Thread: High Asia Wood Demand Feeding U.S. Crime

High Asia Wood Demand Feeding U.S. Crime

Monday, Dec. 31, 2007

WHITESBURG -— The crime scene: once-wooded land marked by tire tracks and tree stumps.
"It's just like someone cut your heart out," says Verna Potter, 77, who lost an estimated $50,000 worth of generations-old oak trees, which were taken from her property and sold, without permission, while she was away.

Rogue loggers have long preyed on private properties from coast to coast, taking advantage of the elderly, the absent or — in Potter's case — both. They traditionally had little to fear from law enforcement officials hesitant to pursue criminal charges, instead chalking up most complaints to property disputes. But as timber values rise, so have the stakes for landowners.

"The authorities who have dealt with it as a property matter are starting to look at it as more of a criminal matter," said Joseph Phaneuf, executive director of the Northeastern Loggers' Association.

In recent years, there's been a steady movement to curb illegal logging. Some states, such as Mississippi and Virginia, have established specific timber-theft laws, making illegal logging on private property a felony punishable by jail time. New York started timber theft-prevention campaigns that warn property owners of the common claims thieves make when caught red-handed.

In Kentucky, the problem has resulted in the formation of the Appalachian Roundtable, a non-profit that joins forestry experts, attorneys, law enforcement and victims to alert landowners to logging scams and pursue criminal charges against timber thieves. The group is drafting legislation to be introduced in the 2008 Kentucky General Assembly to make timber theft a felony punishable by a prison sentence.

With foreign demand for North American hardwoods growing, theft has become a more costly issue for private landowners, whose tree farms and woodlands make up 55% of U.S. timber production, forestry officials say. Few track cases nationwide, but a 2003 Virginia Tech University study estimated that landowners lose in excess of $4 million to timber thieves each year in the otherwise poor but hardwood-rich Appalachian states.

Domestic prices for hardwoods, such as cherry, walnut and white oak, have increased about 10% over the past decade, according to analysts, but the demand overseas, especially in China and southeast Asia, has increased substantially over the past few years.

A common timber thief is an experienced logger with a small crew, said Jonathan Callore, assistant law enforcement chief of the South Carolina Forestry Commission. "They'll go into the courthouse and find out who has a local address and who has an absentee address, and go and cut on the property."

Potter suspects she was targeted that way. A couple of years ago, she and her husband moved in with her grown children in Ohio. She only visits her 25-acre property a few times a year. A nephew who lives adjacent to her property notified her of the theft.

The case is slated for a grand jury next month, though it still brings Potter little satisfaction. "Thirty-two oak trees that have been there for years," she said. "It was my turn to give them to my son and daughter, but you can't replace those."

http://moneynews.newsmax.com/money/arch ... .cfm?s=mne

What next! a new and different kind of crime everyday...why obey the law no one else has to!

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

What next! a new and different kind of crime everyday...why obey the law no one else has to!

I know CalTrans (The California dept. responsible for the upkeep of roads and freeways) has a problem w/people stealing the plants and planting materials they buy to plant on or near roadways/freeways.

ANything to make a buck.

Here in OR, in the last few years the State DoR (Dept. of Revenue) has been researching past logging activities vs. property and lease descriptions to compare what was 'supposed to have been cut' vs. 'what was ACTUALLY cut'.
In the 'bad old days' - prior to the advent of GPS, and other precision mapping techniques - it was rather difficult to accurately affix the location on the ground to a high degree of precision. Now, it is quite easy to do that.

The logging contractors/firms that had cut beyond what they were supposed to are beginning to be sent tax bills (it represents lost revenue to the state).

*Remember that approx 50% of OR is land that is administered by the US Fed . Gov't - mostly by USFS, the USBLM and the USNPS. So the oversight is far reaching a lot of the time, and when an infraction occurs, and has Federal implications.... as in LEGAL implications.. much of the time.

Timber theft is nothing new around here. Has been going on a long time. Because some trees are very old and very valuable (not just in monetary terms) the loss is particularly tragic and difficult to rectify.