China’s soaring demand for luxury wood fuels destruction of Madagascar’s forests

By Staff Writers
Nagoya, Japan (UPI) Oct 26, 2010 China’s soaring demand for luxury wood furniture is fueling the destruction of Madagascar’s forests, says a new report launched Tuesday at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan. The report from Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency shows that about 98 percent of the Madagascar wood — mostly ebony, rosewood and pallisander — is destined for the Chinese luxury furniture market. “In China, Malagasy rosewood beds sell for a million dollars apiece, yet less than 1 percent of the profits remain with local people,” EIA Executive Director Alexander von Bismarck said in a release. He noted that the group’s investigations found that Chinese traders were often aware that the wood they purchased was endangered and not legally cut. … While Madagascar earlier this year reinstated a ban on the export of all precious woods, the report shows that further shipments of wood have left Madagascar’s ports since then and logging continues. An article in The New York Times also reported environmental groups saying the illicit trade has increased at least 25 fold in the last year, with the value of the timber totaling at least $167 million during that period. The illegal trade has been facilitated by the weak law enforcement of the country’s transitional government as well as complicity by some of the country’s state authorities, the report states. EIA and Global Witness called on China to take immediate action to halt imports of wood from Madagascar and adopt stricter policies for the country’s traders and companies manufacturing products from the wood. …

Madagascar’s illicit wood trade to China