Malaysia: Hard to stop smuggled RI timber

Malaysia: Hard to stop smuggled RI timber

Reuters
Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia said on Wednesday it was unable to stop smuggled
Indonesian wood from reaching its ports due to a legal loophole
but pledged to work with green groups that exposed the problem.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which published
a scathing report on Malaysia after a two-year probe on trade of
banned Indonesian ramin wood, maintained that Malaysian officials
were working with smugglers.

"We believe that the trade in (Indonesian) ramin is known by
certain officials," EIA president Allan Thornton told reporters
after a stormy two-hour meeting with Malaysian Primary Industries
Minister Lim Keng Yaik.

"What we've heard today is that Malaysian law does not allow
to fully legislate, to stop the trade through free ports and that
does not comply with the convention on international trade of
endangered species," Thornton said.

The United Nations convention is intended to slow the rate of
global extinctions of animals and plants significantly by 2010.

Exports of Indonesian ramin was banned in 2001 after
complaints that the livelihood of orang utans and other animals
there were being threatened by indiscriminate logging.

The U.S.-based EIA and its Indonesian partner Telapak
circulated both printed and video evidence this week of Malaysian
businessmen boasting of having government licenses to export
smuggled Indonesian ramin.

Malaysian ports handled tens of thousands of cubic meters of
ramin each year, most of it shipped to China and Taiwan to be
made into products such as pool cues, mop handles and picture
frames for export, the EIA report said.

Lim, upset with EIA's charges against Malaysian officials,
said the government did not have power to raid ports in free
trade zones where Indonesian ramin was allegedly stored before
being shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai as local wood.

"We don't have the legal instruments to do that," the minister
said, thumping his table angrily. "We can't go in overnight, we
can't bring in the army, we can't go with guns blazing. We can be
sued."

"If we have to change the law, it may take six months just to
go through parliament," he said. "But in the time being, we will
cooperate with the EIA to try and find a solution."