An Inter Press Service Feature
By Pratap Chatterjee
EDMONTON, Aug 29 (IPS) - North-east Asian timber companies are destroying the
Siberian snowforests, threatening the endangered Siberian tiger, say activists
at a conference in this city.
The conference is being hosted by the Taiga Rescue Network (TRN), a two
year-old global association of groups dedicated to protecting forests outside
the tropics has brought 250 people here from 30 countries for one week to
discuss the problems of the forests they live in.
The activists here say that one of the latest targets for timber companies
is the Siberian forests, which cover 5.9 million squares kilometres - twice the
area of the rainforests of the Brazilian Amazon - where there is little
regulation and less enforcement.
''Unfortunately our country is rich in timber and mineral resources like
gold, nickel and diamonds,'' says Alexei Grigoriev, a forestry expert from the
Moscow-based Socio-Ecological Union.
''Fortunately we are in the grip of a mafia economy that sells these
resources in order to import such necessities as Mars and Snickers,'' he adds
sarcastically.
The Russian government earns between 1.5 and 2 billion dollars a year from
the export of Siberian timber. This is roughly equal to the amount of money
spent on the import of candy and chocolates like Mars and Snickers bars.
The major foreign timber operations are run by the Russians themselves in
the Russian far east with some assistance from South and North Korean
companies.
The trees that they cut include from spruce, larch, fri, Korean pine, oak,
ash and elm. The biggest importers are their Japanese counterparts.
''Japanese government authorities are worried about the criticism of their
use of tropical wood in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia,'' explains
Daisuke Goto, a Japanese activist who recently wrote a report on his country's
role in Siberai for Japan Environmental Exchange.
''For example the city of Tokyo has decided to reduce its use of tropical
wood by 35 percent and replace it with other wood, such as that from the
Siberian forests,'' he added.
The Japanese import some 5 million cubic metres of Siberian wood, which
amounts to a quarter of Russian wood exports. Other importers include Austria,
Britain, China, Finand, France, Germany, Italy, India, the two Koreas,
Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey.
Although wood export only amount to 10 to 15 percent of total wood harvested
the figures are rising, says Grigoriev. Given that domestic consumption is
falling, foreign companies are now taking their place.
The biggest producers are Dallesprom, Primorlesprom and Terneyles, all
Russian companies. The next biggest operations are Urgalles and Tyndales, two
Russian-North Korean companies, who employ between 15,000 and 20,000 North
Koreans under slave-like conditions, to cut 1 million cubic metres of wood a
year.
''Officially the workers are volunteers but they work under worse conditions
than our prison camp labour. They have no holidays, their food rations are
small, many suffer from malnutrition. The logging equipment is in terrible
condition, fatal accidents occur frequently,'' says Grigoriev.
''In fact a leading official from the Russian timber industry said that if
the Russian Labour Security Inspection, the enterprise would have to close down
immediately,'' he adds.
Most recently Hyundai, the South Korean company, has been logging the
forests on the eastern side of the Sikhote-Alin mountains on the Pacific coast
of Russia, has been cutting 300,000 cubic metres of wood per year.
It is now hoping to increase this to 1 million cubic metres a year by
logging in the Bikin river area on the eastern side of the mountains, where
they would be destroying the home of the Udege indigenous peoples, who are
fiercely opposed to this.
According to David Gordon, an activist from the Pacific Ennergy and
Resources Centre, a U.S. environmental group, the local government has
indicated that permission may soon be granted to Terneyles, a local Russian
company.
Other players are expected to enter the Siberian arena soon. Weyerhaeuser, a
U.S. company, has been trying for several years to get the rights to log parts
of the Pacific coast without success.
The area that Weyerhaeuser wants to log is the Botcha region which is also
on the Pacific coast. In Botcha the snow forests meet the temperate forests, an
area that is home of the Siberian tiger, an endangered species whose numbers
are down to below 250.
The average male Siberian tiger needs an area of 1,000 square kilometres to
hunt for food so any large reductions in forest cover threatens their survival.
What's more the Siberian tiger is also under threat from poachers who want
to sell its bones, organs and skins to buyers in China, Japan and the Korea,
for medicinal purposes.
The region is also home to a variety of bears, reindeer, sable, salmon and
migratory bird species.
Weyerhaeuser and other U.S. companies may find support soon, when a team
from the U.S. government's Agency for International Development, visits the
region next month.
The team, which is led by Samuel Hale, of the U.S. environmental
consultancy, CH2M Hill, will re-design Russian forestry laws to assist foreign
companies to enter the region.
(ENDS/IPS/PC/94)