China Fuels Illegal Trade in Timber, Report Finds - by Andrew Jacobs

China's growing appetite for rosewood dining sets, hardwood floors, plywood and printer paper is helping propel a booming trade in illegally harvested timber and spurring the destruction of fragile ecosystems across the globe, a British environmental organization said in a report released on Thursday.

The organization, the Environmental Investigation Agency, said the Chinese government has largely turned a blind eye as wood importers and furniture makers, some of them state-owned enterprises, have profited from a $4 billion industry that harvests wood illegally from Myanmar, Mozambique, Indonesia and other countries with weak law enforcement and widespread corruption. 

“Illegal logging and the trade in stolen timber are among the most destructive environmental crimes occurring today and directly threaten the world’s vital forests,” the report said.

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