China Blamed for Global Forest Depletion

China's globalization of the timber industry is devastating forests and forest communities around the world.

So says Forest Trends, an international nonprofit organization based in the United States. The group's newly released in-depth study says imports of illegally cut timber into China are a major factor contributing to the destruction of many of the world's forests.

It's a vicious cycle. China imports mountains of raw wood--illegally sourced from rain forests and other environmentally sensitive areas--to turn it into cheap furniture, plywood and other processed products, some 70 percent of which China then exports to the US, Japan, and Europe.

This booming trade, coupled with China 's own domestic growth and demand for paper products, spells doom for forests.

The Forest Trends study says exports of wood based products going from China to Europe and the US have gone up 900 percent in just eight years, as China has captured one-third of the global trade in furniture.

"Few consumers realize that the cheap prices they pay are directly linked to the exploitation of some of the poorest people on Earth and the destruction of their forests,” says Andy White, lead author of the report, which is entitled China and the Global Market for Forest Products: Transforming Trade to Benefit Forests and Livelihoods.

The findings are the result of five years of collaborative research by organizations in the US, Indonesia, and China itself (the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science).

The report also finds that China has a tremendous opportunity to boost its own timber production, reduce its reliance on raw materials imports and alleviate rural poverty by strengthening property rights and removing policy barriers that have prevented local communities and people from investing in forest production.

"It is clear that China is in the middle of a global commodity chain, feeding consumption by consumers in the US and EU who are demanding low-priced forest products," says Forest Trends president Michael Jenkins. "There are key roles for consumer countries to play in transforming this trade into one that benefits forests and people.”

The report highlights connections between China 's domestic growth, the global economy's demand for cheap wood products manufactured in China , the widening gap between rural and urban populations within China itself, and environmental destruction and poverty in forest areas around the world. It also presents a number of recommendations for the importing country governments and industry.

Specifically, the report encourages the government of China to strengthen tenure and policy reforms, allowing the rural poor to boost timber production, while simultaneously allowing forestry to contribute more to rural development and reduced rural conflicts. In particular, the report urges Beijing to strengthen efforts to improve productivity within its own forestry sector and reduce its reliance on imports, and engage with other governments to explore new options to achieve the twin goals of ecosystem protection and timber production.

“For a number of years the global forest community has expressed disdain with the Chinese government and industry for driving illegal logging and negative impacts on forests, and encouraged greater action on their part,” Jenkins says. “While, to date, the US government has had a limited and ambivalent approach to addressing illegal logging and trade, US producers are beginning to recognize that they are being undercut by illegally sourced and traded wood."