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A letter from MTC London Director to Christian Thompson (15 July 2002)
International Campaign Co-ordinator
Illegal Logging and Forest Crime Campaign
Forests for Life TDP, WWF-International
Dear Christian,
I read with interest your reply dated 10 July 2002 to Sheam and in particular
your explanation on how the figure of 18% was derived.
I am very surprised to learn that in calculating data for such an important
report such as the new WWF report - "G8 and China Timber Footprint",
the authors will resort to such a simplistic and misleading way of calculating
the rate for alleged illegal logging in Peninsular Malaysia, that is , by just
assuming that half of the 35% quoted rate is applicable to Peninsular Malaysia.
I hope the authors of the report have sufficient understanding of forestry to
know that forest conditions and even the timber industries in Malaysia varies
from state to state, so to just assume a uniform and pro-rata rate for each
state is grossly simplistic and misleading.
The figure of 35% illegal logging rate stated in the report is also by itself a
very arbitary and misleading figure and one which is not backed up by an
explanation as to how this figure is derived or updated. Surely it is reasonable
to state in more detail how and where this figure is derived from? As far as I
can deduce, the first mention of this figure was in the book "Bad
Harvest" ( page 52 ) which was published in 1995. The source quoted by the
authors of "Bad Harvest" for the 35% figure was a paper entitled
"Illegal Tropical Timber Trade: Asia-Pacific" (Callister) which was
published in 1992! I am amazed that a figure that was first
"calculated" in 1992 is still being quoted by WWF in its recent report
in 2002, a time lapse of 10 years! Surely any reasonable person
would agree that in ten years a lot can change, especially in such a dynamic
field as forestry. In the past ten years, there have been vast improvements in
forest law enforcement and in progress towards sustainable forest management in
Malaysia. Surely, there is a very good chance that the figure of 35% illegal
logging calculated in 1992 for Malaysia may be very outdated by now? I hope WWF
and other NGO groups would endeavour to obtain a more updated source for their
forestry data for any new publications and reports. It would be very unfair if
NGOs continue to use outdated figures to indicate illegal logging in tropical
timber producing countries and do not take into account the progress and
improvements that have been made by many countries in
managing their forest resources.
Thank you
Kind regards
SK THAM
Director
Malaysian Timber Council :London | |
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