The US Lacey Act and The European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR). In this briefing, we explore the previously unrealised fact that both laws can work together, with the Lacey Act prohibiting timber sold in violation of the EUTR, as a ’foreign law‘
This report reveals how a palm oil plantation established and developed illegally in 2013 and 2014 has since continued to clear forests illegally with impunity. Worse, the timber it has illegally cut is certified legal under Indonesia’s flagship Timber Legality Assurance System
When German boat builders finally complete Sailing Yacht ‘A’, the world’s largest ever, it will sail away with decks crafted from illegitimate teak sourced from Myanmar. At nearly 150m long and 100m tall, the yacht is being built in Nobiskrug shipyard for Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko at a cost of £260 million
The expanding trade in hongmu (rare and valuable “red wood” used primarily for antique-style furniture in China) has driven successive boom and bust cycles all over the world, marked by unsustainable harvest, multiple legal violations (theft, smuggling, corruption) and violence in source countries
A briefing for the 66th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee, January 2016. Hongmu is the Chinese term for high-end reproduction furniture made from richly hued durable tropical hardwoods, a sector posting a significant threat to the timber species targeted.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is an industry body formed in 2004 with a mission to reassure consumers that palm oil bearing its certificate of approval is free from links with primary forest destruction, damage to endangered species’ habitats or abuses of the rights of indigenous peoples and communities