China's growing economy may fuel illegal timber trade
China's growing economy may fuel illegal timber trade
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
A booming economy has not only made China thirsty for oil and
minerals but also forestry products, which could be fueling the
illegal trade of the commodity from Indonesia, according to a
non-governmental organization.
Director of the Center for International Forestry Research
(CIFOR) David Kaimowitz said China's astonishing economic growth
had threatened the sustainability of the Indonesian forests as
Indonesian exporters were racing to tap market opportunities in
China.
"An increase in China's imports of forest products has not
only created an opportunity, but also a problem. It has greatly
increased the pressure on most Indonesian forests," said
Kaimowitz.
A joint study conducted by CIFOR, Forest Trends and the
Chinese Center for Agricultural policy shows that between 1997
and 2002, Chinese imports of forest products rose by 75 percent
from US$6.4 billion to $11.2 billion.
Preliminary figures suggest the imports reached almost $13
billion in 2003. By 2002, the country was importing the
equivalent of 96 million cubic meters of wood, or about one and a
half times Indonesia's total annual timber harvest, the study
said.
"We just can imagine how sensitive it is to try to solve these
problems when a lot of the products are illegal. The business has
involved many jobs with the economy also depending on it," said
Kaimowitz.
According to the study, the majority of Chinese forest product
imports come from Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Canada.
Indonesia, Russia and Canada account for over 60 percent of the
pulp and paper imports, while Indonesia is the largest source of
plywood and lumber products for the world's most populous
country.
As the Chinese become richer, they build additional houses and
buy more books and newspapers. And the nation has also become a
major exporter of finished wood-based products such as furniture.
The country manages to keep more jobs at home by importing raw
materials and doing the processing themselves; importing more
logs and less plywood, and purchasing pulp rather than paper.
Meanwhile, China has made several moves to protect its own
forests by putting a halt to most logging in many areas and
closing down thousands of small factories and mills, resulting in
the skyrocketing importation of timber, lumber and pulp.
The country of 1.3 billion people ideally would like to get
most of its forest products from its own reforestation
plantations in the future. However, it remains unclear when that
will it happen.
"It will need a bilateral talk to solve this problem. We are
hoping that in the next Asian Forest Partnership (AFP) meeting,
Indonesia and China will have a common understanding to solve
it," said Kaimowitz.