It’s extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine the full extent of the illicit production and trade of timber worldwide. Illegal loggers and the shadowy networks that trade in timber outside the law aren’t exactly reporting their activities to authorities who track timber imports and exports. But it is possible to get a sense of the scale of this trade. According to Interpol, the international crime-fighting organization, illegally harvested and traded timber accounts for an estimated 15-30% of the global timber trade and is worth $51 billion to $152 billion every year. This represents a major loss of tax revenue for both the exporting and importing countries, but the damages go far beyond that. “Both illegal logging and the international trade in illicitly harvested timber have a serious economic, social and environmental impact,” Interpol says. “Illegal logging is responsible for deforestation, habitat loss, species extinction, and contributes to global warming.” Stacks of rainforest timber in Indonesia. Image by Rhett Butler/Mongabay. There are efforts to rein in this illegal global trade at many levels of government. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), for instance, is a multilateral treaty that prohibits the trade of endangered species of plants and animals. The federal governments of the United States and Australia have adopted major legislation to stem imports of illegally harvested timber into their countries with the Lacey Act Amendments of 2008 and the Illegal Logging Prohibition Bill of 2012, respectively. Preceding both of those national efforts…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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