BANGKOK, THAILAND: After Thailand banned logging in 1989 following the severe 1988 floods, the Thai timber industry looked to neighbouring Burma, Cambodia and Laos to supply timber to the growing wooden product industry.
Vietnam began imposing controls on logging in 1992, including an 80% reduction in the logging quota and an export ban. By 1977, Vietnam shut down about three-quarters of its state-run forestry enterprise.
Like Thailand, Vietnam turned to neighbours to supply its fast-growing wooden furniture industry. Vietnam, which produces furniture mostly for export, consumes much more wood than Thailand, where it is used mostly for domestic consumption. On supply side, Laos has banned log exports since 1999 and ordered a reduction of sawn timber exports in 2001.
However, trucks loaded with logs and sawn timber, mostly illegal, are commonly seen at border checkpoints entering Thailand and Vietnam.
An undercover investigation by United Kingdom-based Environ- mental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Indonesian conservationist Telapak said illegal logging and timber smuggling is widespread in Laos.
In 2006 alone, about 600,000 cubic metres of logs, with a market value of US$250 million (Bt7.9 billion), were cut illegally in Laos, EIA representative Julian Newman said.
Protected areas are often the target for illegal logging operations, such as the Dong Amphan National Protected Areas in southern Attapeu province. Laos has many laws and regulations to control forestry industry but implementation is confused and enforcement is weak.
Last year, the government declared timber for export must be 100% finished products.
A series of regulations ended wood quotas to provincial authorities, restricting the right to export timber and wood products to the government.
However such laws and regulations have exceptions for development projects such as hydro-electric dams where logging is allowed in proposed inundated areas.
Smuggling of logs across the border, mainly to Vietnam, is facilitated by connections with military and officers on both sides of the border, the EIA-Telapak report said.
"In Laos, the military remains a powerful institution with wide business interests, including logging, and has close links with its Vietnamese counterpart," the report said.
Vietnam has imposed restrictions on the forestry industry, reducing the supply of timber cut in natural forest from 520,000 cubic metres in 1997, when the policy was enforced, to 150,000 cubic metres last year.
Despite such restrictions, Vietnam has rapidly developed a dynamic wood-processing industry and has in the last decade earned a reputation as a world-class furniture producer, exporting 90% of its products to 120 countries, including the United States, Japan, UK, Germany, France and China.
Vietnam's furniture exports reached $2.4 billion last year and the export value is estimated at $3 billion this year, making Vietnam the world's fourth-largest exporter of wood products.
With a wide gap between demand for products and supply of raw material, Vietnam has emerged as a major destination for illegal timber, the EIA-Telapak report said.
Laos is a major source of smuggled timber due to geographical proximity and close political relations between the two governments and militaries. (By SUPALAK GANJANAKHUNDEE/ The Nation/ ANN)
