Illegal logging - Introduction
Introduction
Illegal logging means the harvesting of timber in disregard of the laws, regulations and measures that exist in the country of harvest. This type of illegal activity always existed, but has taken on new dimensions in the last few decades. The main reasons for that are land use changes, the increased use of wood as an energy source and an increased demand for tropical timber in the developed countries. Land use change mainly occurs for agricultural purposes. For example, the increased demand for bio-fuels as a substitute for fossil fuels led to more and more plantations which produce palm oil that sells well on the world market. Growing populations worldwide exercise pressure to substitute agricultural land for virgin forests. Weak governmental structures, a loose control of logging activities, corruption and other governance weaknesses contribute to accelerated deforestation. Also the worldwide demand for tropical timber contributes to forest decline. High-value timber for furniture, toys, construction material and other uses increase the intensity of logging, often in open disregard of the fact that several trees are protected by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Forests are an important socio-economic factor. More than one billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods. Forests conserve water and retain carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas. They retain about ten per cent of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. They protect against soil erosion and desertification, and the sustainable use of timber constitutes an important economic element in many developing countries.
The present state of forests is not encouraging. The World Resources Institute, a semi-public body, estimates that in the last few decades about thirty per cent of forests disappeared, due to - legal and illegal - logging, and that another twenty percent are strongly degraded. Only some fifteen per cent of forests are considered "intact", and the trend towards forest decline has not yet stopped. The United Nations started, in 2005, a programme for the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) which is, however, until now dependant on voluntary financial contributions from donor countries and private sources. No global binding agreement on the protection of forests and the fight against deforestation has been reached so far. This also relates to measures against illegal logging which are thought to constitute some thirty per cent of all logging activities and which have considerable negative economic, environmental and social impacts in the countries concerned.
In the absence of global measures against illegal logging, some countries or regions started to take unilateral actions against illegal logging, in particular the United States, Australia and the European Union (further – the EU). As all these initiatives are of relative recent date, it is too early to assess whether they have contributed to stopping the global trend towards forest decline. The interdependency between population growth, climate change and environmental degradation makes effective global measures against forest decline and against illegal logging more necessary than ever.
Emily Unwin