INDONESIA: The vast tracts of rainforest on New Guinea Island, the last untouched forest in the Asia-Pacific region, are under threat from illegal loggers who are stripping the area of hardwood, principally to make wooden flooring for Chinese and western markets.
A three-year investigation by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Indonesia's Telapak has shown timber worth billions of dollars has been illegally felled and exported, disenfranchising local people, defrauding the government and damaging the ecology.
The investigation concentrated on the trade in a wood called merbau, a dark hardwood with a rich grain that is popular for flooring. The EIA and Telapak estimate some 300,000 cubic metres of the wood are being illegally felled every month in the rainforest of Papua province in Indonesia and illegally shipped to China for processing.
"We believe this is one of the biggest log-smuggling rackets in the world. It's a huge problem for Papua," said Mr Julian Newman of the EIA. "We think about 20 fully-laden cargo ships are leaving Papua for China every month."
It is a lucrative trade: a cubic metre of merbau, for which local Papuans are paid $11, can be made into 26 square metres of flooring, which sells for nearly $2,300 (€1,800) in New York or London.
Indonesia has laws against exporting logs but smugglers bribe Indonesian officials and create false papers, usually indicating the logs come from Malaysia, to circumvent Chinese laws banning the import of Indonesian logs.
The Indonesian government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has promised to combat corruption and to look after the environment, but it is facing entrenched interests. The still-powerful Indonesian military is believed to be heavily involved in the logging industry.
Only 30 per cent of the military's funding comes from the budget; the rest comes from a number of businesses, legal and illegal.
The government has said it is committed to fully funding the army and getting it out of commercial enterprises.
The problem has escalated as the Chinese economy expanded. Imports of logs have grown from one million cubic metres in 1997 to 16 million cubic metres in 2002.