Latest Illegal logging Stories

ARLINGTON, Va., July 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A progress report issued today by the independent non-profit Sustainable Forestry Initiative(R) (SFI) shows tremendous growth in the forest certification program, reflecting a rapidly expanding desire by companies, markets and consumers for responsible forest management and products. The SFI program is one of the largest and most widely accepted forest certification programs in the world, and is backed by strict labeling requirements that are...

WASHINGTON, June 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The United States Congress approved landmark legislation last night to address the global illegal logging crisis. The U.S. becomes the first country in the world to prohibit the import, sale or trade of illegally harvested wood and wood products. "The world's biggest consumer nation has sent a message that will be heard from forest to retail shelf: the United States' doors are now closed to products made from illegal wood," said Alexander von...

A report from two environmental groups found that Vietnam's illegal logging is threatening some of the last intact forests in South-East Asia.The report from UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency and Indonesia's Telapak says that increasing raw timber prices has caused some countries to attempt to thwart illegal logging.However, while the problem subsides in one country, it rises in another, a situation authors call "˜progress undermined by corruption.'"Over the last decade,...

160 elite Brazilian troops were sent to join with hundreds of police officers in the Amazon to combat illegal deforestation activity. The move comes on the heels of clashes last week in the state of Para between local workers and environmentalists in Tailandia, a town with a population of around 67,000. During the quarrel, more than 2,000 protesters blocked roads and forced inspectors out of the town before their work was completed.Tailandia was established 19 years ago. Since then, an...

BALI, Indonesia -- Delegates at a U.N. climate conference have agreed to include forest conservation in any future discussions about a new global warming pact, paving the way for billions of dollars in new spending to attack illegal logging, officials said.With deforestation making up 20 percent of global emissions, world governments are desperate to find a solution to a problem that has been fueled by rising demand for timber and palm oil, widespread corruption and endemic poverty.The...

By Andrea WelshBRASILIA, Brazil -- Huge tracts of Brazil's Amazon rainforest were cleared legally and illegally in the past year, but the rate of deforestation slowed, the country's environment minister said on Tuesday.It was the second year in a row that the pace of the destruction of the world's largest tropical rainforest declined. Booming demand for farm exports caused land-clearing to peak in 2004.A slowdown in farming-driven deforestation and a crackdown on illegal logging may have...

BEIJING -- China on Tuesday denied accusations of plundering the world's rain forests to meet booming demand for wood.Environment groups say China is at the heart of a global trade for lumber it sells to markets in the United States and Europe and that much of its plywood exports comes from illegal logging.Domestic demand from a fast-growing economy only adds to the problem, they say."As for the question that China's large demand for timber assists illegal logging and smuggling from...

By Jeremy Lovell LONDON (Reuters) - Developing nations have got far better at protecting rain forests over the past two decades but are a long way short of doing enough to save the crucial global resource, a new report said on Thursday. While the area of tropical timber under sustainable management has surged to 36 million hectares from less than one million in 1988, that represents less than 5 percent of all tropical forests, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO)...

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - The world should double the area of forests under the control of local communities by 2015 as part of an effort to combat poverty, a new international group said on Wednesday. The Rights and Resources Initiative, backed by several governments and conservation groups, called for "an unprecedented effort to strengthen local rights to own and use forests and fight rural poverty, prevent illegal logging, and protect...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A Chinese researcher who prompted officials to give greater thought to building dams and an activist who exposed timber plunder in Liberia were two of six recipients on Monday of one of the world's most prominent environmental awards."These six winners are among the most important people you have not heard of before," said Richard Goldman, founder of the Goldman Environmental Prize. "All of them have fought, often alone and at great personal risk, to protect...