2Sustain

Over the past decade, various stakeholders have collaborated internationally to combat illegal logging and forest degradation, and now new research says these efforts are beginning to pay off.

The 154-page report, Illegal Logging and Related Trade: Indicators of the Global Response, is an in-depth study of the timber trade in twelve producer, processing and consumer countries, and it includes several encouraging indicators of progress in the fight against illegal logging and related trade. For example:

• Total global production of illegal timber has fallen by 22 percent since 2002.

• Specifically, over the past decade, illegal logging has dropped by 50 percent in Cameroon, by between 50 and 75 percent in the Brazilian Amazon, and by 75 percent in Indonesia.

• This reduction, documented in three of the five tropical timber producers studied, has prevented the degradation of up to 17 million hectares of forest, an area larger than England and Wales combined.

• By protecting these 17 million hectares of forest from degradation, researchers estimate that at least 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions have been avoided over the last decade.

Despite the decline, the report says that illegal logging remains a significant problem –and in some ways, it’s becoming a battle that’s even more difficult to fight. Now that obvious infractions are being addressed, illegal practices are becoming more secretive and therefore more intractable.

According to the report, back in 2008, companies in the United States, Japan, the UK, France and the Netherlands bought 17 million cubic meters of illegal timber and wood products worth around $8.4 billion, most of it entering those nations in the form of processed products like plywood and furniture, mainly from China. In 2009, a total of 100 million cubic metres of illegal timber were harvested in the timber producing countries studied.

Obviously, more work needs to be done to improve governance of forests. With an amendment to the Lacey Act in 2008, the U.S. became the first country to ban imports of illegal wood and related products, and the report concludes that there are early indications that this new law is already placing pressure on timber producers and processors around the world to police their supply chains. However, other countries have yet to follow suit, leaving gaps in import regulations and confusion over chain of custody and compliance.

“The effort to combat illegal logging and improve forest governance has brought developed and developing countries together in a unique way with a shared sense of purpose,” says Sam Lawson, Chatham House Associate Fellow and lead author of the report. “Our study shows that consumer interest and pressure combined with action by producer countries can yield very positive results.”