Blog Posts: lacey act

DNA evidence often implicates violent criminals. Now it can do the same for poachers harvesting wood from protected forests.

Our podcast team sat down with Chip Barber and Austin Clowes of the Forest Legality Initiative to learn how to build a sustainable guitar.

Many guitar makers use "figured" wood, desired for its wavy or rippled appearance. Bigleaf maple from the U.S. Pacific Northwest can act as a sustainable and beautiful source of figured wood.

The illegal logging trade steals valuable natural resources and undercuts companies' profitability. That's why businesses and governments are turning to new technology applications to expose illicitly harvested lumber.

The largest hardwood flooring retailer in the United States is charged with importing illegally harvested timber from areas including forests in far eastern Russia.

Resource-strapped law enforcement agencies and companies with complex supply chains struggle to curb illegally sourced wood. That's where DNA analysis and other advanced technologies can play a role.

A wood buyer from Washington State and his lumber mill, J&L Tonewoods, were indicted last week on charges of purchasing illegally harvested big leaf maples from the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in violation of the Lacey Act. The act bans illegal wildlife trafficking, and the seven counts of the indictment are the first alleging violations within the United States.

Illegal logging drives deforestation in many countries, robbing national governments and local communities of valuable income and contributing to global biodiversity loss and climate change. Apart from its environmental and economic damage, illegal logging can fuel corruption, and is sometimes linked to organized crime and violent social conflict.

A new guide, Sourcing Legally Produced Wood: A Guide for Business, provides four actions companies can take to source legal wood. The guide aims to help companies avoid illicit logging in their supply chains—both for the good of the world’s forests and their own bottom lines.

A recent incident at Lumber Liquidators highlights how alleged ties to illegally harvested woods can negatively impact business. Moreover, it shows that the U.S. Lacey Act—which bans trafficking of illegally sourced wood and paper products—is continuing to crack down on suspected illicit activity. It’s important that companies take note—and take action.

Brazil is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world. What is less known is that the country is the fourth largest industrial roundwood (timber left as logs, not sawn into planks) and wood pulp producer and ninth largest paper producer in the world. Brazil’s forest sector contributed 5 percent to the national gross domestic product in 2012. Brazil’s forests are not only home to communities and a haven for biodiversity, they are also part of the country’s economic backbone.

Brazil’s government has made impressive progress towards balancing forest protection and production. In 2012, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped to its lowest rate in more than two decades. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research has pioneered the use of satellite data to prevent illegal logging. And the forest sector uses the Forest Source Document system (Documento de Origem Florestal, DOF), a sophisticated electronic system to track the wood flow throughout the supply chain.

Despite these positive steps, illegal logging and associated trade in the Amazon continues. Beyond the negative social and environmental impacts, illegal logging poses a serious problem for businesses producing legal wood products. With a price difference of up to 40 percent, legal wood simply cannot compete with cheaper illegal wood.

To reduce illegal logging and support the legal actors in the forest sector, Brazil must strengthen its forest control systems and policies.