Logging illogic.

Money doesn't grow on trees, but some trees might as well be pure gold. The world's voracious (and growing) appetite for wood, paper, and other forest products is driving a stampede to mow down forests.

Much of this logging is illegal. Illegally cut wood accounted for up to 65 percent of world supply in 2000, according to the World Resources Institute. Estimates of illegal logging as a share of the total range from 35 percent in Malaysia, to 50 percent in Cameroon, 50 percent in eastern Russia, 70 percent in Gabon, 73 percent in Indonesia, and up to 80 percent in parts of Brazil. About 40 percent of the wood processed in the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia is of questionable origin, and up to 46 percent of the domestic demand in the Philippines is supplied from illegal sources. Precise global data are unavailable, but in terms of commodity value, illegal logging may be the most serious transnational environmental crime.

Illegal logging activities include logging in national parks and protected areas; harvesting protected timber species; overcutting and underreporting of timber volume, grade, and species; logging for illegal commercial charcoal and fuelwood production; logging without permits; smuggling; and violating forest laws and restrictions. Like money, timber can be "laundered;" in May the BBC reported on illegally logged Indonesian timber that was imported openly into Malaysia, processed into garden furniture, and exported as of Malaysian origin.

National governments have taken a range of measures against these crimes--overhaul of forest legislation, reforming permit processes, adjusting tax codes and royalty systems, various bans--with mixed success. Indonesia, for instance, banned log exports last year and in May declared a temporary moratorium on logging concessions. Logging persists, however, to supply. pulp and paper mills and (via bulldozing and burning) to clear forests for palm oil plantations. Logging bans often increase illegal logging in neighboring countries; a recent Chinese logging ban has boosted demand, for timber from Cambodia, Vietnam, and far eastern Russia. Thailand's logging ban in the 1990s encouraged the extraction of timber in Laos and Myanmar, especially teak.

On the plus side, in northern Tanzania, pilot village forest management programs were so successful in controlling illegal forest activities, including logging, that Tanzania's forest policy now promotes community involvement in forest management nationwide. Ecuador recently launched Vigilancia Verde, a coalition of the Environment Ministry, the armed forces, police, and environmental NGOs, to collaborate in monitoring the transport of timber to markets and mills. In its first year it seized five times the volume of timber confiscated by the government the year before.

Controlling illegal logging is dangerous. After Brazil banned mahogany logging, one of the promoters of the ban was gunned down at his house. In Guerrero, Mexico, the army shot one farmer and jailed and tortured two others who protested logging abuses. A campaign by the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural at Resources against illegal logging and its own corruption has made progress in 2001 over 12 thousand cubic meters of illegal timber confiscated, 76 criminal cases filed and 14 DENR personnel suspended but at the cost of nearly 80 DENK staff killed in the line of duty over the years.

The risk is commensurate with the profits, which h are high because of strong demand for timber products, especially from the developed world According to the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency the European Union imported about $1.5 billion worth of illegal timber in 1999; in 2000 the United States imported ad estimated $330 million worth of illegal timber from Indonesia alone The G8 nations (Britain, Canada France, Germany Italy Japan Russia and the United States) account for about three-quarters of global timber and wood products imports yet to date no G8 nation has laws requiring routine seizure of illegal timber imports

Ms. Haugen (chaugen [e-mail]) is a consultant on resource and energy issues. She is the author of the Directory of Tropical Forestry Journals and Newsletters (FAO-Bangkok, 1997) and co-author of Keeping It Green Tropical Forestry Opportunities for Mitigating Climate Change World Resources Institute, 1995).