- The forests of Zhangjiagang are horizontal: tens of thousands
of felled, stripped trees lying on the quayside of China's biggest timber
port, far from their roots in Indonesia, Russia, South America and Africa.
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- The trunks of pine, maple, merbau and zebra wood are
dead, but this forest is growing. Every year, more and more logs are shipped
into these wharves to satisfy the voracious demand for timber in the world's
most populous and fastest rising nation.
-
- In many cases they are illegal, smuggled from protected
rainforests despite China's pledges to tackle the huge international trade
in contraband logs.
-
- But local merchants are so unconcerned about repercussions
from the authorities that they show visitors around the giant stacks of
wood that ought never to have left its country of origin.
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- "We know it's not always legal, where it comes from,"
said a timber merchant as he swung his wood pick into a giant log of tropical
hardwood from Indonesia. "But it's no problem for us on the Chinese
side."
-
- He chipped off a sliver from the base of the dark-red
merbau trunk. "This wood is in huge demand. Customers from all over
China want to buy it. They value its colour and durability."
-
- They are willing to pay, too. The timber merchant, a
Mr Zhu, estimated this particular log - which a scrawled label showed to
be 10.2 metres long and 140cm in diameter - would fetch about 40,000 renminbi
(£2,600).
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- There were several dozen of the same size stacked up
on either side. Nearby wharves contained countless more. Mr Zhu said his
small company alone brought in 2,000 to 4,000 cubic metres of merbau a
month. Bigger firms imported far more.
-
- It is almost all smuggled illegally from Indonesia in
what the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has described as the
"world's biggest timber smuggling racket".
-
- The British-based agency said last month that it had
uncovered a merbau trade route controlled by crime syndicates that sent
some 20 shiploads a month to China from Indonesia, which banned timber
exports more than two years ago.
-
- According to the group, the syndicates pay bribes of
about $200,000 (£105,000) a shipment to ensure the logs can leave
Indonesian waters. Most head for Zhangjiagang, about an hour's drive north
of Shanghai, where they are reportedly cleared through customs using fake
Malaysian papers.
-
- Mr Zhu said Indonesia's ban had increased prices. "The
situation is a bit tense because the Indonesian government restricts timber
exports so it has become more expensive, especially since the tsunami."
He said the price of a cubic metre of merbau had increased from 2,300 renminbi
last year to 3,800 renminbi today.
-
- Many of the buyers come from the nearby town of Nanxun,
the wooden-flooring centre of China, which has more than 200 sawmills and
500 factories. The EIA says Nanxun's mills process merbau at the rate of
a log a minute every day.
-
- "China is the largest buyer of stolen timber in
the world," said Julian Newman of the EIA. "The smuggling of
merbau logs between Indonesia and China violates the laws of both countries,
so there is a clear basis for action."
-
- Beijing's growing conservation awareness may have accelerated
the plunder of trees from overseas. While China is increasingly protecting
its own forests - including a vast swath of woodland known as the Great
Green Wall - its timber traders are having to look elsewhere for supplies,
and the authorities appear to be turning a blind eye to their origins.
-
- China's ministry of commerce, the customs office and
the port authority of Zhangjiagang were unwilling or unable to comment
on the scale of the merbau trade or even whether imports of the wood were
permissible.
-
- Environmental groups say the problem of illegal wood
imports is not restricted to China. Europe, the United States and Japan
have also done little or nothing to control the burgeoning trade.
-
- But the scale and speed of China's rise has put unprecedented
pressure on global forestry resources. The conservation group WWF estimates
that China imports more than 100m cubic metres of wood a year, between
a quarter and a third of which is illegally felled in eastern Russia, the
Brazilian rainforests, Burma and Africa. One in four logs is processed
into furniture and other products for export to wealthy nations such as
the UK.
-
- "China is not alone in allowing vast amounts of
illegal and destructive timber to be imported, although its growing demand
for timber products is unparalleled," said Stephen Campbell, forestry
campaigner for Greenpeace International.
-
- "The solution to this problem lies in concentrated
political will and international cooperation. Without this, the ancient
forests in the Asia-Pacific will be lost within a few years."
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2005
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1466021,00.html
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