Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative

Washington, DC, 13 March 2025 – It has been four years since a coup d’état deposed the democratically elected Union Government of Myanmar (UGoM). Severe sanctions against the new ruling military junta are effective, and they are exposing the negative impact of trade through non-sanctioned countries, like China and India. The report by Forest Trends […]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) businesses have played a significant role in Vietnam’s wood industry, one of the country’s biggest export earners. Featuring analysis from our Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance team in Vietnam.

Varias áreas protegidas son deforestadas por mafias criminales dedicadas a la tala ilegal de árboles. Hay una pesquisa sobre la cooperación de funcionarios para que esta organización criminal opere con aliados en Bolivia. Con datos sobre la legalidad de la madera de FT.

Between 2021 and 2025, Vietnam aims to generate 25 million tons of carbon credits, all of which will contribute to its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets. Ft. commentary from Phuc Xuan To, Managing Director of our Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative, on the state of carbon market investment in Vietnam.

The legal origin of wood products is one of the most essential requirements for Vietnam’s two main export markets, the US and the EU. This is considered a vital factor for export enterprises. Includes research from FT on where wood materials in Vietnam come from, as well as their legality.

20 December 2023: According to research from Forest Trends’ Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative, a new form of illegal logging poses a significant threat to Liberia’s forests, climate change mitigation, and local communities. Liberia contains almost half of West Africa’s Upper Guinea Forest, a biodiversity hotspot for endangered species and globally important to climate […]

Currently, the Vietnamese timber sector has seen a sharp fall in orders, and even when there are orders, most of them are small ones. FPTF Managing Director Phuc Xuan To says timber exports will continue to face a market slump.

Despite sanctions imposed following the February 2021 coup, Myanmar exported more than $190 million worth of timber, including to countries that have sanctions on the country’s state-controlled timber monopoly, according to a new report from Forest Trends.

Demand for wood from ipê trees in the Amazon Basin could lead to their extinction if better international trade regulations aren’t implemented soon, according to a new report from Forest Trends.

As a decade-long effort by the private sector to voluntarily eliminate deforestation from commodity supply chains stalls, the EU, UK, and US are all considering trade regulations. But policy makers and advocates have been debating the relative merits of trade barriers based on a “legality” or “zero-deforestation” standard: we believe this presents a false dichotomy. […]

Myanmar’s military junta exported more than $37 million worth of timber to nations with active sanctions on the country’s state-run timber monopoly, according to the environmental advocacy group Forest Trends.

Washington DC 7 March 2022 – Just over one year since the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, led a coup against the legitimately re-elected government, a new study finds that more than $190 million in imports of timber were reported from Myanmar in 2021, including to countries with sanctions, potentially exposing entities importing from […]

The volume of sugar illegally imported into Vietnam from Cambodia and Laos has been increasing, with 757,000 metric tons per year in the 2015-19 period, nearly 2.8 times the quantity in the 2008-14 period, according to a report which was released at a seminar co-organized by Forest Trends.

Despite new regulations to clean up Vietnam’s timber sector, importers continue to bring large volumes of tropical hardwood into the country from deforestation hotspots in Africa and Asia for use in products sold domestically.

Despite sanctions by the US, EU and UK, state-owned timber company Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE) is still able to export significant volumes of wood products, according to Forest Trends, a Washington DC-based conservation group.

January 19, 2022, Washington DC: Forest Trends welcomes the recent amendments to the 2022 preliminary edition of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS). These changes are a welcome step in allowing more systematic and impactful data collection and monitoring of timber shipments entering the U.S. to help ensure legality of imports. The […]

A new report published today from Finance for Biodiversity (F4B) points to how to break the environmentally-destructive connection between environmental crimes and legitimate investments. F4B calls on the global financial community, working with regulators and civil society organisations, to take steps to ensure the entire financing value chain is free of environmental crimes.

Foreign buyers say they are willing to pay for transparency and sustainability

Washington investigates nation’s timber industry and ties to illegal logging overseas.

The criminal destruction of rainforests for commodities such as beef, chocolate, soy and palm oil knocks down 4.5 million hectares and releases 2.7 gigatons of emissions a year WASHINGTON, DC (18 MAY 2021)—A new study released today finds that at least 69% of the tropical forests destroyed for agricultural commodities between 2013 and 2019 was […]

Vietnam’s rubber industry needs to develop its production chain to meet the increasing demands of export markets, especially fastidious markets such as Europe and the US, according to experts.

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Major household brands and palm-oil buyers Nestle and PepsiCo have backed a scheme that aims to invest $1 billion in forest conservation across Southeast Asia over 25 years.

Analyzing the import and export data of Vietnam’s wood and wood products, some experts believe that management agencies and the business community need to come up with feasible and effective measures, in order to detect and eliminate acts of commercial fraud and evading the origin of goods.

Forestry experts say Myanmar’s army may revert to logging if trade restrictions push it into doing more business with countries and companies lacking environmental standards

Campaigners call for major grocers to cut ties with controversial Brazilian meat firm JBS

U.S. president-elect should follow Britain and the EU in moving to ensure supply chains for imported goods do not harm tropical forests, green groups say

It is before dawn when we pass the last checkpoint perched above the Salween River, along the border between Thailand and Myanmar. As we wind north through a sparse woodland up an unpaved track, the first signs of daylight begin to appear. It is the end of the dry season, and most of the trees […]

Significant volumes of logs and sawn wood continue to be exported from Cambodia to Vietnam, despite a ban on these exports by the Cambodian government since 1996 and numerous commitments from both countries to crack down on illegal trade, according to a new publication in Political Geography authored by Forest Trends’ Phuc Xuan To and […]

For Immediate Release | Washington, DC and Yangon, Myanmar Myanmar’s peace process has been effectively stalled, with little meaningful progress reported from negotiations between the Union Government of Myanmar (UGoM) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) who are party to the peace process. Central to this impasse is a fundamental disagreement on how to achieve federal decentralization […]

Weak enforcement continues to undermine efforts to tackle exploitative labour practices in the forestry sector. Despite an elaborate constitution and other laws that meet international requirements, Ghana’s lack of effective regulation enforcement impedes sustainable agricultural production at the national and international level.

For the first time, the Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI) has opened the books to share information with the public on revenue Myanmar’s government collects from harvesting timber. Last month, the MEITI released two reports juxtaposing statistics on production and tax payments from government ministries’ ledgers with corresponding figures reported by the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE │ This week, the EC released its long-anticipated plan to amplify the EU’s action against deforestation. This represents a significant step in the right direction to regulate EU imports of palm oil, soy, timber, and other commodities. European demand has been linked to nearly a quarter of global trade in commodities produced […]

YANGON—Internationally known for forestry products such as teak, timber extraction in Myanmar is lucrative. The website of the Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE) boasts that the “forestry sector in Myanmar is one of the major contributors to the national economy.” A new report from the Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI) reveals that the forest sector […]

Vietnam’s wood and wooden product exports to the United States may be subject to higher import duties due to a surge in export revenues and China’s foreign direct investment in the local industry, experts said at a recent seminar in Hanoi.

GAMAMADU, Guinea-Bissau, May 8 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Before the ban, Chinese loggers drove straight through Gamamadu village to harvest its most important resource: the rosewood forest. “So many Chinese came here. We were praying for a means to stop it,” said Braima Djassi, a small, white-haired farmer in the village in central Guinea-Bissau, a tiny […]

The value of logs and sawn wood exported from Cambodia to Vietnam last year increased by about $31.5 million compared to 2016, customs data has shown. The Vietnamese data, obtained by Khmer Times yesterday, said about 163,071 cubic metres of Cambodian logs were imported to the country last year, worth about $39.5 million.

The Republic of Korea is one of the ten largest consumers of timber, pulp and paper products. Korean leaders and citizens are increasingly aware of their global environmental footprint, including the deforestation caused by Korean consumption. With imports of timber products steadily increasing, the government of Korea made a commitment in 2012 to exclude illegal […]

The most widely traded illegal wild product in the world today is rosewood, an endangered hardwood prized for its use in traditional Chinese furniture. An e360investigation follows the trail of destruction and corruption from the forests of Madagascar to furniture showrooms in China.

A new report that looks at the collaborative efforts of private sector and government actors to halt deforestation in two key tropical forest nations could have lessons for countries around the world.

On the surface, the Republic of Congo appears to be making strides toward both conservation and economic development. But the process of becoming an emerging economy is not without its growing pains, especially when it comes to conservation and the country’s forests.

The value of logs and sawn wood exported from Cambodia to Vietnam last year increased by about $31.5 million compared to 2016, customs data has shown.

Despite a ban on timber exports and the government’s repeated declaration that “large-scale” logging has been stopped, Vietnamese customs data compiled by watchdog Forest Trends show a significant increase in the import of Cambodian logs and sawn wood in 2017.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but reporting on the environment in Vietnam is not an easy task. The one-party state was recently ranked 175 out of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ 2017 World Press Freedom Index, between Sudan and China.

 Washington, DC | 20 December 2017 | Many of the 195 countries who signed the historical Paris Agreement in 2015 look to forests as tools for achieving their climate goals because of forests’ potential to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Policies that stop deforestation and encourage replanting practices could contribute over one-third of the total […]

According to preliminary statistics from Vietnam Customs, from January 1 to December 15, the wood sector grossed more than 7.2 billion USD in export turnover, which is hoped to top 8.5 billion USD by the year’s end, including exports of furniture.

Whether it’s the destruction of rainforest shared by elephants and orangutans in Sumatra to produce palm oil; reports linking fast food giants to the burning of tropical forests in Brazil and Bolivia; or the hundreds of thousands of hectares of tree cover loss per year in West Africa – the world’s forests are being razed to sate global demand for […]

HANOI – Experts and entrepreneurs say the main source of raw timber, especially rubber wood, for processing products for export will be in short supply in the long run.

A new report that looks at the collaborative efforts of private sector and government actors to halt deforestation in two key tropical forest nations could have lessons for countries around the world.

“Customs are at the frontline of combating the illegal logging and associated trade,” said Jennifer Prescott, Assistant US Trade Representative for Environment and Natural Resources. “The illegal wood trade has grown in sophistication. So too must the customs.”

The Environment Ministry has contested Vietnamese customs data suggesting the trade in illegal timber remains vast, though Cambodian authorities will not release their own export records to show how much wood is flowing to the Kingdom’s eastern neighbour.

More than 200 Chinese nationals were arrested in Cambodia last month after local police raided a compound near the Thai border where an alleged cybercrime gang was operating an online blackmail and extortion ring.

Cambodian timber exports to Vietnam over the first six months of the year have almost surpassed the total amount for all of last year, according to Vietnamese customs data, despite an existing ban on the trade – which one analyst said had “entirely failed” in light of the continuing multimillion-dollar trade.

Vietnam imported $142 million worth of timber from Cambodia during the first half of the year, according to the latest customs data from Hanoi, adding to the mounting evidence that Cambodia’s nominal timber export ban is being widely ignored.

After much sound, fury and troop deployments, it all ended with an embrace.

A Nebraska-sized chunk of the world’s forests was decimated in 2015 because of wildfire, logging and expanding palm oil plantations, according to a new study. The loss is part of a continuing trend of deforestation that could have devastating implications for the climate.

A Nebraska-sized chunk of the world’s forests was decimated in 2015 because of wildfire, logging and expanding palm oil plantations, according to a new study. The loss is part of a continuing trend of deforestation that could have devastating implications for the climate.

After tumbling in April, Cambodia’s timber exports to Vietnam leveled off in May, according to the latest Vietnamese customs data obtained by the U.S. NGO Forest Trends.

The ostensibly-outlawed export of logs to Vietnam increased in May, while the trade in sawn timber, also supposedly banned, remained substantial, new Vietnamese customs data shows.

EU timber imports from conflict countries, which are at high risk of being illegal, have increased 14 percent, despite the European Union’s Timber Regulation (EUTR) legislation’s requirement that companies ensure that only legal timber enters the EU market, according to a new Forest Trends report.

Humans have always had an intimate, complicated relationship with forests. We clear away trees to make room for development and agriculture, harvest them for paper, pulp, and palm oil and seek refuge in their remaining intact solitude. Human wellbeing depends on trees.

Humans have always had an intimate, complicated relationship with forests. We clear away trees to make room for development and agriculture, harvest them for paper, pulp, and palm oil and seek refuge in their remaining intact solitude. Human wellbeing depends on trees.

New Vietnamese customs data for April shows timber continued to flow across Cambodia’s border to Vietnam despite Cambodian authorities announcing a ban on lumber exports to the country’s eastern neighbour more than a year ago.

Disarmed FARC fighters, now in demobilised zones, have been recruited to protect rainforests from farmers seeking grazing land and criminal gangs cutting down trees for illegal gold mining, writes Anastasia Moloney in Caqueta, Colombia.

More than a month after confirming its investigation into new reports of rampant timber trafficking between Cambodia and Vietnam, the Environment Ministry remains tight-lipped about what—if any—progress it is making, but says the U.K. NGO that exposed the scale of the problem is itself being scrutinized.

CAQUETA, Colombia, June 9 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Seen from the air, muddy rivers snake through rolling forested hills stretching to the horizon in Colombia’s southern province of Caqueta that for decades were rebel lairs and an epicentre of the civil war.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – It was June 1999, and Cambodia’s then-Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Chhea Song, was addressing a regional symposium on forestry law enforcement in Phnom Penh.

CAQUETA, COLOMBIA —  Seen from the air, muddy rivers snake through rolling forested hills stretching to the horizon in Colombia’s southern province of Caqueta that for decades were rebel lairs and an epicenter of the civil war.

CAQUETA, Colombia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Seen from the air, muddy rivers snake through rolling forested hills stretching to the horizon in Colombia’s southern province of Caqueta that for decades were rebel lairs and an epicentre of the civil war.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – After several weeks of silence, the Vietnamese government announced that it is working to begin an investigation into allegations of widespread illegal logging in Cambodia directed by Vietnamese companies and provincial government officials.

Vietnamese wood companies will not exploit, transport, process, produce or trade in illegal wood and wooden products, according to the Viet Nam Wood and Forest Association (VIFORES).

It was another normal day for McDonald’s, back in April 2006. That is, until dozens of six-foot chickens invaded restaurants across Europe and chained themselves to the tables.

Newly released Vietnamese customs data yesterday added further weight to reports that Vietnamese-backed illegal logging in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province surged during the dry season after provincial authorities in Vietnam’s Gia Lai province approved a mass importation of timber.

New customs data from Vietnam shows that Cambodian timber exports to the country continued to rise in the first quarter of the year, despite an official ban on the trade.

Corruption in Cambodia and demand in Vietnam have in recent months fueled illegal logging at “unprecedented scales” in the protected forests of Ratanakkiri province, according to a new report using undercover investigators.

Illegal logging on a vast scale by Vietnamese loggers has stripped huge areas of protected forests in recent months, with fresh piles of felled timber and rutted logging routes in Ratanakkiri province flatly contradicting the government assurances the trade is over.

Police in Ratanakkiri province on Friday arrested six journalists who were following a truck suspected of heading to Vietnam with a load of illegally logged timber for a local military police officer, though the reporters and police gave different accounts.

Authorities in Vietnam’s Gia Lai province have recently stopped at least nine overloaded timber trucks crossing into the country from the Kingdom, despite the Cambodian government ostensibly banning wood exports to its eastern neighbour, according to a Vietnamese news report.

More than 48 cubic meters of luxury rosewood has been found in Kratie province’s Snuol district, believed to have been hidden by illegal loggers.

Ferney Caicedo, a trained forest ranger, is slipping and sliding over the forest path while he leads a horse and a group of four other people up a hill. Rain from the night before has made the wooded slopes almost impossible to ascend. The humidity is high. Sweat drips constantly from underneath Caicedo’s cap. This […]

Ferney Caicedo, a trained forest ranger, is slipping and sliding over the forest path while he leads a horse and a group of four other people up a hill. Rain from the night before has made the wooded slopes almost impossible to ascend. The humidity is high. Sweat drips constantly from underneath Caicedo’s cap. This […]

ROBBINSVILLE, N.C. (AP) – The rumor in the timbering parts of the mountains began a few years back: The Chinese are buying up the lumber mills.

Cambodia and Laos share a border and a problem: vast swathes of their forests have been cut down, loaded on trucks and driven east to Vietnam and often sent onwards to China.

Cambodia: Despite a ban on the export of timber to Vietnam and the creation of a much-publicised anti-logging task force, Cambodia last year still exported nearly $33 million dollars’ worth of unprocessed logs to its eastern neighbour, a volume more than double that of 2015, according to Vietnamese customs data.

Despite a ban on the export of timber to Vietnam and the creation of a much-publicised anti-logging task force, Cambodia last year still exported nearly $33 million dollars’ worth of unprocessed logs to its eastern neighbour, a volume more than double that of 2015, according to Vietnamese customs data.

More companies are making commitments to limit their supply chains’ adverse effects on the world’s forests, but a new report by a watchdog group found many still fail to act on their pledges and that one in three companies has at least one “dormant” commitment.

This story first appeared on Ecosystem Marketplace In January of this year, consumer-goods giant Unilever agreed to help three small and remote Indonesian villages change the way 600 farmers harvest palm oil.

In January of this year, consumer-goods giant Unilever agreed to help three small and remote Indonesian villages change the way 600 farmers harvest palm oil.

Police in Mondolkiri province have suspended the chiefs of two border checkpoints suspected of colluding with Vietnamese loggers to let them sneak into the country and smuggle out timber, a local official said on Monday.

The number of manufacturers using one of the four key commodities linked to deforestation has increased from 67% to 71%, but a worrying number of targets have been missed or forgotten, according to a new report.

A wave of efforts to increase transparency and ethics in complex global supply chains in recent years has not only unearthed grave ongoing issues, but a groundswell of private sector commitments to address them. Two that have risen to the forefront of concern for multinationals are deforestation and human rights abuses.

The impact of the global palm oil industry on human rights and deforestation has inspired many NGOs to push multinational companies to become far more transparent about their operations and supply chains.

As environmentalism becomes more mainstream and consumers grow more aware about the means of production, private sector entities have increasingly committed to zero deforestation policies. A new report released Wednesday analyzes hundreds of deforestation commitments by companies linked to palm, soy, timber and pulp, and cattle, and finds that more and more firms are being […]

In the last three years, hundreds of companies have pledged to reduce their impact on forests by changing the way they produce or procure the four commodities driving most deforestation – namely, palm, soy, cattle, and timber & pulp – but until recently, they were only disclosing progress on one-third of their commitments.

The world of investments, capital, stocks and shares can seem very far away from the natural world. The rapid movement of money from institution to institution, zipping across the world through transfers and clicks is the antithesis of slow-growing forests or reefs deep below the waves.

The impact of the global palm oil industry on human rights and deforestation has inspired many NGOs to push multinational companies to become far more transparent about their operations and supply chains.

The world of investments, capital, stocks and shares can seem very far away from the natural world. The rapid movement of money from institution to institution, zipping across the world through transfers and clicks is the antithesis of slow-growing forests or reefs deep below the waves.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” So said US baseball legend Yogi Berra, on the importance of having a goal in sight and a map for getting there. Those of us engaged in forest philanthropy — the investment of grants with the aim of protecting and replenishing the world’s […]

From sustainable “blue economy” projects to restoration projects for wetlands, streams, and animal habitats, conservation-related projects have been drawing a significant amount of investor money in recent years. Investments that produce a financial return and a “measurable environmental result” climbed 62% from 2013-2015, a new report found, indicating that traditional divisions between conservation, philanthropy and for-profit finance may be withering.

From sustainable “blue economy” projects to restoration projects for wetlands, streams, and animal habitats, conservation-related projects have been drawing a significant amount of investor money in recent years. Investments that produce a financial return and a “measurable environmental result” climbed 62% from 2013-2015, a new report found, indicating that traditional divisions between conservation, philanthropy and […]

On a mild, rainy day in Washington, D.C., America inaugurated its 45th president. The incoming administration represents a fundamental shift from the outgoing Obama administration. And the White House website was updated accordingly. Instead of a clean-energy future, WhiteHouse.gov now announces: “President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate […]

Over the last few years, socially and environmentally conscious impact investing by the corporate sector has witnessed encouraging growth. One of the key components of this field is “conservation investing,” which has assumed increasing importance in view of the global commitment to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Muyeji Freddy and his team have scoured the bush for hours, but they haven’t found what they’re looking for. Freddy would rather not return to camp so early in the day, with the sun still high, but the fruitless search leaves him no choice.

Over the past decade, banks, fund managers, and others funneled more than $8 billion into investments aimed at delivering measurable environmental benefits as much as financial returns — but the majority of those investments came after 2013.

Transitions from war are tough. When grievances smolder and economies fail to recover, most countries fall into a “conflict trap” and war resumes. To escape the trap, post-conflict governments often exploit forests, minerals, and other natural resources to jump-start war-torn economies.

Five years ago, Prisca Mayende‘s four-acre farm looked just like those around her: treeless and flat, it baked in the sun, lay fallow for periods, and lived on expensive fertilizers.

BETWEEN 2001 and 2014, the annual rate of forest loss in Cambodia increased by 14.4 percent, the highest rate in the world.

YOU’RE UP, TILLERSON: Former Exxon Mobil leader Rex Tillerson takes the hot seat today at 9:00 a.m. as he seeks to become the top U.S. diplomat. Tillerson will face aggressive questioning on everything from his close ties to Russia, Exxon’s complex history on climate change and how he would tackle international climate diplomacy as secretary […]

The illegal trade in Siamese rosewood (Dalbergia Cochinchinensis) is so well-oiled that when loggers don’t have enough men in Thailand’s forests to carry all their spoils over the Cambodian border, they simply leave felled wood lying in the forest to collect on return trips. The poachers are safe in the knowledge that no time spent […]

Transitions from war are tough. When grievances smolder and economies fail to recover, most countries fall into a “conflict trap” and war resumes. To escape the trap, post-conflict governments often exploit forests, minerals, and other natural resources to jump-start war-torn economies.

Swedish Administrative Courts today confirmed a ruling that a certificate issued by the Myanmar Forest Products Merchants’ Federation (MFPMF) did not provide adequate proof that a shipment of teak imported into Sweden had been legally harvested.

The Schwab Foundation selected Michael Jenkins as one of 33 social entrepreneurs in recognition of his innovative work around building and strengthening markets for ecosystem services — and its global impact. The Schwab Foundation community of Social Entrepreneurs includes more than 300 members from 60 countries. Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurs are an integral part of the World […]