Illegal logging

China receives 96 per cent of the precious wood exported from the Far East of Russia (Figures 11 and 12). Estimates by the Environmental Investigation Agency suggest that at least 80 per cent of these exports consist of illegally-logged old-growth timber, often from protected areas, stolen with the use of fake documents and official seals that have been received from bribed forest officials. 44 The Environmental Investigation Agency tracked valuable, illegally harvested hardwoods across the Russian-Chinese border to showrooms around the world. The United States ‘Lacey Act’ requires importers to indicate the country of origin for timber. The investigation revealed that timber flooring from China was labelled ‘Made in Germany’ at the request of Lumber

12,627

1,029

9,048

729

52% 37% 4.5% 2% 1.4% 0.8% 0.8% 0.8% 0.5%

1,100

99

74

57

482

336

205

191

190

120

16

13

18

13

Manchurian ash

Scots pine

Larch Birch Mongolian oak

Poplar

Elm Manchurian lime

Cedar

RWE volume, thousand m ³

Value, mln USD

2% Exports share

(total: 24,298)

(total: 2,048)

Graph by Manana Kurtubadze, GRID-Arendal, 2015. Source: Russian Customs, 2012, EIA, 2013.

Figure 12: Export of Russian timber to China by tree species in 2012

16