China Protects its Trees, Devours Others
Mar 25, 2005

Reuters / Beijing

In 1998, after deforestation caused the Yangzi river to burst its banks, costing 2,500 lives and billions of dollars in damage, China's government got serious about trees. It issued orders to protect healthy forests, rehabilitate distressed ones and replant many woodland areas cleared for farmland. It cracked down on illegal loggers. Could it be, conservationists whispered, that a combination of tragedy and self-interest had forced a great emerging consumer to go green?

Alas, the answer is no. While claiming that a sustainable timber industry, able to meet the nation's needs, was its goal, the government slashed tariffs on imported timber. As imports have soared, so have corruption and incompetence within the sector; stipulated checks on the provenance of imported rough-cut logs are often neglected or inadequate. While praising China's efforts to manage its forests better, the same conservationists say it is the main hub of a global trade in illegal timber.

The government, of course, denies it. One of its departments, the State Forest Administration (SFA), which recently completed a five-year survey of China's forests, claims the country's consumption and production of timber are neatly balanced, and that it will continue meeting its need for wood from its own forests for the foreseeable future. According to one senior SFA official: “It is out of the question that the country would satisfy its domestic demands by increasing tree felling from neighbouring countries.”

Yet, according to conservationists, China is already importing vast quantities of timber, much of which is illegally harvested. And even if that were not true, China's predicted growth—at an average of 8% over the next five years—suggests that it soon would be.

A British-based green group, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), says that China imported 1m cubic metres of logs in 1997, and 16m cubic metres in 2002. The country currently consumes 17 times less wood per capita than America, but that figure is expected to shrink. By 2010, according to the World Wildlife Fund, China will be able to meet only half of its demand for industrial wood from domestic supplies.

It is impossible to estimate what proportion of the timber China imports is illegally harvested. Yet cases of abuse are numerous and well-documented, involving timber from Russia, Myanmar and Brazil among other culprits. In a new report, EIA describes a timber-smuggling chain that each month brings 300,000 cubic metres of merbau, a valuable hardwood, from Indonesia's Papua province, to the Chinese port of Zhangjiagang. With most of its forestry already felled, Indonesia bans most exports of timber. Yet according to the EIA, illegal logging is rife in Papua thanks to collusion between Indonesia's army and certain Malaysian logging gangs there.

Chinese conservationists say the logs from Papua are shipped to China with falsified Malaysian paperwork, which Chinese customs officials are unable to verify. To end the racket, they suggest Malaysia's customs should give notice to their Chinese counterparts when legal shipments of logs leave their shores.

But ending the illegal shipments would come at no small cost to China. A short distance from Zhangjiagang lies a small town called Nanxun, which five years ago produced only modest amounts of wooden floorboards. The town now hosts 500 floorboard factories and some 200 sawmills which, according to the EIA, together process one merbau log every minute of every working day.

Many of Nanxum's boards are sold domestically. But some also end up back at sea, being exported to Europe and North America. To end the illegal trade would take help from governments in those regions, and would sadly involve their citizens paying more for their polished floorboards.

The story was published on March 23 in The Economist magazine.

Chinese Logging Menace World’s Hottest Biodiversity Spots

The Kachin Post

February 12, 2004 — Chinese logging project in northern Burma has threatened one of the world’s most biodiversity spots, said experts.

“One of the world's most exceptional biodiversity hotspots 2 is being plundered by two of the parties, Burma and China,” said in a statement released from the 7th conference on the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2,000 experts on biodiversity and sustainable development attend the conference which is being held from February 9 to 20.

Destructive logging industry under the corrupt deals brokered between wealthy Chinese businessmen and cash-strapped armed insurgent groups are the main culprit of threatening one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the world due in large part to its forests, but also to its jade, gold and mineral reserves, said the statement.

“Logging in the Kachin State is severe and chaotic, and it is clear that local population has benefited little in economic terms,” said Jon Buckrell from Global Witness, a British-based non-governmental organization, which focuses on the links between natural resource exploitation and conflict.

The particular concern is the forests of the N’Mai Hku area, which form a critical watershed for the Irrawaddy River, which is of strategic importance to both Burma and China. Chinese companies are carrying out large-scale, unregulated logging and mining operations on the Burma side, because Chinese government only protect natural resources on its own side, said the statement.

“It is crucial that the N’Mai Hku Project is halted immediately: people's livelihoods are being destroyed,” said Buckrell. “China has started to protect its own environment. We simply call on them to apply the same principles to their activities in Burma.”

Global Witness’ report ‘A Conflict of Interests: The uncertain future of Burma’s forests’ points out the estimate timber export from Kachin State to China’s Yunnan province is 600,000 m3 a year, worth approximately US$150 million. The number shows Chinese companies carry out rampant logging in pristine forest in Kachin State.

The exploitation of Kachin's forests has risen to alarming levels as a consequence of ceasefire arrangements between the Burmese military government and local insurgent groups, combined with a growing demand for timber in China and a countrywide logging ban in China, which has increased the demand for Burmese timber.

“China must suspend logging activities in Burma immediately and place a moratorium on the
cross border trade in timber,” said Buckrell. The action will give time for proper planning to ensure the preservation of the area's outstanding biodiversity and it is vital that the forest are used for the benefit of the people of Kachin State, he explained.

In last October, UK based environmental organization Global Witness released a report ‘A Conflict of Interests: The uncertain future of Burma’s forests’. The reports revealed the first time in detail the history of logging in Burma, the reality of current logging by the ruling military regime, logging by insurgent groups, rampant logging in ceasefire areas, and the cross-border trade in particular with China.