Legal loopholes in a 2015 Indonesian Ministery of Trade Decree are exploited by a coterie of timber traders masquerading as small and medium enterprises. This significantly weakens Indonesia’s flagship timber legality scheme by exempting 15 product types from requirements to certify timber sources and factory practices
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
A briefing to the sixth session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Using case studies taken from our investigations, this briefing details how corruption pervades the illegal wildlife trade, illegal logging and the trade in stolen timber
Based on extensive undercover investigations into trade in China and Myanmar, this report exposes key actors and systemic corruption which facilitate trade in stolen timber. In Myanmar, Chinese businesses pay in gold bars for the rights to log entire mountains, corruption allows the timber to pass through checkpoints
A briefing for the 11th ASEAN Experts Group on CITES (CITES AEG) and 10th meeting of the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) in Brunei from 5-8 May 2015. Details how illegal logging and trade in rosewoods to supply Asia’s booming Hongmu furniture markets is driving a violent wave of crime across the Mekong