Illegal logging in the Russian Far East is of particular concern because the forests are home to the last 450 wild Siberian tigers. The Lumber Liquidators case was investigated jointly by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Homeland Security Investigations and prosecuted by the Department of Justice under the name “Operation Oakenshield.”

Authorized Plunder

Authorized Plunder

The ongoing sale of “pre-Convention” specimens of Pterocarpus erinaceus in Guinea-Bissau has quickly become the archetype of an ill-conceived stockpile disposal process that directly undermines the integrity of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

New findings by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) indicate that the current sale of about 180,000 logs, authorized by the CITES Secretariat through the end of 2018, has resulted in the
laundering of fresh logs into the unsecured stockpiles, new illegal harvest of vulnerable CITES-protected wild populations, benefits to traffickers who are de-facto controlling the CITES-authorized sale, and multilayered corruption schemes.

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