A report exposing the pivotal role played by the Vietnamese military in a multi-million dollar operation smuggling threatened timber over the border from the shrinking forests of neighbouring Laos. Laos has some of the Mekong region’s last intact tropical forests and has in place an export ban on raw timber
On the day Indonesia’s landmark moratorium on forest conversion was signed and celebrated in Jakarta, it was being actively broken in a crime-riddled Pilot Province.This report by us and Indonesian partner Telapak documents peat forest in Central Kalimantan’s moratorium zone being illegally razed by a palm oil firm.
A report naming two of the kingpins in Indonesia profiteering from the hugely lucrative international trade in stolen timber. Rogue Traders identifies businessmen Ricky Gunawan and Hengky Gosal as two of the major players in smuggling illicit merbau timber
The unique forests of Papua are under siege from the rampant spread of plantations. Up to five million hectares of land have been targeted for conversion to grow crops such as oil palm, with the projected global demand for biofuels driving much of this conversion
The consumption needs of developed economies and rapidly expanding developing economies are increasingly driving deforestation. Commercially produced timber, agricultural and livestock commodities are now the number one cause of deforestation and degradation worldwide
A briefing outlined significant flaws in the proposed EU Timber Regulation, warning that in its present form it will not prohibit the import and sale of illegally logged timber, and would result in wood products made from stolen timber remaining on the market