Report: Illegal timber trade from Myanmar to China growing

BEIJING (AP) -- An environmental group says that the illicit timber trade between Myanmar and China is rebounding to levels near their peak a decade ago, as loggers push deeper into Myanmar to harvest its forests.

The London- and Washington D.C.-based Environmental Investigation Agency called in a report for both governments to stop the trade, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year and supplies China's furniture industry. EIA says Chinese businesses acquire the rights to illegally log Burmese mountains through bribery.

EIA campaigner Julian Newman says the volume of illegal timber crossing the border has risen to nearly 900,000 cubic meters a year - not far off the 2005 peak of about 1 million cubic meters, which fell after Chinese authorities temporarily clamped down.