Vietnam’s activities in illegal and stolen timber
Vietnam’s activities in illegal and stolen timber
Excerpt from “Borderlines, Vietnam’s Booming Furniture Industry and Timber Smuggling in the Mekong region”, EIA March 2008.
In Vietnam, large-scale logging in the 1980s and early 1990s caused significant forest loss. At its peak, up to 4.5 million cubic metres of logs were felled in natural forests in one year. Such chronic exploitation led the Vietnamese government to begin imposing controls on the logging industry in 1992, including an 80 per cent reduction in the logging quota and a log export ban. By 1997 Vietnam had closed down around three-quarters of its state-forestry enterprises. At the same time as domestic controls were introduced, Vietnam began sourcing increasing amounts of timber from the neighbouring countries of Cambodia and Laos.
This report contains new information from field investigations carried out by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and its partner Telapak. It exposes how the rapid growth of Vietnam's wood processing industry is threatening some of the last intact forests in the Mekong region, especially those in neighbouring Laos.
Vietnam has an unenviable track record when it comes to dealing in stolen timber. In the late 1990s it was caught importing illegal timber from neighbouring Cambodia. A detailed report issued in 1999 revealed how Vietnamese outdoor furniture manufacturers were buying large quantities of logs from neighbouring Cambodia, despite the fact that Cambodia had imposed a total export ban in 1996. The report found that furniture factories in just four towns - Qui Nhon, Pleiku, Song Be and Bien Hoa - had stockpiles of 260,000 cubic metres of illegal Cambodian logs in early 1998, and that 70 log-carrying trucks were crossing from Cambodia to Vietnam every day. The report also exposed how the major Vietnamese timber company Vinafor was colluding with the Cambodian military to import logs in defiance of the ban.
New evidence from EIA/Telapak reveals that Vietnam is now exploiting the forests of neighbouring Laos to obtain valuable hardwoods for its outdoor furniture industry. This trade is in direct contravention of laws in Laos banning the export of logs and sawn timber.
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Also read:
Vietnamese military illegally plundering Laos' forests