Brazil to crack down on illegal timber trade with China

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By CGTN's Lucrecia Franco

Currently almost one third of the world’s tropical timber comes from illegal logging, according to the UN Environment Program.

It’s a crime that impacts economies and biodiversity but the Brazilian Green Exchange is assisting Chinese traders to screen the source of tropical wood.

BVRio, which stands for Rio de Janeiro Green Exchange, created an online platform that allows buyers to access the source of rainforest lumber.

BVRio has now partnered with China, the second largest importer of tropical wood after the US, to promote legality in timber trade.

“China accounts for about 10 percent of all the international trade of timber so anything that they do matters in terms of legality, of increasing the legality and the standards of legal trading worldwide,” said Mauricio Moura Costa, Executive Director BVRio.

Resentful local Indians catches an illegal logger and removes his pants on August 7, 2014, in Alto Turiacu Indian territory in Amazon Basin. /VCG Photo

BVRio launched the Responsible Timber Exchange in 2015. The exchange enables timber traders and buyers to review legal products, and is expanding to Africa and Southeast Asia.

“The first year since the launch in Brazil it was a great success and this partnership with China is a great opportunity to serve more people, more companies,” Costa said.

On the exchange, scores of data, such as logging permits and sawmill licenses, are crosschecked daily to help buyers avoid illegal timber trade.

The remainings of a fallen tree on a deforested land in Northern Brazil on November 11, 2016. /VCG Photo

Many environmentalists are welcoming the timber exchange initiative as a mechanism to tackle another difficult problem: the deforestation of tropical rain forests.

“I think it is a big challenge so by having an online platform I think this would add additional security for those buyers and consumers and the big furniture producers and all the people involved in the hardwood trade,” said Afonso Stefanini, an independent environmental consultant.

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