What is illegal logging?

Illegal logging is the harvesting, transporting, processing, buying or selling of timber in

violation of national laws. It also applies to harvesting wood from protected areas, exporting
threatened plant/tree species, and falsifying official documents.

Less obvious acts of illegal logging include breaking license agreements, tax evasion,
corrupting government officials and interfering with access and rights to forest areas.

What causes illegal logging?

Illegal logging exists because of increasing demand for timber, paper and derivative
products (including packaging) a trend that is likely to continue. Illegal logging can also
happen when forests are cleared for plantations such as oil palm.

But not all wood removal is due to trade. In fact, 40% of wood taken from forests globally is
used for basic energy needs such as cooking and heating. In tropical regions, wood removal
(often illegal) for fuel can be as high as 80%.

Illegal logging is a major problem in the Congo Basin and the Amazon. Lesser known is the
fact that it also occurs in Canada and Europe.

Whats the problem?

The worlds huge demand for timber and paper products has led, in some places, to
increasingly unsustainable forest management removing too many trees too quickly or
logging entire forests. In order to provide a future for species and sustain natural forests, as
well as ensuring wood resources into the future, there are now laws to control logging in key
areas and to stop the trade in products from illegal sources.

Unfortunately, these laws are often broken.

Illegal logging poses a serious threat to forests, people and wildlife. It puts pressure on all
the forests WWF works in, whether they be in South-East Asia, Papua New Guinea or
South America. It contributes to global deforestation and climate change. It threatens many
species with extinction and denies forest-dependent communities access to resources.

Illegal logging undermines legitimate business by undercutting timber companies that act
responsibly. It also diverts income away from sustainable development, and causes social
conflicts and financial losses for forest-rich developing countries. Illegal logging is often
linked to organised crime, money-laundering and civil war.

Up until now, theres been nothing to stop the illegal timber trade playing an active part in
the Australian market. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF)
estimates that each year around $400 million worth of Australias forest product imports
(totalling around $4 billion in 2008) carry some risk of having been illegally logged.

Am I buying illegal wood?

Contributing to illegal logging is frighteningly easy as easy as stepping into a wood

product retail store and purchasing a chair or table with unknown origins. The furniture may
potentially be made from timber that was illegally cut and/or exported.

By asking for good wood wood that has been obtained through legal practices
consumers can exert pressure on the timber industry to adopt more environmentally and
socially-friendly practices.

With help from people like you, there has been some great progress. WWF supporters
helped us to Say No to Bad Wood during a campaign to ban illegal timber imports to
Australia. And in December 2010 the Australian Government announced that it would
introduce legislation to restrict illegally logged timber imports into Australia.

But illegal logging is still a huge problem. The illegal logs cut each year, if laid end-to-end,
would stretch 10 times around the Earth (according to a Chatham House report, July 2010 1).

Tough laws are important in tackling the illegal timber trade, but you can help, too, by
choosing wood and paper from responsible sources, such as those with the FSC (Forest
Stewardship Council) logo.
http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/saving_the_natural_world/forests/threats/illegal_log
ging/

Deforestation and climate

change
Forests have a vital role to play in the fight against global warming. Carbon is absorbed by
forests and stored in the trees and soil. This carbon is released as carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases when forests are disturbed or cleared.

Recent calculations indicate that deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for
around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Deforestation releases carbon into the atmosphere

This source of emissions must be addressed if we are to prevent the global average
temperature rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels the point at which we face a
high risk of severe and irreversible changes in the planets natural systems.

WWFs report Climate Solutions: WWFs vision for 2050 concluded that unless effective
action is taken to curb emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, our probability
of limiting global warming to 2C drops progressively from more than 90% to just 35%.
Unfortunately, the economic incentives for unsustainable forest management or converting
forests to other land uses (agriculture, building roads and population expansion) are often
greater (in the short-term) than the incentives to conserve or responsibly manage them.

Whats more, emissions from deforestation in developing countries are not currently
included in the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) the international environmental treaty that aims to tackle global
warming.

http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/saving_the_natural_world/forests/threats/deforestat
ion_and_climate_change/

Forest conversion
Converting forests to other land uses
The conversion of forests to other land uses, such as agriculture and pulp and paper
plantations, comes at a severe environmental and social cost. This is due to the ecological
impacts of clearing and uncontrolled burning, as well as the disregard for the rights and
interests of local or Indigenous communities.

Without significant changes to policy and practice, forest conversion is likely to continue at a
rapid rate and pose a major threat to the climate, to forests of high conservation value,
freshwater ecosystems, the livelihoods of local people, and the habitats of endangered
species such as the jaguar, rhino, tiger and great apes. The loss of habitat also leads to
increased interaction and conflict between wildlife and humans.

One of the most significant crops in terms of its contribution to the loss of valuable wildlife
habitat is palm oil, which is grown in plantations that have replaced rainforest in South-East
Asia.

WWF is working to deal with the environmental and social problems associated with
clearing forests for agricultural plantations. We are also addressing the causes of
deforestation and aim to ensure that global palm oil and pulp and paper expansion does not
threaten environmentally-important forests and endangered species.

http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/saving_the_natural_world/forests/threats/forest_con
version/

There are a variety of threats to forests and forest communities:

Mining, infrastructure development, agro-industrial expansion and industrial logging are

advancing at an alarming rate. These activities are huge drivers of deforestation, and rainforest
communities are often displaced from their territories, while rarely reaping the benefits.

In the Congo Basin, forest communities have no security over the land and resources they
depend on, as formally all the regions rainforests belong to the State.

In the Amazon region, the limited land allocations supplied often do not correspond to the
peoples ancestral territories or cultural reality, and in many cases, land claims remain
unaddressed.

Particularly in the Congo Basin, governments allocate vast expanses of pristine rainforest to
logging, mining and agro-industrial expansion or to create protected areas, without recognising
local communities pre-existing claims to those lands.
 Governments struggle to monitor the activities of extractive industries and to ensure that they fulfil
their social and environmental obligations and respect human rights. This leaves forests and
forest peoples extremely vulnerable.

Environmental protection policies such as REDD+ face criticism on flawed assumptions regarding
the drivers of deforestation. Strict conservation models restrict indigenous peoples and
communities' access to the forests they depend on, despite international evidence demonstrating
that participation of local communities is the most effective ways to protect the forest.

http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/what-we-do/issues/threats-to-forests-and-forest-communities