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China's newest forest built of wood from other nations

The forests of Zhangjiagang are horizontal: tens of thousands of felled, stripped trees lying on the quayside of China's biggest timber port, far from their roots in Indonesia, Russia, South America and Africa.

The trunks of pine, maple, merbau and zebra wood are dead, but this forest is growing. Every year, more and more logs are shipped into these wharves to satisfy the voracious demand for timber in the world's most populous and fastest rising nation.

In many cases they are illegal, smuggled from protected rainforests despite China's pledges to tackle the huge international trade in contraband logs.

"We know it's not always legal, where it comes from," said a timber merchant as he swung his wood pick into a giant log of tropical hardwood from Indonesia. "But it's no problem for us on the Chinese side."

He chipped off a sliver from the base of the dark-red merbau trunk.

"This wood is in huge demand. Customers from all over China want to buy it. They value its color and durability," he said.

They are willing to pay, too. The timber merchant, a Mr Zhu, estimated this particular log -- which a scrawled label showed to be 10.2m long and 140cm in diameter -- would fetch about 40,000 yuan (US$4,832.54) .

There were several dozen of the same size stacked up on either side. Nearby wharves contained countless more. Zhu said his small company alone brought in 2,000 to 4,000m3 of merbau a month. Bigger firms imported far more.

It is almost all smuggled illegally from Indonesia in what the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has described as the "world's biggest timber smuggling racket."

The British-based agency said last month that it had uncovered a merbau trade route controlled by crime syndicates that sent some 20 shiploads a month to China from Indonesia, which banned timber exports more than two years ago.

According to the group, the syndicates pay bribes of about US$200,000 a shipment to ensure the logs can leave Indonesian waters.

Most head for Zhangjiagang, about an hour's drive north of Shanghai, where they are reportedly cleared through customs using fake Malaysian papers.

Zhu said Indonesia's ban had increased prices.

"The situation is a bit tense because the Indonesian government restricts timber exports so it has become more expensive, especially since the tsunami," he said.

Many of the buyers come from the nearby town of Nanxun, the wooden-flooring center of China, which has more than 200 sawmills and 500 factories. The EIA says Nanxun's mills process merbau at the rate of a log a minute every day.

"China is the largest buyer of stolen timber in the world," said Julian Newman of the EIA. "The smuggling of merbau logs between Indonesia and China violates the laws of both countries, so there is a clear basis for action."

Beijing's growing conservation awareness may have accelerated the plunder of trees from overseas. While China is increasingly protecting its own forests -- including a vast swath of woodland known as the Great Green Wall -- its timber traders are having to look elsewhere for supplies, and the authorities appear to be turning a blind eye to their origins.
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