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FEATURE-China struggles to choke off illegal wood trade

11 Jun 2007 18:07:26 GMT
Source: Reuters

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A labourer works at a timber market in Xiangfan, central China's Hubei province, June 11, 2007. Vast pyramids of logs line the road up the Nu river valley, signalling the turnings towards the Myanmar border like giant trail markers. Picture taken June 10, 2007. To match feature DEFORESTATION/CHINA/
REUTERS/STRINGER SHANGHAI

(This is part of a package on deforestation issued on June 11) By Emma Graham-Harrison

DANZHU PATH, China, June 11 (Reuters) - Vast pyramids of logs line the road up the Nu river valley, signalling the turnings towards the Myanmar border like giant trail markers.

"They can't take them down the valley because they don't have the permits," said a timber yard manager who gave only his surname Ma, as his employees sawed a pile of trunks into planks.

"Its easier to get them out this way."

The cylinders of lucrative hardwood, harvested from China's impoverished and authoritarian neighbour Myanmar, have been trapped on the river banks by Beijing's mixed efforts to clean up its murky and much-criticised timber trade, merchants say.

Across Africa, Latin America and Asia, irreplaceable rainforests and temperate forests are tumbling, often in violation of local laws, to feed the voracious Chinese market.

The World Bank estimates that in Myanmar alone, half of logging is unauthorised, and environmentalists say almost none is sustainable. Because Myanmar and China share a long, remote land border, much of the timber is also exported to China illegally.

Beijing insists it is clearing up the problem -- ironically exacerbated by a sharp clampdown on logging within China's borders -- after a blaze of embarrassing publicity.

"China and Myanmar are strengthening border management and cracking down on all kinds of illegal activities, including illegal logging, and moreover have achieved obvious results," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in late May.

Campaign group Global Witness says the flow of illicit timber has indeed slowed. But as long as wood passes through border crossings with the correct papers, China has shown little interest in checking how sustainably it was harvested.

Lumber yards can still source any wood customers want, even petrified chunks thousands of years old, sold by weight.

A trader in the county hub of Mangshi, on the western edge of China's Yunnan province, said he sells teak for 13,000 yuan ($1,700) per cubic metre.

In a region where average rural income is just around 2,000 yuan a year, the economics are irresistible.

HISTORIC PROBLEM

China's fast-growing furniture industry -- exports climbed over a third to 60 million pieces in the first quarter of this year alone -- is sucking up foreign wood, in part because the country has been decimating domestic forests for centuries.

Imperial-era connoisseurs of fine wood emptied zitan, or purple sandalwood, from China and then nearly drove it to extinction across the region as well.

Logging for more common timber rose to frenzied levels as China's economy began to boom in the early 1980s -- until devastating floods on the Yangtze river in the late 1990s that killed more than 4,000 and left millions homeless.

The tragedy was due in part to deforestation, because the impact of heavy rains was magnified on bare slopes where forests had once caught water and slowed the run-off.

China's leaders, at the time little concerned with environmental issues, were shocked into action, announcing a ban that is strictly upheld.

"Its not worth it any more to cut wood round here, the fines are so high," said Ye Fuga, from the Lisu minority which has traditionally lived along the Nu river valley and knows how to navigate the dense forests lining its steep slopes.

"Last year a man was fined several thousand yuan for two pieces of rosewood just this long," he added, indicating less than a metre with his hands.

But unwilling or unable to choke off an industry that offers employment in a poor area, resources to key east coast factories, and a lucrative stream of income to local government, this policy pushed the destructive industry over the border instead.

FOREIGN BUYERS

Much of the timber sucked into China heads back overseas after passing through its factories. Its economy may be booming but few are rich enough yet to afford teak floors, even at knock-down prices.

Instead it is turned into hardwood flooring, designer tables and chairs or expensive picture frames for Europe, America, the Middle East and every other corner of the globe where Chinese traders cater to rich buyers' tastes for cut-price luxury.

But some consumers are starting to ask where the wood they are walking on or eating off came from.

And campaigners are hoping that if buying patterns change overseas, it will impact the industry in China, where profits can have a stronger influence than government policy.

"Many regions or cities have procurement policies where they give priority to sustainable wood. That's actually one of the main drivers at the moment," said Alister Monument, China head of the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies sustainably harvested wood from forest to shop floor.

In some places the mix of consumer pressure and legal crackdown is already being felt.

Xishuangbanna, another border region home to ethnic minority groups and rolling hills of rubber tree plantations, has few sawmills left that deal seriously in teak.

"We have a little bit left in store if you just want some for personal use," said a worker surnamed Zhao at one of the largest timber yards in town. "But we don't get big shipments any more." ($1=7.648 Yuan)

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Last updated:Mon Jun 11 18:11:24 2007