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World's Biggest Wood Smuggling Racket Exposed

Posted: 19/02/2005

Environmental activists have exposed the world's biggest smuggling racket involving a single type of wood, with huge shipments of logs going from Indonesia's remote Papua province to China. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), based in London and the US, and Telapak, its Indonesian partner, made the announcement after a three-year investigation into the trafficking of merbau hardwood, used mainly for flooring.

The report comes after Glasgow City Council agreed to suspend the installation of merbau in the £28m redevelopment of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum after about 100 Greenpeace campaigners held a protest. Activists removed wood which was to be used for flooring, insisting it had come from the endangered ancient jungles of south-east Asia. Officials said at the time that they were committed to using wood from environmentally sustainable sources and that the origins of the merbau would be investigated.

The EIA and Telapak reported that logging syndicates were paying bribes of about £100,000 per ship to get logs out of the country. Indonesia has banned the export of unprocessed lumber and in December 2002 signed an agreement with China to fight the illegal trade in forest products. However about 300,000 cubic metres of merbau leaves Papua for China each month, the activists alleged. A cubic metre of merbau, for which local Papuans are paid the equivalent of just 50p, can be made into 26 square metres of flooring, which sells for nearly £1200 in New York or London. "We think that this is the biggest case of a single species of timber, merbau, being smuggled from one location to another location," said Julian Newman, a senior investigator of the EIA. "Our research shows this trade in merbau between Papua and China is being controlled by a few people, a few syndicates, so it's the biggest sort of smuggling racket in terms of the volume and value of the timber being smuggled."

Indonesia has the world's worst deforestation rate, with an area the size of Switzerland being lost every year, the groups said. More than 70% of the island nation's original frontier forests have been lost.
"There is a question mark over whether Indonesia's military is serious to stop its involvement," Arbi Valentinus, spokesman for Telapak, said. A military spokesman declined to comment. The armed forces have previously denied the institution was engaged in the trade, but conceded rogue elements could take part. Susilo Bambang, Indonesia's new president, has pledged to crack down on illegal logging.

Smugglers had turned their eyes to Papua because many tropical forests on Indonesia's side of Borneo island as well as Sumatra island had dwindled, the EIA and Telapak said. Papua Province, a sparsely populated area nearly the size of France, forms the western part of the island of New Guinea. With intact forest cover at around 70%, New Guinea contains the last substantial tracts of undisturbed forest in the Asia-Pacific region, the groups said.

The investigations revealed a network of middlemen and brokers responsible for arranging shipment of the illegal logs to China, their report said. It said the majority of merbau logs stolen from Papua were destined for the Chinese port of Zhangjiagang, near Shanghai. "Indonesia and China signed a formal agreement over two years ago to co-operate in tackling the trade in illegal timber. So far these words have not been matched by actions," Mr Newman said.

Martin Williams / The Herald  
 

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