Greenpeace calls out Chinese companies for importing illegal timber

Greenpeace calls out Chinese companies for importing illegal timber    The environmental group Greenpeace is calling China a major illegal importer of timber from endangered rainforests, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
   Greenpeace recently released a report saying that worldwide demand for cheap wood projects and restrictions on logging in China “have prompted Chinese companies to seek lumber from neighboring Asian and Pacific Rim nations, particularly Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. As a result, Greenpeace says in a new report, China has become the world’s largest importer of tropical wood, much of it logged illegally, and the majority of it converted to wood products sold in international markets.”
   The report said China imported 158 million cubic yards of wood in 2004, with about 27 million cubic yards consumed domestically and the remainder exported as wood products to the United States, Europe and other markets. At the current rate of logging, Greenpeace estimates, the lowland rain forests of Indonesia could vanish by 2010.
   According to the newspaper, the report alleges that illegal timber is often smuggled into China using fake documentation, with “some of the thick tropical logs simply piled high at a port on the east coast of China, with the cell phone numbers of sellers painted on the trunks . Buyers tend to be small or medium-sized family-run businesses that turn the logs into plywood, veneer and other furniture and flooring materials.”