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This report exposes how these last precious forests in the Indonesian archipelago, particularly in the province of Papua are being felled illegally and sold off wholesale to China, which is now the largest consumer of stolen timber in the world.It highlights the following points:there is a complex web of middlemen and financiers from across the region responsible for masterminding the theft of Indonesia’s forests, including timber barons in Jakarta, officials on their payrolls, multinational companies in Malaysia, brokers in Singapore and log dealers in Hong Kong in just a few short years, a small anchorage in eastern China has been transformed into the largest tropical log trading port in the world, while a nearby town has become a global centre for wood flooring manufacture, with 500 huge factories consuming one merbau tree every minute of every working dayevery month, enough stolen merbau is shipped from Papua to produce flooring worth in excess of $600 million at western retail pricesfor every dollar spent on luxurious merbau flooring in the west, local forest dwellers receive less than half a cent.The report also makes a number of recommendations:the governments of Indonesia and China should hold urgent talks to agree an Action Plan to implement the bilateral agreement on illegal logging and associated trade which both countries signed in 2002, which should include the formation of a task force to counter illegal trade in merbau.major consuming countries should enact laws banning the import and sale of timber and wood products obtained illegally in the country of origininternational, regional and national shipping and freight forwarding associations should inform all members of the log export ban in Indonesia and warn vessel owners of the penaltiestimber consumers in China, North America, Europe and Japan should stop buying merbau flooring or wood products and purchase only timber and wood products independently certified as legally and sustainably sourced.
