Publications

Forest Products Trade Between China & Africa

An Analysis of Imports & Exports

Recent reports of China’s efforts to secure access to natural resources in Africa suggest that timber has already become an important traded commodity between China and the African continent. Many hold a general impression that Africa exports a significant and growing amount of timber to China. However, the true magnitude of the China-Africa forest product […]

Recent Developments in Forest Product Trade between Russia and China

Potential Production, Processing, Consumption and Trade Scenarios

China has a very significant role in the global timber market and this has significant ramifications for forests, forest livelihoods and the structure of forest industries around the world. In this report we will focus on possible future trends in the forest products-processing, consumption and trade between China and its main suppliers, with a particular […]

Amendment to the U.S. Lacey Act

Implications for Malaysian Forest Products Exporters

Malaysia is one of the largest producers and suppliers of tropical hardwood and related products destined for the United States. In 2007, the United States imported almost 2.2 m3 RWE of timber products from Malaysia – mostly plywood and furniture – totaling USD$1.1 billion in value. Sabah and Sarawak supply the great majority of the […]

Linking FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements to Jobs and Growth

Potential Challenges and Benefits for Small and Medium Sized Forest Enterprises

This brief report discusses the potential impact of the European Commission’s Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) on the extent to which improved investment and business climates supported by VPA programs can support the small and medium forest enterprise (SMFE) sector. Recognizing the important roles that SMFEs play in rural development and the alleviation of rural poverty, […]

Navigating the Border

An Analysis of the China-Myanmar Timber Trade

In addition to socio-economic pressures, the combination of insufficient regulation in China and political instability in northern Myanmar has exacted a high ecological price. The uncertain regulatory and contractual environment has oriented the border logging industry toward short-term harvesting and profits, rather than investments in longer-term timber production. Degradation in Myanmar’s border forests will have […]

Strategies for Strengthening Community Property Rights Over Forests

Lessons and Opportunities for Practitioners

Tenure security has recently become a central concern of poverty, forest conservation and human rights advocates alike. Poverty experts now recognize that the world’s poor are disproportionately located in rural areas and strongly dependent upon forest resources for their survival. Recent studies indicate that about 80 percent of the extreme poor, those living on less […]

Developing Markets for the Ecosystem Services of Forests

As human demands increase and natural resources become scarcer, those who bear the costs of degradation – such as downstream water utilities, local governments, private insurers and society as a whole – are exploring opportunities to reduce costs by financing forest conservation. At the same time, some forest owners are seeking compensation for the costs […]

Forest Product Exports from the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia to China

Status and Trends

Since 2001, China has been a top destination of Russian forest product exports to the Asia-Pacific region. The foreign economic and trade liberalization that began in Russia in the mid-1990s – combined with the high demand for timber imports into China due to the Chinese domestic logging ban starting in 1998 – has stimulated strong […]

Central Plans and Global Exports

Tracking Vietnam's Forestry Commodity Chains and Export Links to China

After suffering forest cover declines of 185,000 ha per year from 1976 until 1990, Vietnam is attempting to stabilize deforestation trends, restructure the forest industry and the land tenure system, and move aggressively into fast-growing plantations. Reforestation of degraded forest land, natural regeneration of logged forest areas and more effective forest protection are key components […]

Making Environmental Markets Work

Lessons from Early Experience with Sulphur, Carbon, Wetlands, and Other Related Markets

Ever since the passage of the 1990 amendments to the US Clean Air act and the creation of a market in sulfur dioxide (SO2), it has become clear that market mechanisms can be effectively used to achieve environmental policies. But markets are neither infallible nor automatic. They have blind spots and they need to be […]