Investigators Expose U.S. Link to Billion Dollar W
Washington, DC, April 18--Environmentalists claim that hardwood flooring sold across the U.S. is linked to the world's largest illegal timber smuggling operation.
Following two years of undercover investigations, The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a non-profit group, has exposed how a leading distributor of hardwood flooring, Goodfellow Inc., is selling flooring made from logs illegally felled in Papua province of Indonesia.
EIA has documented how 300,000 cubic meters of stolen merbau logs are exported from Papua each month. Most of these logs are going to feed China's massive timber processing industry. Chinese factories export merbau flooring to North American distributors including Goodfellow, a leading timber importer and hardwood floor sales company with offices in New York, New Hampshire and Washington state and over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian customers.
Goodfellow was previously implicated in purchases of conflict timber from Liberia, a trade which fueled that country's civil war and the slaughter of thousands of civilians. Although EIA does not allege that Goodfellow broke any laws, Goodfellow's CEO pledged last Friday to cooperate with any government investigation.
EIA investigators posing as traders met with Sihe Wood, Goodfellow's Chinese merbau flooring suppliers. A Sihe executive confirmed in taped interviews that it buys merbau logs imported from Indonesia. The Chinese company is a member of the U.S. National Wood Flooring Association headquartered in Chesterfield, Mo.
The expose by EIA and Telapak, a leading Indonesian environmental group, triggered an order last month by Indonesia's President for a massive crackdown in Papua against top Papua forestry officials, Army personnel, military police, and Malaysian financiers and timber company executives.
Indonesian officials have reportedly seized almost 65,000 logs, 20,000 cubic meters of cut timber, 788 pieces of heavy equipment, 34 trucks/vehicles, 4 ships, 13 barges and 49 chain saws from 49 locations in Papua province. The president of a Malaysian company with concessions on 800,000 hectares of Papua forest has been arrested. A senior official of China's State Forestry Administration also vowed last month to take action against importers and manufacturers receiving the smuggled logs.
"The U.S. and Canadian timber industry need to stop turning a blind eye to the massive illegal timber and wood imports flooding into North American markets," said Allan Thornton, EIA president. "We need to fast track commitments made by the U.S. and Canada at last month's G8 meeting to stop imports of illegal timber –- and to do that we need the timber industry to stop selling timber and wood products stolen from Asian rainforests," he added.
Last month, the U.S., Canada and other G8 nations agreed to new measures to halt imports of illegally cut timber. EIA is calling for the U.S. and Canada to enact new laws to ban the import and sale of stolen wood. "It is time for the U.S. and Canada to act in support of the people of Indonesia and other countries who are fighting powerful organized crime syndicates and corrupt high level officials to stop the plundering of their forests," said Thornton.
