SINGAPORE - Singapore
plays a major international role in the smuggling of
illegally cut timber, according to a non-profit
environmental group.
The
Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) says Singapore
exported millions of dollars of illegal ramin, a
tropical hardwood tree species that is internationally
protected, to the United States without the permits
required by the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species in a 10-month period during
2001-02.
Undercover
video of Singaporean businessmen boasting their methods
used to smuggle ramin into Singapore was obtained by
investigators from EIA and Telapak, an Indonesian
environmental non-profit group, and was released at a news
conference held on Wednesday at the National Press Club.
Also released was evidence underlining
Singapore's continuing role as a hub for international
trade in endangered wildlife species and wildlife
products.
The EIA says a free-trade agreement
(FTA) with Singapore will undermine an international
initiative that US President George W Bush has put at
the forefront of his administration's environmental
policy. EIA president Allan Thornton said in a
statement that Bush should persuade Singaporean Prime
Minister Goh Chok Tong to ban the trade in illegally cut
timber and enact meaningful enforcement before the
administration and congress finalize the FTA.
The
US-Singapore FTA is the first such agreement between
the United States and an Asian nation. Singapore is in
the process of negotiating similar agreements with
fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations members as well
as China and Japan.
The EIA
fears that such agreements will
result in more illegally cut timber and other prohibited
and sensitive materials being shipped or smuggled
throughout Asia and into the United States.
In 2001, Indonesia banned the trade in ramin, a
highly valued export species, after widespread illegal
cutting was detected in four Indonesian national parks that
are home to highly endangered orangutans.
