The hidden cost of your hardwood floor

The demand for Chinese goods is driving destructive logging around the globe.
[ China ] Night and day, the timber ships reach this Yangtze River port, one of the world’s busiest clearinghouses for logs from every corner of the globe: Southeast Asia, the Amazon, Russia , the Congo . Soon, this wood will be yours. It will be your hardwood floor and your coffee table, your bedroom dresser and your plywood — all stamped with the most successful label of our time: Made in China . In less than a decade, China has transformed the global timber trade, importing more wood each year than any country in history and quadrupling the amount of wood products it ships around the globe. And no one is consuming more of it than Americans. U.S. shoppers have become the world’s best customers of low-cost Chinese flooring, furniture and plywood, buying 10 times as much as a decade ago. Around the world, more consumers are beginning to ask where their wood comes from, pressuring retailers to sell products certified as being from responsible sources. U.S. law does not ban the sale of most illegal wood.

News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes www.southernsustainableforests.org