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Global Tropical Timber Trade
A Multi-Billion Dollar Business... According to the International Tropical Timber Organisation, the import value of global trade in tropical timber (the majority of which is felled from primary or secondary forests, rather than plantations), is approximately 16 billion USD per year. ForestAlert.org documents this trade in facts, figures and according to which Japanese companies and organisations are behind it. Our aim is also to develop a database on the increasing number of Chinese companies involved in importing timber and exporting finished produce around the world. Clearly as the world's leading supplier of furniture and numerous other forest-based products, China's role is crucial. Leading consumer brands should not be able to dodge the issue of where the timber behind their China imports is sourced. Much of it is clearly illegal or from dwindling primary forests. The trade flow map below clearly indicates that the majority of world trade in timber currently flows from Southeast Asia to North Asia (primarily Japan and China). This fact cannot be over-emphasized, neither can the impact this trade is having on the tropical ecosystems of the region, which are third in size behind those of the Amazon Basin and Central Africa. Compared to those two regions, Southeast Asia's forests are being felled at an alarming rate. For example, for many years, Malaysia, a country smaller than New York state, was far and away the leading exporter of tropical timber, outpacing Brazil, whose forests are almost the size of the 48 contiguous states of the USA. Click on the map below to navigate to the sections of the site dealing with the various regions of the world, and find out who is using what in terms of tropical timber, and which companies are involved. Note: click here for chart illustrating the trade flows of 2005.
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