CONSUMERS in Britain are being sold furniture made from illegally-logged timber taken from Laos by bootleggers in Vietnam, an environmental group has claimed.
Every year, an estimated 654,000 cubic yards of logs are smuggled across the frontier after false documents are produced and bribes paid, according to the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency.
Vietnam's booming economy and demand for cheap
furniture in the West is driving rapid deforestation (in Laos)," said Julian Newman of the EIA.
The group showed a video of fleets of trucks laden with logs crossing the border into Vietnam from Laos, which has banned the export of logs and sawn timber.
The video included Vietnamese businessmen admitting logs at their factories came from Laos in violation of the country's laws and were processed into furniture for export.
A huge pile of logs from Laos were shown in the Vietnamese port of Vinh, ready for sale.
Thai businesses, Mr Newman said, were also buying illegally cut timber from Laos, which harbours some of the last great forests of mainland south-east Asia. "The cost of such unfettered greed is borne by poor rural communities in Laos who are dependent on the forests for their traditional livelihoods."
The illegal trafficking of timber from Laos has been well documented and the governments of both countries have in the past acknowledged the existence of such a trade.
Furniture exports from Vietnam totalled £1.2bn last year, a tenfold increase since 2000, of which seven per cent goes to Britain.
The full article contains 255 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
