Alexander von Bismarck, Executive Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, issued the following statement.
“Illegal logging is having unprecedented environmental, social and economic impacts in the Russian Far East, threatening indigenous communities and the last remaining Siberian tiger habitats in the world. The illegal trade in wood products has been shown to cause an estimated one billion dollars in damage to the forest products industry in the United States each year.
“We are encouraged that the US government appears to be responding to the catastrophic levels of illegal logging around the world and continues to lead the international effort to stop the trade in stolen wood.