Chinese Thirst Drives Illegal Logging in Russia's Far East

• By Howard Amos

Chinese loggers strip Mole Park

The activities of illegal chain-saw operators in connivance with some Chinese nationals is fast threatening the existence of the Mole National Park, one of the country’s largest forest and wild life reserves located in the West Gonja District of the Northern Region.

According to painstaking investigations by DAILY GUIDE, the area in the last one and half years has become the mining point for rosewood by these illegal timber merchants including some Chinese companies who travel to Damongo to engage the youth in felling large volumes of trees meant for export to China.

The practice has assumed an alarming proportion in the last couple of months with some chiefs including theDamongo Wura, Jakpa Lemon Tuntumba II and his elders cashing on it to enrich themselves by taking huge sums from owners of long duty trucks and containers that come to load the wood for export.

The felled timber cut into three-meter sized logs, is loaded on 40-footer containers carried by heavy duty trucks, transported by road to the Tema Harbour and exported to China.

Sources uncovered that the merchants secured permits with specific instructions on what volumes of wood to collect by some link men operating between the chiefs and these Chinese companies with the involvement of some power brokers in government.

These illegal activities come with short-term financial benefits, as locals are engaged for the felling with machines/chainsaws acquired for them by these merchants whose operations are further sanctioned by traditional authorities in the area.

The locals after each consignment of loading a truck are paid between GH¢7,000 and GH¢5,000 depending on the size of the truck and the amount of wood it can contain.

The Damongo Wura and his elders also charge GH¢1,000 for each truck irrespective of its size attracting more timber merchants to the town despite criticisms by officials of the Forestry Commission in Damongo who are presently challenged.

According to our checks, at any point in time there are little over 35 long 40-footer heavy duty trucks in the Damongo township ready to cart rosewood from Laribanga, Busunu, Sor No 1 and 2, Kaden, Yazori, Kopoto, Kpulumbo and Bawena to the harbour.

The West Gonja District Assembly which does not benefit from the activities of these illegal lumbering have indicated to DAILY GUIDE that they are equally challenged as the chiefs continue deal secretly with timber merchants in felling the trees.

Several attempts by some concerned youth to clump down on these activities proved futile in view of the fact that community elders were neck-deep in the operations against the interest of the masses.

According to an unnamed official at the Northern Regional Forestry Commission, Messer’s Savannah Investments Ghana Limited, contractors working on the Fufulso-Damongo-Sawla road were given concession by the commission to cut down trees that have been affected by the construction.

He said due processes were followed before these trees on the shoulders of the road were cut by the contractor but these illegal chainsaw operators capitalized on that and invaded the reserve felling trees despite fierce resistance from the commission and authorities of the Game and Wildlife Division.

West Gonja District Director in charge of the Forestry Commission Antwi Bosiako confirmed DAILY GUIDE’S investigations but said little could be done about the matter with the involvement of the chiefs who were illegally giving out the concessions.

He disclosed that attempts by his men to nip the activities in the bud attracted death threats by some chiefs who vowed to incite residents against them disclosing that efforts to seek support of the military in stopping the practice was objected by the Yagbonwura himself.

Mr. Bosiako admitted that the depletion of the reserve had been going on for over a year now, warning of dire consequences on the environment if the chiefs failed to partner the Commission in halting these activities.

When contacted, Damongo-Wura, Jakpa Lemon Tuntumba II, confirmed taking monies from timber merchants but disclosed it was GH¢500 per each truck adding that most drivers evaded this fine and their whereabouts could not be traced.

According to him, he had no idea who was behind the concession given to the merchants but said he had to take the money since the area fell under jurisdiction and therefore could not allow the merchants to inure benefits from the area while he the custodian got nothing.

The Damongo Wura however denied his involvement in felling the trees as alleged but said the service of the youth in the area was solicited in that regard on an agreed amount he was not privy to.

Secretary to the Yagbonwura, a certain Chief Libbo confirmed that the issue of illegal logging had been brought to the attention of the Yagbonwura’s Secretariat but indicated that no official communication from the operators or Assembly had been received to that effect.

He denied the Yagbonwura’s involvement and said it was the Damongo Wura who took royalties from the operators through his customary land secretariat for projects.

The activities of the illegal chainsaw operators which are seriously threatening the Mole Game Reserve, however came in the wake of concerns that the area was also being poached by some unscrupulous persons.

The poachers hide in the thick vegetation during the rainy season to hunt four different species of antelopes, while the elephants with a population of about 800 are killed for their tusks.

Oliver Chelewura, Tourism officer, claimed that the lucrative money Chinese businessmen paid for the tusks was encouraging the poaching of elephants, compelling game wardens to involve some poachers in a shootout.

The Game Reserve which is the biggest in the country and covers an area of about 4,577km was established in 1971 and is home to more than 94 different mammals, 33 species of reptiles, 300 species of birds, four species of monkeys and 700 species of plants.

Mozambique loses a fortune to illegal timber exports

February 7, 2013

http://eia-international.org/m...legal-timber-exports

Note Ghanians are just like us in their contempt for the pillagers. They were too late. We can nip this in the but.

China is like a nasty virus that will devour everything and anything in its path and the PPP is like a helper host. They are all too willing to host the parasites....

Chinese Loggers Decimate Burma Forests

by Marwaan Macan-Markar

READ Burma's Dictatorship Stripping Ancient Forests

(IPS) BANGKOK -- An army of Chinese loggers has moved into Burma's northern Kachin State, stripping the rugged mountainous area of its timber-rich forests. Rangoon's military leadership finds itself trapped into silence by the political capital Beijing has spent to protect the Burmese regime from increasing charges of oppression and human rights violations leveled by the international community. "In 2004, more than 1 million cubic meters of timber, about 95 percent of Burma's total timber exports to China, were illegally exported from northern Burma to (China's southern) Yunnan province," states Global Witness (GW), a non-governmental organization.

BREAKING NEWS 3 MAY   0000 ET 5 killed in Mosul suicide bombing   FRONT PAGE

"Large parts of forest along the China-Burma border have been destroyed, forcing (Chinese) logging companies to move even deeper into Burma's forests in their search for timber," the London-based environmental lobby revealed here in a new report, "A Choice for China: Ending the destruction of Burma's northern frontier forests." "This is not smuggling of timber, but it is done out in the open and easy to see," Susan Kempel, assistant campaigner of GW, told reporters. "The trade is completely out of control and keeps rising." The same trees that are logged in the Burmese territory are protected on the Chinese side. "There are many signs warning against logging trees in China," said Kempel. Beijing's decision to protect its own environment stems from a 1999 law to ban domestic logging, in particular round wood timber. The Chinese deforestation in northern Burma -- where an estimated 20,000 loggers from the Yunnan province are involved, according to GW -- also goes against the grain of an international agreement that the Chinese government signed. In September 2001, Beijing signed the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) agreement at an East Asia ministerial conference in the Indonesian resort island of Bali. A centerpiece of this agreement was for governments to crack down on illegal logging in Asia, stop the illegal timber trade and initiate forest management programs. But GW does not absolve the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as Rangoon's junta is officially known, and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), an ethnic rebel group active in the area that has put down its arms. "The destructive logging and illegal timber trade take place with the full knowledge and complicity of the SPDC, the Chinese authorities and ceasefire groups," states the 94-page report. Rangoon's reluctance to crack down on the logging, even though it violates Burmese law, has to do with the money it brings in. In 2003-04, timber was the SPDC's third most important source of foreign earnings, amounting to $377 million, according to the GW study. And during the following period, 2004-2005, these earnings had moved up a notch, becoming the SPDC's "second most important source of legal foreign exchange, amounting to $427.81 million and 15 percent of the total," adds the report. The KIO sees the timber trade in similar light, Jon Buckrell, forest policy coordinator of GW, told IPS. "It says that they tax this trade because it brings in large amount of income, but it is in agreement to stop the trade." The difficulty in imposing controls in that region of the Southeast Asian country also arises from the lack of laws and their enforcement in the Kachin State, says Col. James Lum Daw, the KIO's deputy chief of foreign affairs. "The KIO cannot impose its own law because it has signed a ceasefire agreement with the SPDC. And there is no law that has come into force since then, so this logging continues." This has left the Kachin community even more vulnerable, he admitted during an interview. "They have no right to stop this logging even when they know the damage it is causing their environment." The GW expose comes at a time when the region has been earning praise for leading the way in reversing illegal deforestation trends by establishing large-scale timber plantations for industrial use. Currently, an estimated 250 million cubic meters of timber is cut in the region annually for industrial purposes like furniture, for paper and pulp. Of that amount, nearly 140 million cubic meters comes from plantation forests, while about 100 million cubic meters comes from natural forests. In the 1980s, the average deforestation rate in the tropical regions of Asia was an estimated 4 million hectares per year, but that dropped to nearly 2.4 million hectares of deforestation every year during the 1990s. "The 1990s mark a historic turning point, for the majority of timber was being supplied from the plantations," Masakazu Kashio, forest resources officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told IPS. "The Asia-Pacific region has been the champion in creating plantations for timber." But China's voracious appetite for imported timber from natural forests has continued to threaten that record, with the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea being part of the supply chain, in addition to the forests in the Kachin State. And an April 2005 meeting reveals the difficulty in bucking this trend, since, according to the GW report, ministers meeting in Jakarta "failed to reach an agreement to prevent the illegal trade of forestry products from Indonesia to China."

China’s illegal loggers get off with slap on the wrist in Myanmar

China Saps Mozambique of Timber Resources

In a 4x4 vehicle arranged by a local group that monitors Mozambique's forests, I travel to Maganja da Costa in the once-heavily-wooded Zambezia province, the country's poorest. Maganja is a tiny district, a five-hour drive along tortuous, dusty roads -- traveled by villagers on bicycles with huge bags of firewood on their heads -- from Quelimane, one of the country's main port cities. Quelimane was journey's end for Livingstone on his trek from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean in 1856. But it is the start of my trans-African journey. My destination is a field office of Madeiras Alman, a unit of a Taiwanese conglomerate and one of the largest exporters of timber from Mozambique back to mainland China.

The office turns out to be nothing more than an unmarked trailer in the middle of a forest. A hand-painted sign nailed to a nearby stick reads <cite>Alman</cite>. The trailer is vacant, but within minutes of arriving, I am surrounded by dozens of angry locals demanding to be paid. "They think you're the Chinese owner," explains Gil, a forest technician acting as my guide. After explaining through my translator that I'm not the owner, or even Chinese, I manage to calm the men down. They say they'd been stiffed for work performed -- a common complaint in the forestry trade here. They'd each been promised $120 for three months of backbreaking labor -- lifting logs the size of girders by hand onto trucks, in a forest littered with land mines left over from a civil war -- but were paid only $25. They've been showing up every day for months in a futile search for managers who never appear.

They are short men, under 5 feet tall, and wear ripped clothes that are likely Chinese knockoffs. A man named Pedro sports a <cite>Sean John</cite> shirt, another an orange <cite>David Beckham</cite> tee, while a third reads <cite>Vogue Paris</cite>. One man's cap informs me that <cite>This is the closest thing to a handyman this family's got</cite>. Many are barefoot, with bloodshot eyes and missing teeth, flies moving in and out of their mouths.

One man identifies himself as Pinto, the chief, and says they are from the Alukadi tribe, which has been in the region for centuries. They never signed any paperwork with their Asian bosses, he tells me, but they yell and scream, promising to "go to war" unless they are paid. "We have the power to remove this office," one man shouts. In fact, they have no power at all.

"Let China sleep," Napoleon famously remarked, "for when she awakes, she will shake the world." Today, China is not only roused, she is devouring the world for breakfast. In just a few years, it has become the world's top consumer of timber -- as well as zinc (with 30% of global demand), iron and steel (27%), lead (25%), aluminum (23%), and copper (22%), along with nickel, tin, coal, cotton, and rubber. The entire sub-Sahara currently uses one-twentieth the amount of steel China does. And although China is the planet's second-biggest consumer of oil, behind the United States, it's gaining fast.

One-fifth of humankind lives in China, and an increasing number of those people are seeking a consumerist version of xiaokang, or "well-being." If their per capita GDP (now about $6,500) approaches South Korean levels in the next 20 years, as it is on track to do, Chinese consumption of aluminum and iron ore will increase fivefold; oil, eightfold; and copper, ninefold. As Sunter, the author and futurologist, puts it, "China is putting 1.3 billion people through an industrial revolution with neither colonies nor substantial indigenous resources besides coal. The only way it can do this is by establishing long-term supply contracts with resource-rich countries."

In sub-Saharan Africa, the Chinese seem to be everywhere: clearing trees in Mozambique, drilling for oil in Sudan, digging in copper mines in Zambia, opening textile factories in Kenya, prospecting for uranium in Zimbabwe, buying cobalt in the Congo, laying expressways in Angola. They have launched a satellite from Nigeria and built phone networks in rural Ghana and a dozen other countries. Hospitals, water pipelines, dams, railways, airports, hotels, soccer stadiums, parliament buildings -- nearly all of them linked, in some way, to China's gaining access to raw materials. A $5 billion, 50-year government fund to encourage Chinese companies to invest in Africa. A $9 billion loan package for Congo. A $5.6 billion stake (20%) in Standard Bank, the biggest on the continent. And in April, $40 billion -- plus in export-credit guarantees to help fund investment in Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer.

At any given time, roughly 800 Chinese state-owned or state-controlled corporations are operating in Africa, with China's Export-Import Bank funding more than 300 projects in at least 36 countries. Tens of thousands of small private companies and entrepreneurs are also on the ground. In tiny Lesotho, nearly half the supermarkets are owned and run by Chinese. Mauritius, home to many Chinese-owned factories, just added the Chinese language to the national school curriculum. The value of Chinese aid in Africa -- a closely guarded secret -- is now thought to have overtaken World Bank assistance.

Influence of that magnitude threatens to wipe out a decade's worth of efforts by global institutions to push African governments to improve human rights and government transparency. As Sahr Johnny, the Sierra Leonean ambassador in Beijing, once said about China's projects in Africa: "They just come and do it. We don't hold meetings about environmental-impact assessment, human rights, bad governance and good governance. I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying Chinese investment is succeeding because they don't set high benchmarks."

China's influence threatens to wipe out a decade's worth of efforts to improve African human rights and government transparency.

Clem Sunter ran the gold-and-uranium unit of Anglo-American Mining in the 1990s, and today oversees its social-responsibility fund. In 2006, he was invited to Beijing to do scenario planning with members of the Communist Party elite, a rare invitation for a foreigner. To grasp why Africa is China's "continent of choice," as he puts it, one must first appreciate how desperate China's leaders are for what the sub-Sahara has to offer. China is on track to surpass America as the world's largest economy within a few decades, and it needs to maintain that fantastical rate of growth in order to avoid adding 25 million people to the unemployment ranks each year. That is nothing short of a crisis: Unaddressed, it could lead to the undoing of the Communist Party. China is already facing 80,000 social protests per year, and the figure is rising fast. So the dragon must be fed. As bureaucrats in Beijing like to say, "China is like an elephant riding a bicycle. If it slows down, it could fall off, and the earth might quake."

Africa is one of the only places in the world where so many resources are still up for grabs. It holds 90% of the world's cobalt, 90% of its platinum, 50% of its gold, 98% of its chromium, 64% of its manganese, and one-third of its uranium. Its forests are still considered the most pristine in the world. It is rich in diamonds, has more oil reserves than North America, and is estimated to have 40% of the world's potential hydroelectric power. It already supplies a third of the oil fueling China's economic boom.

Sino-African trade hit $73 billion in 2007, a staggering thirty-fold increase in less than a decade. China recently passed France to become the sub-Sahara's second-largest trading partner, and will likely pass the United States by 2010. In terms of cumulative direct investment, America still reigns at about $19 billion, virtually all of it concentrated in oil and in a few countries. But at $2 billion and growing fast, China is gaining ground, while spreading its investments across many resources and infrastructure projects, from Angola to Zimbabwe. China today has the largest number of embassies, consulates, and diplomats in Africa, and hardly a week goes by without the announcement of a new deal or project. As the famed Hong Kong contrarian investor Marc "Dr. Doom" Faber has put it: "There is no continent better suited to China than Africa."

On the long drive back to Quelimane from Alman's forest outpost, we approach the town of Nicoadala, the only real checkpoint before timber is loaded onto container ships. A few miles before the checkpoint, a lumber truck we've followed for miles suddenly stops beside the highway. A man climbs down and vanishes into a white residential house hidden behind some landscaping. He emerges 30 minutes later and the truck continues to the checkpoint, where a man who identifies himself as João Mário Mafundisse -- an agronomist and part-time forest cop -- approaches our vehicle. We expect him to chase us away, but he instead unleashes a torrent of frustration. "The Chinese pay the control man here," he says, jabbing a finger at the checkpoint office. "It's a bad problem. The Chinese give money to the Mozambique people to cut too much and take the logs to Asia, and the Mozambique people never have development. Government controls are not effective because of corruption."

Multiply that workaday scene a hundred-thousand times or so, and you begin to get a sense of how the game is played here -- by all parties, from the East and the West. As one Western money-laundering investigator told me, "Every project in Africa has to have a politician involved. In big ones, it has to be the president or foreign minister. I don't know a country in Africa that doesn't have that, except maybe South Africa."

In Beijing's checkbook diplomacy, African governments receive multibillion-dollar deals in return for mining, timber, or oil rights. (The Chinese aren't interested in owning the land itself, only what lies within or on top of it.) The money is offered as a mix of cash, investment, cheap credit, and aid; some of it is earmarked for infrastructure projects -- dams, airports, bridges, power plants, pipelines. Significantly, much of that infrastructure is crucial to China's ability to operate effectively in the country, but it can also provide a much-needed stimulus to the local economy. Of course, China's closed books make it impossible to see where the money actually goes, opening the door to all manner of inducements to local and national officials. These cash-heavy "no strings attached" offers make China's projects very hard to imitate for public companies from the West -- and all but irresistible to the cliques sitting atop most sub-Saharan countries.

For the outside world, Beijing markets its efforts with flowery rhetoric -- reminiscent of Mao Zedong's in Africa in the 1960s -- touting China as a "selfless friend" intent on fostering a "harmonious" relationship. But China doesn't hesitate to create more lasting symbols of its benevolence: parliament buildings in Uganda and Congo, a presidential palace in Sudan, the Supreme Court in Namibia, an entirely new administrative capitol rising in Equatorial Guinea -- and lavish soccer stadiums everywhere. These monuments not only distract restive local populations but are also, as one of the continent's best-known businessmen sees it, part of a subtler "psychological strategy: When the people are recreating, they will automatically revere the Chinese. And when the parliament is sitting, they will automatically revere the Chinese."

In a pinch, China's leaders revert to invoking the memory of "colonial aggression" and their common history with Africans as the subjects of outside oppression. China will never, Beijing constantly reminds them, "impose its will" on another country -- a welcome relief after years of Western loan offers inconveniently premised on good governance and respect for human rights, and spending directed to alleviate poverty. In reality, there are often other strings attached. In December, for example, Malawi promptly cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan after 41 years, in exchange for an expected billion-dollar package from Beijing. And, just like projects from U.S. government agencies, the big PRC projects in Africa are "tied" -- meaning that mainly Chinese companies, materials, and labor are to be used.

Few would argue that the sub-Sahara doesn't need all the big projects it can get. But with the exception perhaps of South Africa, the region is so desperate and defeated, and the forces of globalization so severe, that China undoubtedly has the upper hand in its deals. During a stopover in Johannesburg, I met with George Nicholls, who runs Pasco Risk, the largest Africa-exclusive corporate intelligence agency. Nicholls says he has studied 30 Chinese deals in Africa over the past two years, hopping from country to country, looking for a pattern. "The question is, What is the Chinese endgame in Africa?" he says over our traditional dinner of steak and boerewors (farmer's sausage) at Nelson Mandela Square. "My guess is they are trying to opt out of the international system for commodity prices. They are saying, 'Instead of the Western way, we'll go direct to the source and get it cheaper and more easily.' Western companies fight to own 20-year concessions. But it is irrelevant to the Chinese who owns the concessions -- they want the commodity, the offtake, and will do whatever they can to get it."

"Chinese corporations and crime syndicates have been accused of bribery, smuggling, counterfeiting, corruption, and dumping," Nicholls says. "By the time the Americans come to the party, the Chinese will have taken it. That's the risk the West runs." Nicholls knows his "clients want to outsmart the Chinese," but the Chinese are "opaque, they go everywhere, they operate outside the international system. And they are thinking 50 to 100 years out." As to where China's role in Africa will lead, Nicholls suspects it is "analogous to the colonial drive for assets and territory. Chinese policies may ultimately do nothing to develop Africa in anything other than the short term."

Mozambique's is a sad story. At its independence from Portuguese rule in 1975, the country was one of the world's basket cases. It still is. Soaring violent crime and growing organized-crime networks. Systemic corruption. A police force as crooked as the crooks they chase. Little or no government transparency. A devastating AIDS crisis. Annual flooding of entire provinces. Years of socialist mismanagement and a brutal 16-year civil war that killed a million people before it ended in 1992. More than 70% of Mozambique's 20 million citizens live on less than $2 a day, and only 8% have electricity.

The Bush administration nevertheless lavishes Mozambique with praise (and a recent $500 million aid package) for making progress on economic freedom, good governance, and transparency. And the World Bank recently called it "one of the greatest success stories anywhere in the world." Yet U.S. companies largely ignore the place. The country remains one of the most difficult in the world in which to do business, according to the World Bank's own annual index.

The Chinese, though, are suddenly omnipresent. Trade between the two countries has expanded sixfold since 2001. Steel factories. Textiles. Shoes. Motorbikes. Auto products. Hotels. Banking. A $2.3 billion soft loan for a controversial dam the World Bank deemed too risky to fund. A new soccer stadium. A glittering convention center. A parliament building. A state-of-the-art airport makeover. The humongous headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, perhaps the most modern structure in the capital city of Maputo.

China is providing science equipment to the country's main university and helping build a satellite campus. Its embassy here is a sprawling gated complex of six huge yellow buildings that dwarfs its sleepy American counterpart. China's government blithely calls its relationship with Mozambique a "win-win" situation by two undeveloped countries that have endured similar abuses, a sentiment echoed by Mozambique's government, at least publicly. "Mozambique has a socialist past," a Western diplomat based in Maputo points out, "so it is closer to China politically than other countries. And [Mozambicans] say they remember that 'the Chinese were with us' when they were fighting for independence."

Rafique Jusob heads the Mozambican government's center for promoting investments. "China treats us like a peer," he insists. "They have a culture of respect for other people. They don't interfere, they don't invade countries. Americans? They don't even know where Mozambique is. And you [Americans] are trying to export morals which even in your own country didn't work."

Many observers, however, see China's deals here as emblematic of the imbalance of power between the two countries, what the head of the African Development Bank recently described as Africa's lack of "capacity to negotiate." That sentiment is echoed by Jim LaFleur, senior economist for Mozambique's largest business association and a longtime American resident of Maputo. "The Chinese are building things in exchange for mining rights, timber rights, fishing rights, and these are absolutely bad deals," LaFleur complains. "We've lost an asset, and in exchange we got a ministry building, which is just an opportunity cost for China." Stellenbosch University's Corkin is more categorical still: "China is very clear about what it wants from Africa," she says. "Africa has absolutely no idea what it wants from China."

In some cases, China's extractive work is clearly orchestrated and paid for by its central government or leading state-owned institutions; in others, it's more amorphous, driven by Chinese private operators -- but with government-funded sweeteners or incentives. Some of the activity is legal and some clearly not. Chinese-made counterfeit products proliferate, cannibalizing embryonic local industry -- or aborting it altogether. Illegal fishing along the 1,500-mile coastline is done mainly by the Chinese; Mozambique's authorities, with just 10 patrol boats, can't even begin to make a dent. And then there is the timber problem.

China introduced widespread logging bans at home in 1999, after deforestation was blamed for soil erosion and severe flooding. Now China is staging a virtual holdup on the rest of the planet's wood. It is the world's largest importer of unprocessed logs and tropical timber; of every 10 tropical trees traded in the world, 5 are destined for China. And its exports of wood products such as furniture and flooring are growing at a faster clip than domestic consumption, with the United States by far its best customer.

Few industries are as murky as the black market in wood. The World Bank estimates that 40% of China's timber imports from Russia -- its largest source -- are illegally harvested. In 2005, Greenpeace investigators chronicled the log trade from Papua New Guinea to China and found that 90% of it was illegal. As Chinese operators push deeper into the forests of Mozambique and other sub-Saharan countries, it's likely that most of that product -- maybe the chair you're sitting in, or the flooring beneath your feet -- is tainted as well. "Most logs imported into China are effectively stolen," says the Smithsonian Institution's William Laurance, one of the world's foremost tropical biologists. For the past year, the U.S. International Trade Commission has been probing China's logging practices (its report is due this month).

Timber is vital for the future of Mozambique's economy, but you wouldn't know it by the assault on its forests, which cover 70% of the nation. Mozambique is now China's leading source for wood in East Africa, and most of this timber leaves the country as raw, unprocessed logs, essentially subtracting its value from one of the world's poorest economies and adding it to what is becoming one of the richest. The best hardwood species are being obliterated, without replanting, and experts predict the forest's commercial value could be lost in as little as five years. Mozambique doesn't even have a functioning plywood industry; meanwhile the wood-products industry in China is skyrocketing, feeding local demand as well as the West's.

A 2006 report funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development describes log exporting from Mozambique as an exploitative "gold rush." And with one cop for every 125,000 acres, local enforcement is a fantasy. "A timber mafia" has arisen, concludes Catherine Ann Mackenzie, a highly regarded forestry expert who has spent months trekking across Mozambique studying the problem. Massive conflicts have arisen between the public duties and private interests of some government officials and party members, she notes. "They manipulate forest regulations, statistics, and technical information; accept bribes; and are personally involved in logging and benefiting from this Chinese takeaway."

Marcelo Mosse, too, is on the front lines, as one of only a handful of investigative reporters in Mozambique. At a meeting in his well-guarded office in Maputo, he holds up a book he co-wrote -- a biography of his friend, investigative reporter Carlos Cardoso, who was murdered in 2000 for prying too deeply into bribery and influence peddling. "We don't have a political will in Mozambique to fight corruption, even though our president says it every time he speaks publicly," Mosse says. "Many Chinese companies come here and don't follow the rules we have in forestry because they have partnerships with ministers and politically connected people."

The Mozambican parliament passed a new anticorruption law in 2004, but there's no sign that anyone has been charged under it. Last year, the country's then -- attorney general insisted to local reporters that there are cases before the courts, but that "it's inelegant" to name those accused. In fact, says Mosse, "You can expose corruption but you won't see any follow-up by judicial institutions. There's been no bribery case investigated or prosecuted."

Most of the country's timber operators own what's called a "simple" license, available only to Mozambican nationals. The $15,000 fee for the license gives them a specific area and a specific amount they can cut per year. But many can't afford the license, let alone pay for equipment and trucks. Enter the Chinese timber buyers, who are all too happy to issue credit for everything, letting Mozambicans front for them. That might be fine if this were as far as the deals went. But basically anything goes in Mozambique: overcutting; mislabeling species before export; undermeasuring; underinvoicing to avoid taxes; bribery of government, customs, and forestry officials.

The trade is sometimes dangerous. Simple license holders "come inside our forest to steal logs," complains Carlos Silva, a top manager of Grupo Madal, one of the country's largest timber operations. Every few months, license holders fight with Modal's guards. Industry reformers have also received threats, among them, Carlos Serra Jr., a forestry expert with the country's Ministry of Justice. By day, Serra trains judges in environmental law; by night, he is an activist, raising awareness of what Chinese loggers and their sponsors are doing. "People from the government are involved, and the private sector, and the political class," he says during an interview at the office of Justiça Ambiental (Environmental Justice), a local NGO. "And they warn you to shut up and don't investigate because there are powerful people in the business whose backs are protected. It's known as costas quentes ['hot back']."

For ordinary Mozambicans, desperate for any form of income, a simple license has been a road to success, no matter how they got hold of one. Four years ago, Claudia Palha, a 40-year-old in Quelimane, approached a Chinese buyer who lent her funds for a license and equipment on a 12,000-acre plot. She would pay him back in timber. Within two years, she had 15 employees and was selling 10 truckloads a day. Palha expresses concern that Mozambique's precious resources are being shipped off to China but shrugs it off as a "paradox." She wants "the timber from our province to stop going away," but her family needs the money. "This country has many resources," she says, "but many schools here have no desks, no chairs, and children are sitting on the floors."

The government of Mozambique has taken some steps recently to try to stanch the bleeding in its forests. A national ban on the export of certain popular species has technically been in effect since last June. But cynics say the Chinese (and their powerful protectors) inevitably maneuver around such limits. Indeed, a recent amendment to the ban allows the export of "planks" with no edging required. In plain speak, this means "the Chinese can buy a log, put two cuts through it, and clear it for export," says Mozambique-born Nicolas Kassimatis, one of Zambezia province's largest sawmill operators. "The crooked politicians destroy any law that comes out."

To make matters worse, the Mozambican government recently stopped issuing new simple licenses -- sparking massive local protests -- and is instead pushing "concessions," which few locals can afford. These are larger tracts of land available also to foreigners; they are issued for a period of 50 years, with requirements that they have a sawmill operation (to spur local processing) and a management plan for sustainable cutting. But those rules, too, are easily skirted. In Zambezia province, Kassimatis estimates that as much as 90% of conceded land is now held by Chinese interests. "To someone driving in, it's a great big forest," he says. "To someone who knows, there's nothing left in it. It's too late."

Blaming China for all of this is easy, but China is following an economic model that has long worked in the West's favor. Everyone knows the earth's forests are shrinking, but few realize the net loss is now 12 million acres a year, roughly the size of England, according to the UN. Even fewer people know just how much China has utterly transformed the timber business -- or how America benefits

.

"Personally, I think the Chinese are bad," says Alima Abdul Kadir Issufo, the head of Mozambique's Forest Department, in her office in Maputo. "I'm not happy with the way they do things. They are -- how can you say it? -- thirsty?" She laughs. But then her tone turns grave: "To understand others, you have to understand you, America. If you stop buying Chinese products made from our wood, then we can conserve our timber more. You will make a difference. We are all part of the problem."

Guyana has been sold to the chinese by this gang of thieves.

Chinese luxury furniture linked to murder, near extinction

Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
May 12, 2014

Intricately carved, meticulously designed, and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars: this is "hongmu," or Chinese luxury furniture reflecting the elite styles of the Ming and Qing dynasties. But while the red-colored furniture may be aesthetically beautiful, it comes with a blood price. The hongmu craze—which is booming among China's newly wealthy—is linked to murder, drugs, and the near extinction of a number of species, including Siamese rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis), in a new report by the Environmental Investigative Agency (EIA).

"The soaring value of Siamese rosewood has spurred a dramatic rise in illegal logging in an international criminal trade increasingly characterized by obscene profits, violence, fatal shootings and widespread corruption at every level," said Faith Doherty, an EIA Forest Campaign Team Leader.

Siamese rosewood is not found in China, but the nearby Mekong region, including Cambodia, Lao, Thailand, and Vietnam. While currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, the listing hasn't been updated for 16 years. During that time the tree has been stripped to near extinction across the region for hongmu furniture, according to the report.


Forest rangers in Thailand protecting rosewood. Several Thai rangers have died in the line of duty during firefights with illegal loggers. Photo by: EIA.

"Siamese rosewood has become so rare and valuable that the practice of logging it is now more akin to wildlife poaching," reads the report. "The majority of the timber that finds its way to the markets of China is sought by teams of skilled men from rural villages who will spend weeks at a time in remote forests tracking down the last stands."

This underground trade has led to murder and explosions of violence, especially on the border of Thailand and Cambodia. Here, Cambodian nationals sneak across the border to extract Siam rosewood, frequently leading to firefights with rangers tasked in protected the vanishing species.

Logging for hongmu woods has expanded to Laos and Myanmar in recent years. Chart courtesy of the EIA.

"The tools of the trade are chainsaws, guns and even rocket-propelled grenade launchers..." reads the report. "Since 2009, dozens of forest rangers have been killed on Thailand's rosewood frontline. Fatalities among loggers are even higher, with 45 Cambodians reportedly shot dead by Thai forces in 2012 alone."

Illegal loggers are often paid in a methamphetamine known as yaba, which was originally designed for horses.

Rising concern for Siamese rosewood led the species to be listed on Appendix II on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last year, which requires strict regulation for international trade. Since logging of Siamese rosewood is illegal in every country, this effectively bans any trade. Still, the report finds that corruption and bribery means Siamese rosewood is still targeted.

But Simaese rosewood isn't the only species used in hongmu furniture, though it remains among the most highly-sought. Hongmu identifies 33 official species, 21 of which are found in Asia, seven from the Americas, and five in Africa.

"Many of the populations of these species are being methodically exhausted in order of meet demand from China's wealthy elite...Surging demand in China, especially since 2009, has progressively led to Hongmu species being stripped from the Mekong region, India, Madagascar, Central America and Africa," notes the report.

Hongmu table. Photo by: EIA.

Given the scarcity, traders are increasingly switching to alternatives to Siam rosewood, including Burmese rosewood (Dalbergia bariensis), which is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List but also has not been updated since the late 1990s.

The EIA says China must enact laws that make it a crime to import illegally logged timber from abroad. Such laws have recently been enacted in the U.S., the EU, and Australia, helping to curb illegally logged wood from these countries.

China should also "reform the Hongmu industry to ensure it stops stimulating demand for endangered species, and trading in illicit timber," says the report.

The EIA also notes that government auctions of seized Siamese rosewood must be halted in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, as such auctions only fuel demand.


Rosewood logs from trees likely several hundred years old. Photo by: EIA.

'Exporting deforestation': China is the kingpin of illegal logging

Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
November 29, 2012



Logs smuggled across the border from Myanmar to China. Photo © : EIA.

Runaway economic growth comes with costs: in the case of China's economic engine, one of them has been the world's forests. According to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), China has become the number one importer of illegal wood products from around the world. Illegal logging—which threatens biodiversity, emits carbon, impoverishes local communities, and is often coupled with other crimes—has come under heavy pressure in recent years from the U.S., the EU, and Australia. Each of these has implemented, or will soon implement, new laws that make importing and selling illegal wood products domestic crimes. However, China's unwillingness to tackle its vast appetite for illegal timber means the trade continues to decimate forests worldwide.

"China is now the biggest importer, exporter, and consumer of illegal timber in the world," the report, Appetite for Destruction: China's Trade in Illegal Timber, reads.

Launched today in Beijing, the new EIA report estimates that in 2011 China imported at least 18.5 million cubic meters of illegal logs and sawn timber, worth around $3.7 billion. Taken together, this amount would fill nearly a million standard 20-foot shipping containers. Even this does not tell the full story, as the new report did not analyze other wood products imports, which make up 55 percent of China's total trade in wood.

Log truck en route to Beira, Mozambique. Photo © : EIA.

"China is now effectively exporting deforestation around the world," Faith Doherty, head of EIA’s Forests Campaign, explains in a statement.

For example, the report finds that in 2011, China imported at the very least 11.8 million cubic meters of illegal raw logs. Forty-seven percent of these illegal logs (5.6 million cubic meters) came from Russia while 21 percent (2.5 million cubic meters) came from Papua New Guinea. Logging, mining, and massive hydrocarbon projects have recently sprung up across Papua New Guinea, creating local conflict and often separating locals from the forests they have depended on for millennia. The report warns that "at the current rate, commercial forests [in Papua New Guinea] could be exhausted in a decade."

The remaining illegal logs last year came from the Solomon Islands (12 percent), Myanmar (4 percent), Republic of the Congo (4 percent), Equatorial Guinea (2 percent), and Mozambique (1.5 percent).

"More than half of China's current supplies of raw timber material are sourced from countries with a high risk of illegal logging and poor forest governance," the report warns, noting that once China exhausts forests in one country, it moves onto another.

Ironically, even as China has increasingly depended on raw logs and timber from abroad, it has undertaken herculean efforts to grow and protect forests at home. In the last two decades, China's forest cover has grown by 30 percent—while forest cover worldwide continues to plummet.

"Since the late 1990s the country has taken strong measures to protect and grow its own forests. At the same time it has built a vast wood processing industry, reliant on imports for most of its raw materials supply," reads the report.

In the past the bulk of illegal logs entering China would be fashioned into products and shipped abroad, but today the illicit trade has moved more and more toward meeting increased domestic demand for luxury woods.

Illegal rosewood logging in Masoala National Park. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

"The vast construction effort in China, coupled with increasing wealth, is creating a surge in domestic demand for timber products," states the report. "A vivid example is the fashion for reproduction furniture made from rare rosewoods, which has created an upsurge in illegal logging from the Mekong region to Madagascar."

A government coup in 2009 led to the plundering of Madgascar's vanishing forests, including rainforests within protected areas. Loggers targeted the highly-valuable rosewood, despite a ban on cutting the increasingly rare species. EIA investigations found that 95 percent of the rosewood was at the behest of Chinese traders.

Despite such high-profile devastation, the report finds that the Chinese government "has done virtually nothing to curb illegal imports," and has largely encouraged it by "putting in place policies to ensure supply from some of the worst illegal logging hotspots in the world."

With its new report the EIA urges China to begin to take illegal logging seriously. It recommends the superpower spell out a clear prohibition on the importation of illegal logging, introduce anti-corruption laws, and set up a body of experts from various departments to eradicate illegal logging from the supply trade.

In the meantime, the report also recommends that nations with laws against importing illegal wood products—i.e. the U.S., the EU, and Australia—keep a wary eye on imports from China.

"Any further meaningful progress to safeguard the forests of the world is being undermined unless the Chinese Government acts swiftly and decisively to significantly strengthen its enforcement and ensure that illegal timber is barred from its markets," Doherty says.

Illegal logging, which is often run by large international mafias, occurs in tandem with other crimes, such as drugs and human trafficking. In some countries, activists and journalists who speak out against illegal logging are met with threats, violence, and even murder. This year, a forest activist, Chut Wutty, was killed while investigating illegal logging in Cambodia; months later a journalist covering illegal logging, also in Cambodia, was found dead in the trunk of his car likely due to an axe wound to the head.




Luxury table set made with Himalayan Yew from Myanmar. Sells for $6,000. Photo © : EIA.

Corruption still plundering forests in Laos for furniture

Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
September 26, 2012



Deforestation in Laos for a rubber plantation. Raw logs from such deforestation often make their way to Vietnam. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

The forests of Lao are still suffering from widespread destruction with the government turning a blind eye to a thriving black market logging trade on the border of Laos and Vietnam, according to an update report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). Last year, the EIA found that powerful players, including the Vietnamese military, were plundering Laos of its forests for raw logs. Smuggled from Laos into Vietnam, the raw logs are crafted into furniture, which are eventually exported to Europe and the U.S. Now, over a year later a new report finds little has changed.

"It is business as usual," the report reads. "The plunder of Laos' forests continues unchecked. A handful of powerful firms are still moving logs across the border, aided by murky exemptions from timber export controls apparently granted by the upper echelons of the Government of Laos."

While Laos has banned raw logs from export, investigations by the EIA finds that this policy has become riddled with exceptions allowing well-connected government officials to aid the underground trade.

"Such exemptions are issued by a small group of senior officials in the central government, and can permit 'special' quotas of logs to be exported, usually in return for investment in and ownership of infrastructure and plantation projects across the country," the report reads.

The report points to several well-connected companies for perpetuating the corrupt trade, including Phonesack, Nicewood, and COECCO, the latter of which is owned by the Vietnamese military. Raw logs are often paid for in cash, leaving little paper trail, and then resold across the border for much higher prices.

"There's no justification for the Government of Laos to continue channeling resources into the hands of these individuals at the expense of its people," EIA Forests Campaigner Tom Johnson, said in a press release. "Equally, the Vietnamese Government, as a professed 'special friend' of Laos, must stop the unsustainable pillage of Laos’ forests by its industry—not least by its Army."

Laos has also become a center point for the illegal rosewood trade. Overexploited worldwide, rosewood cutting has been outlawed in many countries including Vietnam. However, the trade has now moved into Laos and Myanmar, with rosewood eventually making its way to China for crafting into high-end furniture and other luxury goods.

"Nearly all, if not all, of these rosewood exports are illegal or involve illegality at some stage in the chain," reads the report.

Last month, Dr. Souvanhpheng Bouphanouvong, President of the National Assembly of Lao's Committee on Economic Planning and Finance, announced that the Lao government was working on land reform issues, which could have major impacts on Lao's forests.

"A new national land policy is a priority in Laos," Dr. Bouphanouvong added. "Land disputes are a top concern of Lao's multi-ethnic population, and as a nation, we cannot ignore this opportunity to address conflicts and alleviate poverty."

The EIA recommends that Laos enforce its current raw log ban, close loop holes, and improve monitoring of log flows in the country. In addition, the country should seek aid through the EU's burgeoning Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative, which will make selling illegally logged wood products in Europe a crime, much like the Lacey Act has in the U.S. The EIA is also calling on the Vietnamese government to investigate companies allegedly involved in the smuggling.

As of 2005, nearly 70 percent of land in Laos was forested (16 million hectares). However, like much of Southeast Asia, primary forest has become a rarity in Laos; about 9 percent of its forest total (1.49 million hectares) is comprised of primary forest.

The company’s concessions are illustrated in one of the slides in Chu Wenze’s presentation:

According to the website Global Timber, these concessions were taken over from other concession holders, a process known as “landlording” which is illegal in Guyana (unless officially authorised by the President). Under Guyanese law, forest concessions cannot be traded, but must be re-advertised by the Forestry Commission in an open auction.

Last week, Bai Shan Lin ignored a cease order issued by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission at a sand excavation pit in Moblissa. The company has received no permission for excavation work in the area and this is the third time that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission has issued a cease order. Bai Shan Lin has also started construction of a road, without any permission.

Despite the company’s record, among its supporters is Guyana’s ex-President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Exotic, pricey wood species being shipped out of Guyana

As the controversy surrounding Bai Shan Lin’s operations in Guyana continues, the main question is why the company is exporting large quantities of exotic woods such as “Locust and Wamara”. Conservationists have been arguing that countries where these “exotic” woods are found should not export large quantities since they are considered an “invasive species”. Invasive species, also called invasive exotics or simply exotics, is a nomenclature term and categorization phrase used for flora and fauna, and for specific restoration-preservation processes in native habitats, with several definitions. Sometimes called Guyana Rosewood for its lustrous, dense, and colour, Wamara technically isn’t true rosewood (Dalbergia genus), but is in what could arguably be viewed as one of the most under-appreciated genera of tropical hardwoods: Swartzia. This genus is filled with a variety of colorful and striped woods, most of which remain obscure. It is considered an “exotic wood” in many parts of the world. The Locust tree is native to the southeastern United States, but has been widely planted and naturalized elsewhere in temperate North America, Europe, Southern Africa and Asia and is considered an invasive species in some areas. Pricing for the species… Bai Shan Lin on July 2009, last, exported 558 pieces of Locust Sawn Timber from Guyana. In October 2009, the company also exported Wamara Sawn Timber. A total of 5303 pieces were sent out in two containers. World Market demand for these two species of wood could fetch a heavy price.  The “Wamara” which is being sold by the cubic meter can fetch a price of between US$200 and US$600. Kaieteur News was told that the “Wamara” logs can be sold from between US$260 and US$290. Depending on the demand, the prices can triple, making it one of the best selling timber products being exported. It is believed that Bai Shan Lin and other logging companies have not been declaring “Wamara and Locust” when exporting. Rather they have been passing this off as mixed hard woods. Several sources within the Ministry of Natural Resources have said that the Wamara business is among the most lucrative business ventures that Bai Shan Lin is currently involved in. This newspaper was also told that low level ministry workers along with forestry officials who are tasked with monitoring the export of timber are not able to complete their task. It is being reported that since Bai Shan Lin along with several others entered into joint ventures, it has been “almost impossible” to keep a tab on how much timber is being exported from Guyana. Bai Shan Lin, a Chinese logging company, has big plans for Guyana: forest concessions covering 960,000 hectares; a 20-kilometre river gold mining concession; a 500-hectare Guyana-China Timber Industry Economic and Trading Cooperation Park and a 160-hectare real estate development. Despite the scale of the planned operations, Bai Shan Lin’s agreements with the government of Guyana are not public and there has been no discussion in the National Assembly about the company’s plans. In Guyana, it is illegal for a logging company to take over another logging company’s operation, unless officially authorised by the President. Yet Bai Shan Lin has managed to enter into large scale joint ventures with a number of locals.

Bai Shan Lin logging scandal …Government has established a principle of law breaking – Greenidge

Once “kickbacks” are “sweet” foreign companies are allowed to disregard laws which seem to be a new waiver -Greenidge

 “The investor is more important than the people. The PPP has given up on the people and the people will make it clear to them soon that they have given up on them.”-Harmon

As soon as evidence of the Chinese and Indian firms’ large scale exploitive logging practices are exposed, the government is eager and ready to deny the claims.

Carl Greenidge, Chairman of the Parliamentary Economic Services Committee

But government, according to some critics, could simply prove its case by getting an independent investigation done. It was recommended that all operations of the companies would need to come to a halt and only continue until the government can prove that the pictorial evidence and testimonies tell a different story. However, from indications thus far, the PPP and its associated regulatory agencies of the forestry sector may be far from willing to facilitate such. More than likely, it is because the “the kickbacks are so sweet, that foreign companies are allowed to disregard or disrespect the laws of the country and exploit its resources. It’s become like a new waiver now,” one politician asserted. The recent controversy over the policies that are supposed to govern and prevent the “abusive” operations of Bai Shan Lin and Vaitarna Holdings Private Inc (VHPI) has attracted much commentary. Chairman of the Parliamentary Economics Services Committee, Carl Greenidge in giving his take on the matter, said that the priority of economic policy has always been to seek to implement projects that will do a number of things. He noted that economic policies such as the ones governing the logging industry seek to; utilize local labour as a priority, train labour where they do not have the skills and treat all labour with respect in the workplace and pay a fair wage. Government, he opined, has established a principle of law breaking and disrespecting the country’s policies. There have been increasing accusations over the past week, that Bai Shan Lin’s employment ratio is 70 Asian nationals to 30 Guyanese and that the pay is as low as $500 per day in some instances. Of course, the company has refuted these claims. However, Greenidge said that in the case of the Chinese firms if not those from India as well, the matter of employment of locals in skilled and managerial areas seem to always be a challenge.  Having had to struggle against this under colonialism, the politician asserts that “we seem destined to repeat this nightmare, overseen by a local Government in the second millennium.” Were the roles reversed, would China allow Caribbean countries to manage their businesses with total disregard for its

Former president Bharrat Jagdeo

laws? Of course not, Greenidge asserted. He said that we are not permitted to do it so “why do the enterprises of fraternal states feel that that they may ignore laws and regulations as well as local practice?” The answer, he believes, lies in the attitude of the Government. In view of the Parliamentary recess, the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) member said that the Government should have an independent authority review the policy material and advise on the problem. As the Chairman of the Economic services Committee, he expressed that he, and more than likely his colleagues of the Natural Resources Committee, would be quite willing to be consulted on with regards to the choice of the appropriate vehicle for such an investigation. Greenidge insisted that Guyanese need to know several things in relation to this controversy. These include; why companies have been able to export commercial quantities of lumber and ores although they have only exploration licences, and what additional legislation, regulations (e.g. transferability of rights) or amendments of responsibilities are required to ensure that these abuses are brought to an end forthwith. He added that citizens also needs to know which agencies and officials, if any, have been negligent or culpable, in the event that the laws and regulations have been broken and lastly, which ministers have been responsible for this fiasco. The Former Finance Minister added, “We will not be put off by silly and contemptible PPP smears of, ‘anti-Chinese’, ‘anti Indian’ or ‘anti-Russian’.  Our entrepreneurs, whether state sponsored or not, do not enjoy exemption from the requirements of the laws and regulations in China and India. Disrespecting our laws seems to be a new waiver and we need to change that.” APNU member of the Natural Resources Committee, Joseph Harmon said that like Greenidge, he supports the

Robert Persaud

position taken by Transparency International Guyana Inc. which recently stated that the evidence provided by the media is more than enough to warrant immediately, an independent investigation. Harmon said that this inquiry should include all the other companies under whose aegis the “big ones” are operating in the forestry sector. He said that this would have to be a full Commission of Inquiry but it is clear from the statements coming from government, that they would not facilitate such an inquiry. The Parliamentarian said that the PPP has made it clear that they have made their choice.  “The investor is more important than the people. Do note President Ramotar’s statement on the rape of our forestry resources. He is under the belief that the company is right and that there is no abuse. The PPP has given up on the people and the people will make it clear to them soon that they have given up on them.”

Global Witness said Guyana is a test  case for REDD. Contact them and inform them how poorly it is doing with the PPP crooks in office

When I looked at commodities over the past three hundred years I found that lumber is the only commodity that has kept its value consistently.

The idea that we need exploratory leases where companies get a trial run to see if our forest is harvestable is pure nonsense. It is a ruse invented by Navin Chanderpaul back in the 90's to do an end run around a five year moratorium on logging. That the PPP is using the same discredited instrument to fabricate a defense of BaiShanLin is barefaced and cravenly disingenuous.

Exploratory leases exist in various countries, including the US_of_A, Canada, etc., for ages.

Who denied it is an instrument with utility. The point here it was installed as a ruse to get around a moratorium on logging and continues to be misused to presumable lure loggers when there is no need to do so. We have the trees that makes logging viable so none of the schemes are necessary.

The point here -- your incessant use of fallible examples.    

This what your foggy old mind percieves and not the fact.

http://www.guyanajournal.com/Deals_gg.html

http://www.wiley.com/college/environet/GUYANA.HTM

Are you a certifiable idiot Dem Guy?

Simply your personal views.

I dare say your genius is in being a complete bat!

Your defense your incorrect presentation will always remain -- incorrect.

said the bat because he is a bat. From second link above

• Under the guise of 'exploratory licences', Guyana's government has undertaken to "grant leases in territories outside of the areas designated as State forests."  Given that investments of millions of US dollars have already been made by the Malaysian timber company, Kwitaro Investments, how could one expect that such "exploration" will lead to anything but heavy industrial logging?