is driven by domestic and international demand
in the USA, Europe, Japan and other developed countries.
'Sharing the Blame: Global Consumption and China's Role in Ancient Forest Destruction' (1), documents illegally logged
timber, particularly from the Paradise Forests of Asia Pacific (2), being shipped to China. There, it is made into
furniture, flooring and plywood for domestic consumption and for export to satisfy the rising, global demand for
inexpensive wood products.
China is now the world's largest importer of tropical woods: half of all tropical trees logged globally end up in China.
Much of this wood comes from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea where between 76 to 90 per cent of the logging is illegal.
"Illegal logging is rampant in many of the countries that supply China with wood and this destructive trade is fueling
the global forest crisis," said Sze Pang Cheung, deputy campaign director for Greenpeace China. "China has committed
internationally to tackle this problem and must, together with all countries that import these wood products, take
urgent concrete action to ban the trade in timber from illegal or destructive logging."
The report applauds some international buyers for starting to address the issue of illegal logging. Recently, numerous
companies in Europe have committed to stop purchasing Chinese plywood made from illegally logged timber from Papua New
Guinea. These include Wolseley (UK), PontMeyer (Netherlands), Castorama (France) and the French Federation of Timber
Importers (Le Commerce du Bois).
However, the report concludes that the world's forests cannot sustain current consumption patterns in developed
countries and China's escalating demand. China's hunger for wood is already driving more trees to be felled.
In the last 10 years alone, China's total consumption of wood products increased by 70%. A third of this was due to
increase in exports of wood products and 66% to increases in domestic consumption. Greenpeace warns that if China were
to increase its per capita paper consumption to that of the USA, for example, this would require nearly 1.6 billion
additional cubic metres of wood to be logged - equivalent to the Earth's entire yearly harvest.
Today, it is North America, Europe, Japan and other developed countries that consume more ancient forests than anyone
else. "There's massive over-consumption of wood products in developed regions such as North America and Europe," said
Tamara Stark, international advisor to Greenpeace China. "If the world's ancient forests are to survive, consumption
levels in these countries has to drop dramatically."
This month, China acknowledged that the environmental impact of consumption is a serious issue, with Premier, Wen
Jiabao's, call to the country to reduce consumption of wood. Just last week, the Chinese Government announced a 5%
consumption tax on hardwood flooring and disposable chopsticks.
"It's positive that China is taking steps to address wasteful consumption of wood products, but the scale pf the problem
warrants nothing less than a new vision of development," said Sze Pang Cheung.
Greenpeace is urging China and the other 187 signatory nations to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD), meeting in Curitiba, Brazil this week, to protect the world's last ancient forests up by establishing a global
network of protected forest areas, to ban the trade in illegally and destructively logged wood products and to introduce
a legally binding mechanism under the CBD to combat illegal and destructive logging.
Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organisation which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global
environmental problems, and to force solutions essential to a green and peaceful future. It is committed to protecting
the world's last ancient forests and the people and animals that depend upon them.
Notes to editors:
(1) read the new report on: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/sharing-the-blame
(2) The Paradise Forests stretch from South East Asia, across the islands of Indonesia and on towards Papua New Guinea
and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.