Illegal Timber Trade News

Amazon cattle, soy and timber producers employ “laundering” tricks to hide illegal deforestation. Easy solutions exist, but political will is weak: experts.

A recent study suggests that a lot of fraudulently or inaccurately identified wood turns up in products on the U.S. market and that inspectors’ capacity to root out these issues…

International wildlife trade regulators have issued an advisory drawing attention to $50 million worth of Malagasy rosewood logs seized in 2014 in Singapore that could potentially end up in the…

A ban on the international trade in rosewood, a prized timber, remains intact following the close this week of a global summit on the trade in wild animals and plants.…

On July 8, Greenpeace forest campaigner Philippe Verbelen was conducting routine monitoring at the Belgian port of Antwerp when he noticed a familiar name attached to a timber shipment: Wan…

In a joint customs and police operation spanning 109 countries, authorities have confiscated thousands of plants and animals, including more than 2,600 plants, nearly 10,000 live turtles and tortoises, more…

Indigenous reserves and other conserved lands in nine Amazonian nations are under extreme pressure as roads, mining, dams, oil drilling, fires and deforestation encroach.

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast we speak with Ivonne Higuero, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — better…

Millions in federal budget cuts have reduced the Amazon state’s ability to fight record forest fires in 2019, with many more wildfires expected.

More than seven weeks after a series of deadly Easter Sunday bombings rocked Sri Lanka, an international summit on the wildlife trade originally scheduled to take place in Colombo last…

The Brazilian government’s environmental agency, IBAMA, has so far this year imposed the lowest number of fines for illegal deforestation in at least 11 years, while the country’s other leading…

Eight past environmental ministers assail policies. Amazon Fund and 334 Brazilian parks at risk; sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties head to approval.

Bolsonaro has consolidated his authority, firing top environmental officials and replacing them with military officers, and easing environmental fines.

Soy, cattle and timber producers charged with illegal Amazon deforestation continue to trade actively with international markets and to be financed by global investors.

For over a decade Madagascar has wrestled with a thorny question: What to do with stockpiles of illegal precious timber in government custody? A new analysis contends that selling off…

As you approach Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, five hours north of Phnom Penh, it’s difficult to tell exactly where the park begins. There is no audience of trees to greet…

IRRAWADDY DELTA, Myanmar — For many in Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis was a wake-up call. When it made landfall in May 2008, it devastated the Irrawaddy Delta, a rural and low-lying…

Singapore’s highest court has acquitted a businessman who brought Malagasy rosewood valued at $50 million into the city-state. The verdict on April 8 reversed the ruling of a lower court…

An illegal timber trade supply chain stretching from Chinese companies operating out of two countries in West Africa to major hardware stores located throughout the U.S. has been uncovered. A…

RANONG, Thailand — Beyond a metal gate in Ranong, a port town in southern Thailand, a warehouse is filled nearly wall to wall and floor to ceiling with bags of…