SYDNEY, Australia: The South Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands is felling its tropical forests at nearly 20 times a sustainable rate, according to research by an environmental group published on Thursday, driven by insatiable Chinese demand for its lumber.
Export volumes of the archipelago’s single largest export commodity leapt more than 20 percent to just over 3 million cubic meters in 2017, central bank figures show, worth $3 billion Solomon Islands dollars ($378 million).
Environmental and rights group Global Witness said this was more than 19 times higher than sustainable levels, and if continued could denude the country and soon exhaust the single biggest contributor to the Solomons’ economic growth.
Deforestation also removes wild fruits and vegetables that are a local food source and destroys the habitats of animals.
Global Witness’ analysis of import data also found that the overwhelming majority of the lumber was sent to China, the world’s top importer of timber, which it said underscored the urgency for Beijing to regulate imports and probe their origins.
“The scale of the logging is so unsustainable that natural forests will be exhausted very soon if nothing changes,” Beibei Yin, who led the research team that compiled the report, told Reuters by phone from London where Global Witness is based.
“The Chinese companies which import most of the wood are so significant that if all of them together stop buying there is still a chance to revert back,” she said.
Global Witness took 155,000 cubic meters as a sustainable log export volume from the Solomons, which is the lowest but most recently calculated of several government and expert analyzes, with the highest being approximately 300,000.
It gave no date of its own for the possible exhaustion of forests but cited a preliminary estimate of 2036 which was made in 2011 by the Solomons’ forestry ministry.
The Solomon Islands Prime Minister’s office directed Reuters to the secretary for the Forestry Minister, who did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
China’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.
The Solomon Islands has more than 2.2 million hectares (5.4 million acres) of forest covering approximately 80 percent of its land area, which is spread over some 990 islands.
Though the country’s forestry ministry has previously said it had toughened regulations to combat illegal logging, Global Witness said a lack of enforcement capacity increased the risk of loggers cutting more than permitted.
Global Witness’ satellite analysis of logging roads showed 669 km (416 miles) lying above 400 m (1,300 feet) elevation, where logging is nominally restricted.
Interpol estimates the global trade in illegal lumber to be worth more than $50 billion annually. ($1 = 7.9381 Solomon Islands dollars) (Reporting by Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY; additional reporting by Elias Glenn in BEIJING Editing by James Dalgleish)
Solomon Islands’ forests felled fast to feed China demand — Global Witness
Solomon Islands’ forests felled fast to feed China demand — Global Witness
- Export volumes of the archipelago’s single largest export commodity leapt more than 20 percent to just over 3 million cubic meters in 2017
- Global Witness said this was more than 19 times higher than sustainable levels
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
