Green Earth Africa

A story of corruption that is stripping the west African country bare.

 

Illegal logging is laying waste to Sierra Leone’s endangered forests. Despite years of laws and bans, its precious timber is still being exported abroad and unless something is done the country’s woodlands will have been destroyed within a decade. So why can the authorities not do more to stop it?

In this edition of Africa Investigates, reporter Sorious Samura exposes the high level corruption that is stripping his homeland bare. 

With an undercover team he discovers that an illegal multi-million dollar timber trade is flourishing under the nose of the government and that associates of one of the most powerful politicians in the country are involved.

Our demand for cheap furniture is driving the theft of timber from national parks and the expansion of illegal plantations

Illegally cut timber in a protected forest in East Java. Photograph: Sigit Pamungkas/Reuters

The amended U.S. Lacey Act has already impacted the wood industry, from the investigation of Gibson Guitars to a recently-reported seizure of Peruvian hardwood. Both of these cases involved solid wood products. But what about paper?

Paper poses the challenge of linking an illegally harvested tree in a faraway forest to a piece of paper purchased in the United States — after all the mixing and bleaching. Companies in the Forest Legality Alliance and others asked whether or not it is even possible to find Lacey violations in paper products.

Working with others, the World Resources Institute (WRI) decided to check it out.

We sent samples from 32 imported paper products to an independent fiber analysis laboratory. Samples we had tested came from stationery, paper bags, cardboard boxes, toilet paper, facial tissue paper, wrapping paper, and books, including pages, glossy cover sleeves, and cardboard from hardback covers. All products were purchased from stores and outlets in the United States.

With fiber analysis, scientists use high powered microscopes to look at plant fibers and vessels in a snippet of paper to identify what types of trees were used to make it. Vessels are structures that transport nutrients and water in plants, and they have distinct anatomical features that allow for identification of its genus and, in some cases, species.

What we found is telling.

A Rhizophora vessel. Source: Ghose and Das. 2001.

The tests identified vessels with anatomical features consistent with those of ramin (Gonystylus spp) in a page of a coffee table book and in the cover paper of a childrens’ book. These books were purchased from a U.S. retailer and published by U.S. firms but were manufactured in and imported directly from Indonesia. Increasingly rare, ramin trees have been protected internationally since 2003 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Likewise, the Indonesian government has imposed an export ban on all ramin products. In other words, ramin fibers should not be found in paper.

In the cover of another childrens’ book, the tests found vessels consistent with those of mangrove trees (Rhizophora spp — pictured right). Import/export trade databases indicated that this book, too, was manufactured in Indonesia. Mangrove trees are protected from harvest under Indonesian coastal protection, conservation, and forest management laws.

Consequently, all three of these books potentially violate the 2008 amendments to the U.S. Lacey Act, which prohibit trade within the United States of products made from plants that are harvested in contrary to international law or the law of their countries of origin. Since 2008, it has been illegal to import, export, transport, sell, receive, or purchase such plant products — including pulp and paper — in the United States. All actors in the supply chain, including importers, publishers, and retailers can be liable under Lacey. Penalties can include forfeiture of goods and fines of up to $500,000 and jail time.

These results demonstrate that it is possible to detect potential Lacey violations for paper, thanks to modern technology. In addition, they suggest that the prevalence of illegally harvested fiber in paper products may be more common than assumed — three of just 32 products had suspicious fibers.

Furthermore, they portend the possible use of this technology by third parties to uncover Lacey violations. Some NGOs have already used fiber analysis to determine whether books were made from plantation wood or from natural tropical rainforests. Now we know they can find potentially illegal species in paper, too.

So what can companies in the paper supply chain do to avert the risk of purchasing paper with illegal fiber in it?

First and foremost, exercise due care. “Due care” lies at the core of the amended Lacey Act. It is the legal term for exercising the level of appropriate action that would be taken by a reasonably prudent person under the same circumstances to minimize the risk of purchasing plant products that were harvested or traded illegally.

Examples of due care in the context of purchasing paper products include:

1. Ask Questions

Ask your paper supplier questions such as: What is your supply chain? Can you trace the paper all the way back to the forest? What is the degree of illegal activity in that forest or region? What processes do you have in place to prevent illegally harvested fiber from entering your supply?
   
2. Assess Risk and Respond Accordingly

Determine the relative risks associated with the forest of origin. Is the region suspected by credible sources of having high levels of illegal logging? Are civil society campaigns currently underway that indicate that this is a forest of concern? If so, compare the risk of inadvertently sourcing illegal paper to your degree of risk aversion. If responses from your supplier to the questions you ask do not meet your risk tolerance levels, consider sourcing paper from a different supplier or region.
   
3. Adopt a Comprehensive Forest Products Purchasing Policy

Establish a forest products purchasing policy that reflects company values and incorporates environmental and social safeguards. Such policies can be a good foundation for practicing due care. Training employees on the policy and putting in place systems and performance incentives for policy implementation can effectively reduce risk.
   
4. Purchase Certified Paper

Harvesting trees legally is a common feature of third-party forest certification programs. Therefore, purchasing certified paper can be a means of demonstrating due care. But note that certification per se does not necessarily mean that the paper is legal, especially if the verification systems of the certification program are not robust and in countries with weak governance. In such circumstances, illegally harvested fibers can still find their way into certified paper.
   
5. Conduct Periodic Fiber Analysis Tests

Periodically test samples of paper products you purchase. Periodic testing can reveal what’s in your paper and might uncover suspicious fibers and sources. Fiber analysis testing is not expensive, and there are a number of independent fiber testing labs, including:

    • Integrated Paper Services, Inc. (United States)
    • Institute for Paper Science and Technology, Darmstadt Technical University (Germany)
    • INNVENTIA (Sweden)
    • Econotech (Canada)

As we discovered, paper is not risk-free when it comes to the amended U.S. Lacey Act. But there are steps one can take to reduce these risks and demonstrate due care … and not just on paper.

For more information about how you can conduct due care when purchasing forest products, visit www.forestlegality.org.

The Amended Lacey Act

The 2008 amendments to the U.S. Lacey Act:

• Prohibit trade into and within U.S. borders of any product made from trees or other plants that were logged or traded in violation of a law in the country of harvest. Products include paper, lumber, and furniture;
• Require importers of plant products to declare the country of harvest, the genus and species of the plant, as well as the product’s volume and value (this is the “declaration requirement”); and
• Establish penalties for violations, including forfeiture of goods and vessels, fines of up to $500,000, and prison terms of up to five years.

Even though the declaration requirement does not yet apply to paper, the prohibition of trade in illegally harvested forest products has applied to paper since May 2008.

This article originally appeared at WRI and is reprinted with permission

Read more: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/11/16/not-so-risk-free-illegal-wood-finds-way-into-us-paper?page=full#ixzz15WLubL8n

In August 2010, Reuters reported that Shift2Neutral had “signed a deal aimed at protecting tropical forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as boosting renewable energy there.” Now, according to a letter dated 1 October 2010, from DR Congo’s Minister of Environment, José E. B. Endundo, the deal is “illegal” and “void”.

The letter, addressed to the the Chairman of the Board of Congo Investment and Environment Security (CIES), Modeste Mutinga Mutuishayi, is available on the Ministry of Environment’s website and can be downloaded here (pdf file 1.8 MB – in French).

The following is a translation of the brief statement on Ministry of Environment’s website:

Letter from the Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism on the Granting of Forestry Concessions

In a letter to the Honourable Modeste Mutinga, the Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism, Jose Endundo, recalls that only the state can decide on the granting of forest concessions in all categories. This follows an agreement signed without effect by the company CIES with Shift2Neutral Pty Ltd, an Australian company wanting to promote carbon sequestration and which the Senator reports in a letter to the Minister.

Shift2Neutral apparently signed the deal in DR Congo with CIES. Modeste Mutinga Mutuishayi, the Chairman of the Board of CIES, is a Senator and owner of one of DR Congo’s major newspapers, Le Potentiel. In 2000, he won an International Press Freedom Award for his work as a publisher and journalist. But according to a source, when the Shift2Neutral deal was signed, CIES was not a Ministry-approved consulting firm. It still isn’t.

Here’s a rough translation* of the Minister’s letter:

Democratic Republic of Congo
Ministry of Environment, Conservation of Nature and Tourism

Kinshasa, 1 October 2010

No. 1961 /CAB/MIN/ECN-T/27/JEB/101

To the Honourable Senator Modeste MUTINGA Chairman of the Board of Directors of Congo Investment and Environment Security “CIES”
in Kinshasa/Lingwala

Re: Technical Board Approval
Acknowledgment of receipt

Honourable Senator,

I hereby acknowledge receipt of your letter referenced CIES/PSA/DG/006/2010 of 15 September, seeking common agreement by the Ministry of the consulting firm where you are the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

In the same letter, I send the file to my technical services for study and action.

On the other hand, the memorandum of agreement signed with the Australian company Shift2Neutral Pty Ltd, I regret to inform you that it is null and void because of the commitments under the jurisdiction of the state. I need not remind you that in fact the Congolese forests as protected areas are owned by the State which alone can decide their fate.

If at your company benefited from a forestry concession, it could, after approval, engage in REDD in partnership with another company. That is not however the case.

You are not unaware that the signing of this Agreement has been the subject of a violent international campaign on the Internet and that the Ministry has repeatedly been questioned about it. The Ministry is therefore obliged in turn to release through the same channels, the information declaring the agreement illegal and therefore void.

With my regrets repeated, I beg you to believe, Honourable Senator, the assurance of my highest consideration.

José E. B. Endundo

Here’s a rough translation* of Modeste Mutinga’s letter to the Minister of Environment, Conservation of Nature and Tourism:

Congo Investment and Environment Security
Consulting firm
NRC: KG/7418/M

Kinshasa, 15 September 2010

N/Ref: CIES/PCA/DG/006/2010

His Excellency the Minister of Environment, Conservation of Nature and Tourism, Kinshasa-Gombe.

Re: Our identification

Excellency,

The honour falls to me to come to solicit the identification of the consulting firm “CIES Consulting” by your ministry, as an environmental operator.

In fact, CIES Consulting is a private company (SPRL) of which the object is, among others, environmental improvement, management and protection, etc. it is in this framework that we signed a memorandum of agreement with the SHIFT2NEUTRAL Pty Ltd company established in Australia.

As we stressed during the interview with the Director of your office, and the Director of the Department of Sustainable Development, Mr. Vincent KASULU, and convinced that the national process REDD is the exclusive competence of the government, we could only address your high authority with the intention of bringing our expertise as well as that of our partner in the work of awareness raising, monitoring and of protection that you began in the framework of GTCR [Groupe de Travail Climate REDD].

We remain open to the Interdepartmental Committee for REDD for any additional information and recommendations necessary for the realisation of our project.

In the hope that this request will retain your best attention, we ask you to believe, your Excellency the Minister, the expression of our frank collaboration.

Modeste MUTINGA MUTUISHAYI
Senator
Chairman of the Board

(Reuters) – Brazil will auction large swaths of the Amazon forest to be managed by private timber companies and cooperatives to help reduce demand for illegal logging, a top official told Reuters on Monday.

After years of legal battles and political opposition, the government is reviving concessions for private companies to log its national forests.

“The future of the Amazon — combating deforestation and climate change — is strengthening forest management. I don’t see any other solution,” Antonio Carlos Hummel, head of Brazil’s National Forestry Service, said at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Summit.

The government will grant private companies logging concessions for nearly 1 million hectares (2.47 million) by year-end and, within 4 to 5 years, nearly 11 million hectares (27 million acres), the size of the U.S. state of Virginia.

Existing concessions total only 150,000 hectares (370,000 acres).

Unlike the illegal slash and burn practice that has already destroyed nearly 20 percent of the world’s largest rainforest, managed logging extracts only as many trees as the forest can naturally regenerate.

When the government began preparing for concessions in 2003, it faced stiff opposition from conservative politicians who called it privatization of public assets.

“Back then we didn’t explain the process well. Now, it’s all cleared up. There hasn’t been a questioning of privatization for over a year,” said Hummel.

Concessions actually helped establish more state control in the often lawless Amazon region, where settlers and speculators often illegally occupied public lands, he added.

While illegal logging usually produces wealth for only a few, forest concessions, at least on paper, generate lasting jobs and tax revenues for the government.

Aware of failed private timber concessions in Africa and parts of Asia, Brazilian lawmakers took certain safeguards.

“We included a series of community control mechanisms,” said Hummel, referring to non-government organizations that participate in public audits of concessions.

PITFALLS

Deforestation rates in Brazil’s Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, have fallen to their lowest in two decades after the government stepped up policing in recent years. Authorities have fined illegal cattle ranchers and loggers, confiscated their products, and cut off bank loans to them.

But unless such tough controls are maintained, illegal logging could undermine demand for more expensive timber from managed forests, said Hummel.

“If next year controls ease off and the market is flooded with cheap wood, forestry concessions will suffer,” said Hummel.

The potential for forest management is huge with state governments and private entrepreneurs also beginning to jump on the band wagon.

In addition, traditional forest dwellers have rights to about 19 million hectares (47 million acres) and resettled peasants hold 21 million hectares in the Amazon.

Currently only two cooperatives of traditional forest dwellers have a federal license to log.

The biggest challenges for cooperatives is to obtain technology, training, and financing, said Hummel, referring to red tape and a lack of environmental awareness at banks.

“Everything in this country is an incentive for deforestation, for developing destroyed forest. So we’re having to change the paradigm — finance standing forests,” he said.

(Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Gary Hill)

Record levels of poaching is endangering the survival of white rhinoceros in South Africa

The last rhinoceros cow in Kruger park, South Africa, bled to death on Wednesday after poachers hacked off her horn.

Photograph: Reuters

Fears are growing for the survival of the rhinoceros as the last female in the popular Krugersdorp game reserve near Johannesburg was killed, bleeding to death after having its horn hacked off by poachers.

Wildlife officials say poaching for the prized horns has now reached an all-time high. “Last year, 129 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa. This year, we have already had 136 deaths,” said chief game ranger Japie Mostert.

The gang used tranquilliser guns and a helicopter to bring down the nine-year-old rhino cow. Her distraught calf was moved to a nearby estate where it was introduced to two other orphaned white rhinos.

Wanda Mkutshulwa, a spokeswoman for South African National Parks, said investigations into the growing number of incidents had been shifted to the country’s organised crime unit. “We are dealing with very focused criminals. Police need to help game reserves because they are not at all equipped to handle crime on such an organised level,” she said.

Rhino horn consists of compressed keratin fibre – similar to hair – and in many Asian cultures it is a fundamental ingredient in traditional medicines.

Mkutshulwa said poaching was rife in the 1,500-hectare Kruger park. Five men had been arrested there in the past week alone, four of whom were caught with two bloodied rhino horns, AK-47 assault rifles, bolt-action rifles and an axe.

Kruger park attracts at least 200,000 visitors every year. It is also close to a private airport, which may have been used by the poachers. “The exercise takes them very little time,” Mostert said. “They first fly over the park in the late afternoon to locate where the rhino is grazing. Then they return at night and dart the animal from the air. The tranquilliser takes less than seven minutes to act. They saw off the horns with a chainsaw. They do not even need to switch off the rotors of the helicopter. We do not hear anything because our houses are too far away. The animal dies either from an overdose of tranquilliser or bleeds to death.”

The committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) warned yesterday that rhino poaching had reached an all-time high. The Cites conference in Geneva heard that Asia’s economic expansion had fuelled the market in rhino horns. The horns are also used in the Middle East to make handles for ornamental daggers. Cites said demand for them had begun to soar in 2009. In the five years up to 2005, an average of 36 rhinos had been killed each year.

Conservationists estimate that there are only 18,000 black and white rhinos in Africa, down from 65,000 in the 1970s. Mostert, who has been a ranger for 20 years, said the animals fetch up to 1m rand (£85,000) at game auctions and cannot be insured.

Cites has praised South Africa for its action against poachers. Two weeks ago, a Vietnamese man was jailed for 10 years for trying to smuggle horns out of the country.

Desperate need for income makes pressure on timber resources hard to resist for rising population

Liberia’s rainforests are being primed as a lucrative and legal industry. Electronic tags allow consumers to trace the end-product right back to the stump.

Photograph: Glenna Gordon/AFP/Getty Images

Trucks loaded with undressed timber are on the move again around Buchanan in River Cess county, south-east Liberia. The dust recalls the not-so-distant time when the timber trade was synonymous with war. For 14 years, from 1989 to 2003, destruction of the forest paid for one of Africa’s worst conflicts, subsequently filling the coffers of PresidentCharles Taylor, now on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity.

At the end of April the first ship loaded with azobe and niangon, two highly prized species of timber, left the port of Buchanan, the United Nations having lifted the embargo it imposed in 2003-6 to deprive the armed militia of their main source of revenue.

Logging in Liberia is gradually gathering speed, but the country is still on its knees. The pitiful state of much of its infrastructure is probably the forest’s best friend, making parts of it inaccessible. Work is starting from scratch as all the pre-2006 concessions having been scrapped. Only a few companies have been allowed to launch forestry operations and new, stricter regulations apply. Trees felled for export must all bear a barcode to track their progress as far as the port of departure.

In a country still patrolled by 10,000 UN peacekeepers, timber is as closely watched as the diamond and iron ore mines. Last year the government registered only $2m in forestry income, according to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative established in 2007. In Taylor’s time the trade was worth tens of millions of dollars.

How long can this respite last? “Look at what happened in Ghana and Ivory Coast. The forest vanished in 20 years. There is no reason why that shouldn’t happen in Liberia,” said Jessica Donovan of ConservationInternational (CI).

Liberia has almost half of the last forest in west Africa, which once reached from Guinea to Togo and is home to most of the surviving wildlife too. But pressure on the forest is growing. Driven by rising population, villagers are extending their clearings to grow more crops and collect firewood. “If the government fails to take the right decisions it will soon be too late,” said Donovan. CI is calling for a two-year ban on new logging concessions.

Until recently conservationists had few arguments to persuade developing countries to protect their timber resources. Now efforts to limit climate change and tropical forests‘ part in CO₂ capture have changed the picture. “We can say: ‘Protecting nature will not cost you any money. It may even earn some’,” Donovan added.

This is based on the hope that industrialised countries will soon compensate countries for not cutting down their forests, either by allocating part of development aid to combating deforestation or by setting up a market for forestry carbon credits, open to western firms.

No one can foresee the outcome of the climate negotiations but the prospect of this reward, titled Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd), has raised such hopes that none of the rainforest nations can afford to miss out.

In Liberia, CI is lobbying the government directly, with access to expert advice and funds. “Redd is our priority. It represents the future for building a development model less predatory on natural resources,” said Donovan.

To neutralise the main forces driving deforestation, CI recommends slowing down forestry and boosting the creation of natural parks, which would become forest-carbon concessions. Farming should move on from slash-and-burn to more intensive techniques. Each tonne of sequestered carbon is worth an average of $5, so such policies could earn the exchequer an estimated $40m a year, about a tenth of current income.

Some weeks ago the CI report was submitted to Christopher Neyor, the Liberian president’s energy adviser. He is still undecided: “Until now our economy has always been linked to exploitation of the forest. I’m not saying it’s the right strategy, but when your concern is surviving from one day to the next, you do not see climate change as a priority.”

Time is short and Liberia cannot afford to wait. Conservationists need to show on the ground that Redd is not just idle talk. Otherwise the chainsaws will have the last word

Pity the scaly anteater, or  pangolin. It is hardly what anyone would call charismatic megafauna, so it doesn’t spark big campaigns by wildlife conservation groups. The reclusive, nocturnal animals could surely vanish from southern Asia with hardly anyone noticing (there are  other species in Africa). Two of the four Asian pangolin species are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. (The Malayan pangolin pictured above is safe, living in one of Singapore’s national parks.)

I think so, because depletion of such exotica — from scaly slow-moving mammals to rare turtles to tigers — erodes the basic biological patrimony of the planet for the sake of supplying consumers with an utter indulgence. A report today on the interdiction of a shipment of 2,090 frozen pangolins and 92 cartons of scales stripped from countless additional slaughtered animals appears to show that Chinese government agencies are working to stem the flow. The sophistication of the disrupted smuggling operation, described in the news release below, implies that only when the demand ebbs will the slaughter abate. The release is from Traffic, a nonprofit group fighting such smuggling. (Here’s a recent report from India on the seizure of half a ton of pangolin scales along with 22 pounds of tiger bone.)

Nearly eight tonnes of endangered anteaters found on ship were destined for the dinner table, authorities say

Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy in China and their scales are thought to help mothers breastfeed their babies. Photograph: Traffic

Chinese authorities have intercepted one of the biggest ever hauls of illegally smuggled pangolins, which were almost certainly destined for the dinner table.

Customs officials in Guangdong boarded a suspect fishing vessel and seized 2,090 frozen pangolin and 92 cases of the endangered anteater’s scales on 5 June, according to the conservation group Traffic, who have commended authorities for their work.

Police have arrested the six crew members, including five Chinese nationals who reportedly said they were hired to collect the contraband from south-east Asia and ship it to Xiangzhou port in Guangdong.

The other Malaysian crew member was said to have received instructions by satellite phone on where to rendezvous at sea to pick up the cargo. The smugglers were intercepted as they prepared to offload the nearly eight tonnes of pangolin to another vessel off Gaolan island.

According to wildlife groups, China is the main market for illegally traded exotic species, which are eaten or used in traditional medicine.

Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy and their scales are thought locally to be beneficial to breast-feeding mothers.

As a result of demand, the pangolin populations of China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been virtually wiped out. With traders moving further and further south, the animal is declining even in its last habitats in Java, Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula. It is a similar story for many species of turtle, tortoise, frog and snake.

China’s customs officials have often been criticised for turning a blind eye to this trade, which supplies the demand for exotic food and traditional medicine, particularly in Guangdong.

The Guardian has twice exposed restaurants that illegally sell pangolin.

In recent years, however, there has emerged a small but growing conservation movement in the province.

In the latest case, the authorities have also won praise for a decisive intervention and for sharing intelligence with overseas enforcement agencies, including Interpol, the Asean Wildlife Enforcement Network and Cites officials.

“Guangdong customs are to be congratulated on this important action against wildlife smugglers operating between south-east Asia and China,” said Professor Xu Hongfa, director of Traffic’s China programme.

To encourage tighter enforcement, conservation groups say it is not enough to merely criticise lax regulation. The Wildlife Conservation Society held an awards ceremony earlier this year for Chinese officials who helped to expose the illegal wildlife trade.

In the far western region of Xinjiang, customs officers confiscated almost 8,000 horns of the Saiga antelope, an animal that is thought to have declined in the wild by more than 75% in the past 10 years. In the far northern Dalai Lake nature reserve, police were rewarded for confiscating 8,000 tonnes of aquatic products and 20 tonnes of medicinal herbs over the past nine years. In the southern, enormously biodiverse region of Yunnan, a forest police officer won an award for catching 7,110 criminals and rescuing five Asian elephants, 182 pangolins, 10 black bears and two pythons over six years.

But these reported successes are likely to be only a fraction of the illegal wildlife products that are killed and smuggled without detection across borders and inside China.

STRASBOURG) – The European Union on Wednesday barred the import and sale of illegally harvested timber in a bid to fight climate change and deforestation from the Amazon to Asia.

The European Parliament voted 644-25 to outlaw illegal timber or products made from such wood, which makes up around one-fifth of all timber imports into the European Union, and punish unscrupulous dealers.

“With this, we are sending a signal to the world that the EU will no longer serve as a market for illegally harvested timber,” said European Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik.

Green member of the European Parliament Satu Hassi, who negotiated a deal with the 27 EU member states, called the legislation an “internationally important breakthrough.”

The European Council must now formally approve the ban and it will take two years for the rules to take effect, as governments must draw up their own penalties to impose on lawbreakers.

The European legislation, which comes two years after the United States passed a similar law, closes a loophole in the industry. For it is currently not against the law to sell timber in the EU that was cut down illegally in its country of origin.

“Those who have been making a profit from illegal logging and destroying forests around the world have finally been given a good slap in the face,” said Anke Schulmeister, EU forest policy officer at environmental group WWF.

More than half of logging activities take place in vulnerable regions such as the Amazon Basin, central Africa, southeast Asia and Russia, according to the European Union.

Illegally harvested timber represents 20 to 40 percent of global production of industrial wood, or 350 million to 650 million cubic metres (460 million to 850 million cubic yards), according to the UN.

The environmental group WWF estimated that in 2006 the EU imported around 30 million cubic metres of timber and wooden products made from illegal logging, mostly from Russia, China and Indonesia.

Under the new EU rules, importers will have to seek sufficient guarantees that the timber they are bringing in is legally harvested.

Traders such as furniture sellers must then make sure that the origin of the wood used to make their products is traceable.

While the legislation covers the 27-nation EU, it will be up to individual member states to set penalties for wrongdoers.

In drafting fines, governments can take into account the impact of the damage done by illegal logging to the environment, the value of the timber and the tax revenue that was lost.

It will also be up to individual governments to decide whether to “make the worst offences crimes,” Hassi said.

The new rules will be implemented in 2012 to give national governments time to draft their own sets of sanctions and fines, she said.

Environmental groups have welcomed Europe’s move to combat illegal logging, saying it would help curb climate change. Deforestation accounts for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EU.

“We think that although the law is not perfect it is an important step forward,” said Greenpeace EU forest policy director Sebastien Risso.

But they were diappointed the law was not coming into force immediately, he added.

“Greenpeace is altogether happy with the decision but we will remain vigilant because the adoption of the legislation is not the end point, it is the beginning.”