Tag: burma

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

The new Government of Myanmar has agreed a temporary national logging ban and a 10-year logging ban in the Pegu Yoma region to give its beleaguered forests breathing space from years of unchecked exploitation

The conviction and subsequent pardon of 155 Chinese nationals for illegal logging in Myanmar threw a spotlight on how massive volumes of timber stolen from the county’s precious frontier forests have been flowing unhindered into China for decades and a murky trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year

Myanmar’s precious rosewood tree species are heading for imminent commercial extinction at the hands of China’s multi-billion dollar rosewood furniture boom. Illegal trade in rosewood is driven by wealthy elites in China and their desire for the high-end Ming and Qing dynasty reproduction furniture known as ‘hongmu’

Siamese rosewood has been illegally logged to the brink of extinction in the Mekong region to feed a voracious demand for luxury furniture in China which leaves a bloody trail of death, violence and corruption in its wake in a trade driven by the expanding wealthy elites in China

China, emergent superpower and the world’s second biggest economy, is effectively standing on the sidelines as its exponential growth devastates forests in a trade worth billions of dollars a year, making it the single largest international consumer of illegal timber stolen by organised criminal syndicates