Protecting the environment with intelligence
A report examining the extent and impacts of China’s voracious consumption of timber, featuring several case studies from countries whose forests are being severely depleted, and calling on the Chinese Government to act swiftly and decisively in strengthening its enforcement and ensuring illegal timber is barred from its markets. Download the [...]
Australia’s Parliament has today (November 19, 2012) voted in new legislation banning stolen timber from its markets. The new laws were five years in the making and require all importers to carry out mandatory due diligence on timber and timber products sourced from overseas. Penalties for those found guilty of importing illegal logged timber include [...]
“But Faith, snakes are wonderful,” Hapsoro said to me one afternoon as we were discussing life, love and the universe.“I look for them when walking in the forests.” We were about to visit Indonesia’s Tanjung Putting National Park in the coming days, I began to think twice about what I was getting myself into. As [...]
Last month, the President of Indonesia did the international investment equivalent of, shall we say, showing a bit of leg in the US. At an event specially organised at the New York Stock Exchange, in Wall Street, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono boasted to the assembled businessmen of the abundant natural resources on offer to potential investors. [...]
The international community is finally recognising that environmental crime is not some small-scale criminal activity taking place deep in the jungles of Africa or Asia but is serious, growing, transnational and, shockingly, highly organised through the involvement of notorious criminal syndicates and terrorist groups. This week, during the ongoing 67th session of the UN General [...]
LONDON: More than a year after being exposed as major players in the smuggling of timber from Laos, a new report reveals the Vietnamese timber industry, the military and well-connected Lao actors are still profiting from the flow of logs into Vietnam. As well as the role played by a commercial operation of the Vietnam [...]