[Tlc] L-forests

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Forwarded from Bonnie Brereton.
Thanks,
justin

Vietnam is thriving on illegal lao timber
Vietnam has become a regional hub for processing large
quantities of unlawfully logged timber for export due to the
huge supply from Laos, which is threatening some of the last
intact forests in the Mekong basin, conservationists said
yesterday.

Published on March 20, 2008


Undercover investigations by the United Kingdom-based
Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak in
Indonesia, revealed the huge number of smuggled logs from Laos
was supplying the fast growing furniture industry in Vietnam.

Supply of illegal timber from Laos to Vietnam was of far
greater quantity than to Thailand, said EIA representative
Julian Newman, who gave no comparative figures.

The Lao government decreed last year that timber for export
must be 100 per cent finished products. The only exception was
for timber cut from expected inundated areas of dam
reservoirs, such as the Nan Theun II.

 Illegal logging and timber smuggling from Laos is widespread.
The EIA/Telapak report estimated that some 600,000 cubic
metres was cut illegally in 2006, with a market value of
US$250 million (Bt7.7 billion)

The smuggling of logs across the porous Laos-Vietnam border is
facilitated by connections between military officers on both
sides of the border, it said.

Vietnam has rapidly built a dynamic wood-processing industry
and has earned a reputation as a world class producer of
wooden furniture, exporting 90 per cent of its production to
120 countries around the world.

Vietnam exported furniture worth US$2.4 billion last year,
making wood products Vietnam's fifth largest export earner.

"Such phenomenal growth has propelled Vietnam past Indonesia
and Thailand to become the second largest exporter of wood
products in Southeast Asia and the fourth largest in the
world," the report said.

Thailand, which used to import a huge quantity of timber from
Laos in early 1990s, no longer relied on its supply from Laos.

The six-month long investigation by EIA/Telapak indicated that
Thailand played a significant role as financier in the Laos
timber trade. Much of the Thai logging trade in Laos was
linked to rural development and dam projects carried out by
Thai-owned construction companies such as Ch Karnchang and
Italian-Thai.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu