Corruption and Consequences: Illegal Logging in Southeast Asia
نویسنده
چکیده
Throughout Southeast Asia, the situation today is essentially the same. A deadly combination of poorly regulated commercial logging and a thriving illegal timber trade are decimating forest resources across the region. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, SE Asia has the highest rate of deforestation in the world (Fahn 2003). Ecological destruction of this scale has profound implications for SE Asia and the world as a whole. Indeed, the close connection between deforestation and illicit logging should be apparent as governments and NGO's increasingly restrict, or even ban, the legitimate timber industry. This paper focuses specifically on the illegal timber trade between SE Asia and the rest of the world, namely Japan, China, the US, and the European Union. I will first examine the nature of this illicit industry and its possible consequences before moving onto the social and political forces that shape the illegal timber economy. Significance The sheer scope of the timber trade, both legal and illegal, warrants its continued study. While deforestation and illegal logging are popularly associated with Brazil and the Amazon, the tropical rainforests and other old growth forests found in SE Asia are in at least as precarious a position, if not more so. Take Thailand, for example. Thanks to a boom in timber exports during the second half of the 20 th century, total land covered by forests fell from 50 per cent in the
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