1 WHAT IS FOREST CRIME AND WHAT MAKES TIMBER ILLEGAL?
Forest crime describes illegal activity at any stage of the timber supply chain. The most obvious example is illegal logging where trees are cut down in violation of the national laws – such as logging in a protected area or outside the designated boundaries of a logging permit.
At other stages of the supply chain, however, criminal activity may include fraud (such as using forged logging permits to hide the illegal logging), or laundering profits through false companies and foreign countries to hide the illicit proceeds of the crime, or for tax evasion purposes. To enforce forestry laws adequately, it is important to track timber along the entire timber supply chain and ensure compliance with the laws at each stage.
Given the complexity of forest crime, and its links to fraud and financial crime, it is important forestry law enforcement officers look to collaborate with other law enforcement agencies, in a multi-agency approach, to target not just illegal logging, but all related crimes along the entire supply chain.
This section describes the criminal activity at each stage of the timber supply chain.