A recent logging ban in China is having an unexpected knock-on effect. To meet its insatiable hunger for timber, the country has become the world鈥檚 second largest importer of wood, a development that could sound the death knell for the forests of South-East Asia.
China banned logging in virgin forests after massive floods on the Yangtze in 1998. 快猫短视频s convinced the government that logging in the headwaters of the river, the third largest in the world, contributed to flash floods and caused billions of dollars鈥� worth of damage.
But government figures obtained last month by the China office of the World Wide Fund for Nature reveal that China has now come from nowhere to being a bigger importer of timber than Japan. Over the past 30 years, Japan has systematically destroyed the rainforests of the Philippines and much of Borneo. Now environmentalists fear China will chop down the rest.
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鈥淏efore the logging ban, China imported around 4 million cubic metres of timber a year,鈥� says Zhu Chunquang, WWF鈥檚 forest programmes officer in Beijing. 鈥淚n 1999, the first year after the ban, the figure rose to 10 million and we have just heard that the figure for 2000 was approaching 15 million.鈥�
Renting forests
China is buying hardwoods from the rainforests of Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the African state of Gabon (see Graphic), and softwoods such as spruce and fir from Siberia. It is now the world鈥檚 second biggest timber importer, after the US.
鈥淐hinese timber companies are setting up abroad,鈥� says Zhu. 鈥淭hey are renting large areas of forests in Sabah, Borneo, and setting up pulp mills. They are even investing in New Zealand and Brazil.鈥�
The official import statistics may be an underestimate, says Anatoly Schvidenko, Russian forestry specialist at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria.
鈥淭he logging ban in China has created a major black market for illegal harvesting in the Siberia forests of Irkutsk and Tomsk,鈥� he told 快猫短视频. There are also reports of a cross-border timber trade with China鈥檚 southern neighbours, including Burma.
The ban has proved very effective. 鈥淯ntil two years ago, outsiders were banned from many roads in northern Sichuan because they were used exclusively for logging vehicles,鈥� says Chen Youping, a local forestry official. Apart from a few bicycles and buses, the roads are now empty.