Vietnam hardly had any tree but their furniture exports increased 10 folds since 2000.
Hmmm.....I wonder why.
Source: American Shipper+ Shippers' NewsWire Date Posted: 3/20/2008 9:51:52 AM
Vietnam's furniture industry accused of using illegal timber Vietnam has become a hub for processing large quantities of illegal timber from the region and used in its burgeoning furniture industry, according to a report released on March 19 by the non-profit organization Environmental Investigation Agency. EIA and its Indonesian partner Telapak conducted the investigation, which includes filming and undercover visits to Vietnamese furniture factories. "With the crackdowns on the illegal timber trade in countries like Indonesia, some criminal networks are now looting the vanishing forests of Laos," the EIA said. "The Laos government ordered a ban on the export of logs in 1999. This law is largely ignored by Vietnamese traders who use corrupt means to import vast quantities of hardwood logs." In the Vietnamese port of Vinh, EIA and Telapak investigators witnessed piles of logs from Laos awaiting sale. At a single border crossing, 45 trucks loaded with logs were counted lining up on the Laos side waiting to cross into Vietnam. EIA and Telapak estimated that at least 500,000 cubic meters of logs move illegally from Laos to Vietnam each year. The EIA noted in its release that Vietnamese furniture exports reached $2.4 billion in 2007, a 10-fold increase since 2000, making the country the fourth-largest wood products exporter. The United States is the largest market for Vietnamese wooden furniture, importing more than $1 billion in 2007, or 45 percent of total exports. It is not illegal in the United States to import illegally sourced wood products, but Capitol Hill lawmakers are considering legislation to create such a ban. "Importers and retailers in the United States must take responsibility for buying stolen timber," said EIA Executive Director Alexander von Bismarck, in a statement. "Until the U.S. stops importing illegally logged wood, the destruction of the world's last tropical forests will continue." The EIA/Telapak report, Borderlines: Vietnam's booming furniture industry and timber smuggling in the Mekong region, along images of illegal use of Laos timber in Vietnam, is available online at www.eia- international.org.
sad ! very sad, laos, the owner of these valuable timbers got nothing except concerned people and what the government is doing ? ? ? and I once heard that our boundary is invaded by vietnameses, the narrow point is 5 km and the largest point is 20 km along the border, I don`t remember the date of this information from news for research KPL.
when I went to visit relatives in Loei, Thailand teir village was just built on the mekong bank, the Mekong is very narrow there, I saw the construction of the road on the lao side , people told me that the raod construction was being carried out by vietnamese company leading to a site of gold mine that the said company will extract huge quantity of gold there...It didn`t surprise me `cos my relatives in thailand extracted gold from the sand in the mekong but with very few quantity : two or three baht of raw gold per year that they mould it in a shape of apple seed but two time bigger... WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING ???
