Rafael Orjuela, a community leader in Cartagena de Chairá, Colombia, moved to the Amazonian department of Caquetá in 1979 to escape severe economic hardship in the interior Andes region. At…
This is the second story in a two-part series on logging in the Solomon Islands. The first article, which focuses on the country at large and how its governance is…
This is the first story in a two-part series on logging in the Solomon Islands. The second article, which focuses on the island of Nende and how residents of one…
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…
Ten European companies have been accused of importing illegally-harvested timber from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by Global Witness. The watchdog group said earlier this month that the…
UPDATE (19 March 2019): The European Parliament voted March 12 to consent to the VPA with Vietnam by a vote of 632-14 with 23 abstentions. The resolution, including the explanatory…
A secretive timber kingpin who died last year has been unmasked as the shadowy figure at the center of a vast network that illegally sources teak, deliberately misgrades it to…
According to a recent report by Global Witness, there is evidence of disarray and illegality in Peru’s timber industry. The report focuses on the regions of Loreto, Ucayali, and Madre…
QUITO — The world is losing its tropical forests at an alarming rate, despite increased efforts to save them. A recent study now shows that the best way to tackle…
The most important thing we can do to address climate change isn’t to create new regulations, but ensure that countries comply with the regulations that already exist. That’s according to…
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Guyana has initialed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) to tackle illegal logging, improve forest management and boost the legal timber trade in…
Companies and their investors are exposing themselves to massive legal and financial risks by trading, sometimes unwittingly, in products derived from illegally harvested timber, according to a new report. Published earlier…
Floor & Decor, a leading flooring retailer in the United States, has continued to purchase products that contain tropical timber from Indusparquet, a supplier in Brazil, despite accusations that the…
Ukraine appears to have stalled in a “massive crackdown” on corruption and illegality in its timber sector, according to the group that exposed the practices. Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman launched…
China’s imports of timber from Papua New Guinea (PNG) are winnowing away the country’s forests, according to a group of NGOs, researchers and landowners. Without action by Chinese leaders, they…
November 6 is the UN’s International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. A decade after a tragic war in Liberia that was largely…
Gabon's President Ali Bongo announced on September 26, during a visit to a Rougier wood processing plant, that all forest concessions in Gabon will have to be certified with the…
Logging in the Solomon Islands, a small country of 667,000 people in the South Pacific, is decimating natural forests there at around 19 times the rate considered sustainable, the watchdog…
Five communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the more than 10,000 residents who call them home, now have legal control of the forests on which they depend.…
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is sounding the alarm over what it calls a “shadowy agreement” made by the Myanmar government to allow the logging and export of 5,000…
Papua New Guinea’s timber industry is plagued by illegality, including lax enforcement of forestry laws, the misuse of logging licenses and the sidelining of local communities, according to a new…
Logging to feed furniture factories in China, spurred by demand from the United States, is thinning the forests of Central Africa, recent research has found. Lead author Trevon Fuller, an…
In early 2018, the Africa branch of Rougier announced its bankruptcy. Founded in 1923, Rougier is one of the oldest and largest timber companies in Africa, present in five Congo…
Lax due diligence by European companies is driving the illegal harvest of timber in Ukraine, one of the largest suppliers to the continent, according to a report published July 14.…
LONG LAMAI, Malaysia — The tallest tajem trees have slash marks clear up to the canopy. Each diagonal cut released some of the tree’s heart-stopping sap to tip someone’s darts,…
A British government office has prosecuted a wood importer certified by the Forest Stewardship Council after it was found to have failed to ensure the legality of a shipment of…
More than 50 conservation and human rights organizations have called on international donors to halt funding aimed at economic development and forest protection in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the…
LONDON - Illegal teak from Myanmar is still likely entering the supply chains of some major luxury yacht makers and ending up as decking, says one environmental defense organization. In…
Timber that is being illegally logged and smuggled out of Myanmar is ending up as decking on luxury yachts in the UK, according to one group's research. The chain of…
