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."