Thai
security personnel patrol a section of forest near the Cambodian border
last year in an effort to reduce illegal logging in the area. EIA
Furnishing a bad habit
Endangered Siamese rosewood has been logged to the brink of
extinction in the Mekong region, including in the remote forests of
Cambodia, fuelled by China’s demand for faux antique furniture,
according to a report released yesterday by an environmental monitoring
group.
The report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which is
the culmination of a decadelong undercover investigation, describes how
the desire for luxury Ming and Qing dynasty reproductions and artwork,
known as
hongmu, has left “a bloody trail of death, violence and corruption in its wake”.
“Siamese rosewood has become so rare and valuable that the practice
of logging it is now more akin to wildlife poaching,” the report says.
The rosewood is logged in remote jungles, such as those in Cambodia’s
Ratanakkiri, Stung Treng and Preah Vihear provinces, and funnelled
through a host of laundering operations in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam
operated by “a web of traders, middlemen and corrupt officials [who]
make their fortunes by channeling rosewood . . . to the glitzy furniture
showrooms of China”.
Faith Doherty, EIA’s forest campaign team leader, said in an email
yesterday that the demand for the highly prized timber perpetuated
illegal logging.
“The rosewood industry is extremely lucrative – millions and millions
of dollars are earned – plus the more difficult Siam[ese] rosewood is
to get, the higher the price, the more valuable Siam[ese] rosewood
becomes,” she said.
Doherty added that the numerous deaths of Cambodian loggers at the
hands of Thai security forces were directly linked to the Chinese trade.
In Cambodia, Siamese rosewood is protected under the 2002 Forestry
Law. But a combination of weak enforcement and corruption, coupled with
soaring Chinese demand, has “turned forests into conflict zones”,
according to the report.
Under the cover of darkness, loggers flood into Thailand’s national
parks across Cambodia’s porous border, carrying the tools of the trade:
chainsaws, guns and even rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
“When loggers are confronted by enforcement officers, violence often ensues,” the report, titled
Routes of Extinction,
states. “Methamphetamines … are regularly used as a stimulant to
overcome fatigue and as a form of payment for loggers from border
communities blighted by drug addiction,” it adds.
At least 69 Cambodians were shot dead by Thai security forces last
year. In a single day in March this year, 12 illegal loggers were
reported to have been shot dead by Thai forces near the border with
Preah Vihear province. Thailand denied the killings took place.
In one example of the cross-border trade, undercover EIA
investigators posing as buyers met Thai trader Promphan Suttisaragorn, a
representative of a company claiming to source Siamese rosewood from
high-level officials in Cambodia.
He told the investigators that “rosewood logged in Thailand was often
smuggled into Cambodia and re-exported into Thailand to obscure its
origin”.
The cost of rosewood has spiked in recent years, the report notes,
with traders often warehousing timber until prices rise. Suttisaragorn,
whose company the
Post could not reach yesterday, allegedly offered to sell the EIA team 10,000 cubic metres for $50 million.
“Logging tycoons with links to high-ranking officials are plundering
Cambodia’s natural resources at an alarming rate,” Neil Loughlin,
technical adviser at rights group Adhoc, said yesterday. “Cambodia’s
rich natural resources, lax enforcement and culture of corruption means
it is ideal for exploitation to fuel China’s voracious appetite for
luxury timber.”
Thon Sarath, chief of administration at the Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry and Fisheries, said the government was cooperating with
neighbouring countries to try to end the flow of rosewood to China.
He added that if evidence of connections between high-level officials
and illegal logging syndicates were discovered, they should be reported
to the authorities.
“We tried to do a lot of things already to act against the [illegal] timber trade,” he said.
Forestry Administration director Chheng Kimsun and Ung Samath, its deputy director, could not be reached.
Cheng Hongbo, chief of the Chinese embassy’s political section, said
that Beijing had policies in place to tackle environmental degradation
and organised crime.
“China has made enviromental protection one of its basic national
policies, [and regards] the realization of sustainable development as an
important strategy and carried out measures for ... ecological
environment protection,” he said in an email.
“The Chinese government will surely crack down [on] any illegal trade and organized crime networks.”
China's efforts to curb the border trade since the species was listed
as protected last year have led to prices as high as $80,000 per tonne
for logs cut from the 33 species China defines as suitable for
hongmu, the report says.
The Chinese government has also “provided considerable financial incentives to promote the
hongmu
industry. The rationale behind investment and state backing for an
industry which is systematically destroying its own supply chain is
unclear,” it adds.
But wealthy elites in China continue to drive the trade and expand
into new species as old ones are depleted, while a “venerable cultural
tradition serves as a cover for rampant speculation”.
“As species deplete, the industry will want to expand their
definition and . . . deplete their own supply chain. This is not an
industry that looks long term, but at what they can get now,” EIA’s
Doherty said.
