Photo Gallery Logging Around the World
Aggressive logging around the world is contributing to global climate change. This lumber was cut from the Malaysian portion of the island of Borneo, where environmental groups fear deforestation is also threatening several species of cats.
This aerial photo shows a deforested area in Brazil's northern state of Para. Brazil's Amazon is one of the world's biggest defenses against global warming, absorbing a large portion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In August 2012, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf suspended all logging permits believed to be stolen, falsified or obtained through bribery. She also established a fact-finding commission and halted the export of lumber obtained through these contracts.
A hacked stump stands in the midst of a logged area in eastern Sierra Leone. There was nothing in German or European law that made importing this wood illegal. And if it really came down to it, the companies could simply insist they had trusted their suppliers when they said everything was aboveboard.
But as of this week, the rules of the game have changed. According to a new European Union regulation that came into effect on Sunday, lumber dealers are obligated to import only legally felled lumber, and they must be able to provide complete documentation of their lumber's origins. Here, a section of a rainforest in China, where illegal logging and plantation establishment is altering the landscape.
A recent Interpol study shows just how large a market exists for illegally felled lumber. Fifteen to 30 percent of all lumber sold on the global market was either felled without a permit, or the relevant permit was forged, stolen or obtained in exchange for a bribe. In the tropical wood-producing regions of Africa, Asia and South America, it may be as much as 90 percent. Here, a 2008 photo shows forests destroyed in Indonesia for palm oil plantations.
Tropical wood remains a lucrative business, in demand in Europe for dining room tables and hardwood floors, or to lend an air of cold power to the wood-paneled offices of corporate CEOs. Here, a Sumatran elephant walks near burnt trees at an elephant trainng center in Indonesia.
A logger cuts wood with a his chainsaw at an unregistered logging site in Aceh Besar, Indonesia: The revenue created through such illegal logging may be in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year, with the kind of profit margins otherwise seen only in the drug trade.
Illegal logging doesn't just happen outside of Europe. Greek authorities have marked a rise in illegal logging across forests in the countryside as cash-strapped Greeks look for a cheaper way to heat their homes. Here a municipal employee walks through a western suburb of Athens, where branches have been cut.
