EIA: Vietnamese Army Smuggles Timber

July 28, 2011  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in sourcing/importing on July 29, 2011

The Environmental Investigations Agency released a report Thursday claiming the Vietnamese military plays a pivotal role played in smuggling timber from endangered forests in Laos.

EIA is a London-based non-governmental organization and charitable trust that investigates and campaigns against a wide range of environmental crimes, including illegal wildlife trade, illegal logging, hazardous waste, and trade in climate and ozone-altering chemicals.

The new report Crossroads: The Illicit Timber Trade Between Laos and Vietnam says a Lao export ban on raw timber is routinely flouted on a massive scale to feed timber processing industries in Vietnam, China and Thailand. During undercover operations in 2010 and 2011, EIA agents posing as timber buyers say they tracked a trail of corruption and inadequate enforcement back from furniture factories and ports in Vietnam to its border with Laos and beyond.

And EIA's says that one of the biggest loggers in Laos is a company owned by the Vietnamese military, the Vietnamese Company of Economic Cooperation (COECCO). EIA investigators traveled to COECCO's headquarters in Vinh City, Vietnam, in May 2011 and said they learned COECCO has been in the timber trade and logging business in Laos for more than 20 years, that it sources most of its logs from Lao dam clearance sites and that it is one of a handful of companies permitted to carry out logging in these areas.

"EIA first exposed the illicit log trade between Laos and Vietnam in 2008, and our latest investigations reveal that sadly nothing has changed," said EIA Head of Forest Campaign Faith Doherty. "The governments of Vietnam and Laos urgently need to work together to stem the flow of logs and curb the over-exploitation of Laos€™ precious forests before it€™s too late, and the Vietnamese military must be excluded from logging operations in Laos. With a new Timber Regulation coming into force within European markets in 2013, both Vietnam and Laos have a lot at stake and urgently need to work with the European Union."

EIA called on the Lao government to enforce its log export ban; publish details of all logging quotas and the selection process; and clarify rules for converting forest land for plantations.

EIA called on the government of Vietnam to respect the policies of the Lao government by blocking log imports from the country; hold bilateral talks with the Government of Laos over illicit wood trade between the two countries; work with Vietnamese wood industry associations to exclude Lao logs from its supply chain; and exclude military businesses from carrying out logging operations in Laos

The organization also suggested companies and consumers obtain proof that wood products sourced from Vietnam are not derived from logs imported from Laos.

Copies of the full Crossroads report, stills and footage are available on request from EIA Press Officer Paul Newman by e-mail or at 020.7354.7960.