US, EU, Asia investors including pension funds enable illegal deforestation in poor countries where government and crime are inseparable, 'climate' related murders are commonplace-2012 UNEP-Interpol Report

"Illegal logging is being used
in some instances to cover for other types of crime including money laundering from drugs (Austrac 2010)." (p. 64). "Much of the laundering of illegal timber is only possible due to large flows of funding from investors based in Asia, the EU and the US, including investments through pension funds." p. 7


2012 UNEP and Interpol Report, "Green Carbon, Black Trade"

p. 6, "Deforestation
accounts for an estimated 17 per cent of global
carbon emissions: about 1.5 times greater than emissions from all the world’s air, road, rail and shipping traffic combined....The economic value of global illegal logging, including processing, is estimated to be worth between US$ 30 and US$ 100 billion, or 10–30 per cent of global wood trade....In the last five years, illegal logging has moved from direct illegal logging to more advanced methods of concealment and timber laundering. In this report more than 30 ways of conducting illegal logging, laundering, selling and trading illegal logs are described."
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p. 7, "Much of the laundering of illegal timber is only possible due to large flows of funding from investors based in Asia, the EU and the US, including investments through pension funds.
As funds are made available to establish plantations operations
to launder illegal timber and obtain permits illegally or
pass bribes, investments, collusive corruption and tax fraud
combined with low risk and high demand, make it a highly
profitable illegal business, with revenues up to 5–10 fold
higher than legal practices for all parties involved. This also
undermines subsidized alternative livelihood incentives available
in several countries."

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Ed. note: Crime and government are inseparable in third world countries. Illegal loggers proceed with armed guards, those who don't leave the premises willingly are killed (p. 29). 200 rangers have been killed in the last decade trying to protect land in Africa (p. 29). Outspoken leaders are assassinated (p. 29). US tax dollars allow this savagery to continue:

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page 14: "The criminal groups involved in illegal logging also damage local communities through loss of income and livelihood, life threatening environmental damage, corruption of officials,
fraud, money laundering, extortion, threats of violence, and
even murder (INTERPOL 2009; Hiemstra van der Horst 2011).
It is clear that, in spite of certification and management efforts,
illegal logging has not stopped. Indeed it has remained
high in many regions including the Amazon, Central Africa
and Southeast Asia. In some areas, it has actually increased
in recent years.
 
With the billion dollar investments in REDD+ and a developing
carbon trade market designed to facilitate further investments
in reducing emissions, illegal international cartels and
networks pose a major risk to emission reductions and climate
change mitigation through corruption and fraud, while
also jeopardizing development goals and poverty alleviation in
many countries. ...

Another critical issue is that most illegal logging takes place
in regions characterized by conflict or widespread corruption.
There are advanced corruption schemes in many tropical forest
regions, including the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin,
Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Enforcement efforts during the 
(pg. 15) mid-2000s simply triggered a series of more advanced means to launder illegally logged timber or to conduct illegal logging under the cover of plantation development, palm oil establishment, road construction, redefinition of forest classifications, exceeding legal permit limits or obtaining illicit logging permits through bribes (Amacher, et al. 2012).

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page 19: "Illegal logging takes place in many forms, from illegal logging in protected areas or large-scale illegal logging without permits in remote areas, conflict zones and border areas, to advanced laundering operations mixing legal with illegal logs through bribery, re-definition of forest classification, forged permits, exceeding legal concessions and clearing or laundering through plantations, biofuel production and ranching establishments. In this chapter, an overview of the most common methods of illegal logging is provided. Methods used to launder the illegal cuts and funding the operations are explained in the following chapters."

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pg. 23, "Like any other crime, organized illegal logging cannot be
combated merely through voluntary trade schemes or alternative income generation nor be prevented by short-lived
police crack-downs."

--------------------------------------------------

Scores of assassinations, killings:

pg. 29, "A 2007 UNEP-UNESCO report documented illegal logging in 37 of 41 protected areas in Indonesia, including large-scale deforestation of a UNESCO World Heritage site and an endangered orangutan habitat (UNEP-UNESCO 2007). Loggers, with armed guards, moved into parks and cut down the forests with unarmed rangers facing lethal risk, bribes or simply lack of resources to enforce the park boundaries (UNEP-UNESCO 2007).
 
Other examples include cutting wood for charcoal in endangered
mountain gorilla habitat in Eastern Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC), where militias drive villagers into refugee camps,
then profit from cutting and producing charcoal in the Virungas
national parks and selling the high-demand charcoal to the
camps (UNEP-INTERPOL 2010). Rangers in Virungas have been
effective in protecting the gorilla population and saving it from
extinction, and in implementing vehicle checkpoints and destroying
kilns for charcoal production, but at a great costs and high
risks. More than 200 rangers have been killed in the last decade
defending the park boundaries against a charcoal trade estimated
at over US$28 million annually, and another US$4 million on
road taxes on charcoal alone (UNEP-INTERPOL 2010).
Other examples include driving out and killing indigenous peoples in reserves in the Amazon, Greater Congo Basin and Southeast Asia, where outspoken leaders have been assassinated."
------------------------------------------

p. 31, "Illegal logging in conflict zones"

"Illegal logging directly fuels many conflicts as timber is a resource available for conflict profiteers or to finance arms sales. This practice is carried out on the Laos-Cambodian border. Awareness campaigns by Global Witness helped close down border points in the DRC, Southern Sudan, Colombia, and Aceh, Indonesia, where the military was also involved in many illegal logging operations.
 
Without public order, militant, guerillas or military units
impose taxes on logging companies or charcoal producers, issue
false export permits and control border points. They frequently
demand removal of all vehicle check points and public patrolling
of resource-rich areas as part of peace conditions following new
land claims and offensives. On occasion, conflicting groups agree
on non-combat zones to ensure mutual profit from extraction of
natural resources, such as happened on the Laos-Vietnam-Cambodian border in recent decades, and in North and South Kivu, DRC."

---------------------------------------------

p. 33,  "Controlling bribery is difficult and is compounded by the fact that permit or concession areas are not always accurately delineated and detailed maps are not available. With several hundred logging companies active in one area, independent control is very difficult without standardized central filing systems."
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Indonesia plantation permits are cover for illegal logging:

p. 34, "In many places, plantation permits are issued
for operations but production is never started. The plantation is
a cover for the actual purpose which is logging."

---------------------------------------

"Public-private sector partnerships:"

"Illegal logging and political economic networks"

p. 39, "Political economic networks often provide forceful drivers for small-scale illegal logging and timber trade. Many
of these networks bring together not only powerful actors
from the private sector but also government officials, including
the very officials holding the responsibility to enforce
logging bans, harvest regulations, and restrictions
on timber trade. The operations of these networks are
described in recent research on small-scale illegal logging
in Albania, Romania and Vietnam. The research
demonstrates how artisanal loggers, small traders, wood
processors and government officials find ways to circumvent
national laws and forest regulations. It also reveals
that the villagers living near affected forests, the media
and wider society often react by calling for the application
of national law and demand strict law enforcement.
Nevertheless, research shows that a narrow law enforcement
approach may easily generate counter-productive
results in the case of small-scale logging. Logging bans
and tighter law enforcement may actually play into the
hands of the actors driving illegal logging. The reason is
that a narrow enforcement approach may strengthen the
position of corrupt local officials by expanding their powers
instead of reining in their practices. A mayor in Romania,
for example, wielded his legal and extra-legal powers
to circumvent a ban on logging in an adjacent national
park in favour of his wife’s company (Dorondel 2009). A
district forest service in Albania looked away from illegal
logging in return for bribes, even though it had stopped
issuing logging quotas entirely (Stahl 2010). And forest
rangers in Vietnam abused their enforcement powers to
facilitate illegal timber trade, deriving personal profits
from it (Sikor and To 2011). None of these local actors
would terminate their illegal practices unless national
law-makers find ways to strengthen their accountability
to their constituents, as well as to national authorities."

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p. 45, "The US, the EU, China and Japan...together receive over 80 per cent of the world’s illegally logged wood."

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p. 64, "There are many laundering opportunities for criminals,
who may even get additional benefits through tax fraud and
misuse of government subsidies. With the scale of the existing
illegal logging business, it is clear that there may be an increase
in international criminal cartels if these activities are not counteracted in the near future. This is of further importance as many of the resource regions also have substantial illegal trade and extraction of other resources such as minerals and earth metals. With advanced laundering schemes, illegal logging is being linked more closely to meat, soy, and palm oil plantation production, as well as trade in minerals and money laundering. Already, illegal logging is being used in some instances to cover for other types of crime including money laundering from drugs (Austrac 2010)."

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9/27/12, "Central Africa: Organized Crime Trade Worth Over U.S. $30 Billion, Responsible for Up to 90 Percent of Tropical Deforestation," AllAfrica.com, press release

Rome, "Between 50 to 90 per cent of logging in key tropical countries
of the Amazon basin, Central Africa and South East Asia is being carried out by organized crime threatening efforts to combat climate change, deforestation, conserve wildlife and eradicate poverty.
Globally, illegal logging now accounts for between 15 and 30 per cent of the overall trade, according to a new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and INTERPOL."...



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