The Stolen Forests

By Raffi Khatchadourian
Issue: Oct 6


Alexander von Bismarck is an environmental activist who has been tracking poached wood through sales in Russia, the manufacturing process in China and seeing where it lands in U.S. products. Much of this wood ends up in mass produced, finished products such as Wal-Mart's oak toilet seats.

As you might expect, there is a tangled web of false companies and back-room deals to smuggle, trade, and cut all this stolen timber, and Bismarck seems to be making good headway in uncovering the links and finding the sources of the wood.

At points, this article turned into a strange, badly written post apocalyptic novel: "There were shavings near the logs. He listened for the sound of chain saws, but the forest was quiet." But on the whole it was really informative and you probably learned a lot about the tree smuggling business. Apparently, it's really hard to catch illegal logging in action, and much easier to see the extra timber and sales that appear to come from nowhere.
“Because when we are trying to catch these guys, I mean, just the visual of an illegal logger in action, actually cutting down a tree—we have really only gotten it once, in Indonesia, and we have used that image a lot.”

One interesting thing I learned was that ramin, an Indonesian tree whose wood is sought after for its strength and workability, is illegal to export. (Of course, it still shows up in products all over). Maybe it's time to start a local ramin farm and make some legit cash.