China’s soaring demand for timber, driven by its rapid economic expansion, is a major threat to the world’s forests as illegal loggers make fortunes supplying the mainland, conservation group according to WWF.

    China is now one of the major destinations for illegally harvested wood, with more than half of the country’s timber imports coming from countries such as Russia, Malaysia and Indonesia, where illegal logging is a major problem.

     By 2010, according to a new WWF report titled “China’s wood market, trade and environment”, China’s forests and plantations will provide less than half of the country’s expected total industrial wood demand, as China is the second largest market for the industrial timber, pulp and paper in the world, behind the United States.

     Dr. Claude Martin, general manager of WWF, said that “China’s efforts so far in forest restoration and forest sustainable management are a good start towards preserving valuable and threatened forest, but logging bans in China should not lead to forest loss in other parts of the world. Decisive action is needed to ensure that supply chains leading to or through China begin with well-managed forest”.