老红木流向中国内地 奢侈家具需求毁坏湄公河森林

China’s surging demand for luxury furniture and a revived cultural tradition are not only taking a toll on the forests of its Southeast Asian neighbors but also fueling a deadly crime wave across the region, according to an environmental monitoring group.

一家环境监测机构称，中国对豪华家具高涨的需求以及文化传统的复兴，不仅破坏了东南亚邻国的森林，还在整个地区引发了一波犯罪狂潮，甚至有人因此丧命。

A new report by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency says that illegal logging and corruption have contributed to the near extinction of Siamese rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis), an increasingly rare tropical hardwood found in countries in the Mekong region, including Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

总部位于伦敦的环境调查署(Environmental Investigation Agency)最新发布的报告称，非法砍伐和腐败行为已成为交趾黄檀几近消亡的一个原因。这种热带硬木生长在湄公河流域国家，包括泰国、越南、老挝和柬埔寨，现在已越来越稀有。

Laws in these countries ban either logging or exporting the timber, but Chinese demand for the richly hued wood, known in Chinese as lao hongmu, literally “old redwood,” is so high that it is driving illegal logging and smuggling across the region, the report says, based on investigations over the past decade.<BR>“From 2000-13, China imported a total of 3.5 million cubic meters of hongmu timber,” it says. “Nearly half of China’s hongmu imports since 2000 — amounting to 1,666,471 cubic meters valued at nearly $2.4 billion — came from the Mekong.”

这份报告是根据过去10年的调查得出的。报告中称，这些国家的法律都禁止砍伐和出口这种木材，但中国对这种色彩浓艳的木材（在中国被称为“老红木”）需求如此之高，因而推动了整个地区的非法砍伐和走私活动。“从2000到2013年，中国共进口了350万立方米的红木木材。2000年以来，几乎一半的中国红木进口——1666471立方米，价值将近24亿美元（约合150亿元人民币）——来自湄公河流域。”

Surveys in recent years found just up to 100,000 of the trees remaining in Thailand and very few in the neighboring countries.

近几年的调查发现，目前在泰国最多还有10万棵交趾黄檀，在邻国则几乎绝迹。

The depleted forests are difficult to restore. They take “50 to 100 years before they are producing timber,” Jago Wadley, a senior forest campaigner with the Environmental Investigation Agency, said in an interview.

砍伐殆尽的森林很难恢复。需要“50到100年才能产出木材”，环境调查署的高级森林项目负责人杰戈·沃德利(Jago Wadley)在接受采访时说。

Beyond the biological toll, there is a human one, when illegal loggers encounter enforcement officers, the agency found.

该机构发现，受到威胁的不光是树木，还有人命，比如当非法砍伐者遭遇执法人员时。

“The tools of the trade are chainsaws, guns and even rocket-propelled grenade launchers,” the report said. “Since 2009, dozens of forest rangers have been killed” in Thailand in shootouts with loggers from remote villages or Cambodia, it continued. Forty-five Cambodian loggers were “reportedly shot dead by Thai forces in 2012 alone.”

“这个行当使用的工具是链锯、枪支，甚至火箭筒，”报告写道。在泰国，“自2009年以来，有数十名护林员遇害”，原因是在森林中遭遇盗伐者时发生枪战。那些盗伐者来自偏远的农村或柬埔寨。据报道有45名柬埔寨盗伐者“被泰国军队射杀，而这只是2012年一年的数字。”

As part of their work monitoring the trade, the agency’s undercover investigators met with traders who paid villagers from impoverished communities in cash or in methamphetamines to harvest the trees, and eventually sold the timber to dealers in China, often bribing government officials along the way, said Faith Doherty, a forest campaign team leader for the agency.

作为监管工作的一部分，环境调查署的卧底调查人员见到了一些商人，他们以现金或毒品作为报酬，让贫穷村落的村民砍伐这些木材，并最终把木材卖给中国的交易商，在此过程中常常要贿赂政府官员，该组织森林保护项目负责人费斯·多尔蒂(Faith Doherty)说。

“Sometimes it can take us two to three years before we start to see a real picture emerging and who the actual actors are behind it,” Ms. Doherty said in an interview.

多尔蒂在接受采访时说，“有时我们要花费两三年的时间，才能弄明白真实的状况和背后的参与者。”

Trade data from the Chinese authorities and United Nations Comtrade, a United Nations-run trade database, was also used to piece together how remote forests in the Mekong area are being cut down to meet the “unprecedented” demand in China, Ms. Doherty said.

多尔蒂说，为了探究湄公河流域遥远森林中的树木遭到砍伐，最终满足中国“前所未有”的需求的整个过程，也使用了中国政府和联合国(United Nations)贸易统计数据库Comtrade的贸易数据。

Rosewood has been highly prized for fine furniture in China since at least the Ming dynasty, about 600 years ago. But consumption did not reach the unsustainable levels noted in the agency’s report until recently, as the economic boom since the 1980s unleashed an appetite for luxury goods long suppressed under Mao Zedong.

至少从大约600年前的明代开始，红木家具在中国就已经备受推崇。但直到最近，红木的消费才达到了报告中所指出的那种不可持续的水平。对豪华商品的需求在毛泽东时代曾长期受到压抑，到上世纪80年代以来的经济繁荣中才爆发起来。

“In the past 30 years, China went through twice as much of Asia’s Siamese rosewood resource as it did” over the five centuries of “the Ming and Qing dynasties combined,” said Yu Hongyan, a collector of rosewood furniture and timber living in Beijing. “Unfortunately, China’s history of furniture-making is essentially a history of forest depletion.”

“中国过去30年用掉的”亚洲红木资源，“是明清两朝加起来的两倍，”现居北京的红木家具和木材收藏家于鸿雁说。“中国家具史大致也是一部采伐史。”

The surge in consumption has sent prices skyrocketing. In 2011, investigators found a rosewood bed in Shanghai retailing for $1 million. Prices for fine rosewood furniture quadrupled in China in 2013, according to the Chinese Redwood Committee, an industry association. And it predicts a “steady rise in prices” in 2014, a forecast that so far appears on track.

消费量的激增使价格一路飙升。2011年，调查人员发现，上海一张红木床的零售价高达100万美元。行业协会中国红木委的数据显示，高级红木家具的价格在2013上涨了三倍。该机构预测，红木家具的价格2014年将稳中有升，这一预测迄今为止似乎已经得到证实。

Cultural tradition is not the sole driver of the bullish rosewood market. Speculation is also playing a role. Newly rich Chinese need a safe place to park their fortunes, Mr. Yu said. “The housing market and the stock market have not been strong,” he said. “People now invest in rosewood as an alternative to stocks.”

文化传统并非驱动红木市场火爆行情的唯一因素，投机行为也起到了一定作用。中国的新贵需要一个安全的地方来储存财富，于鸿雁表示。“这几年房市股市不怎么好，因此红木木材和家具开始作为一种理财产品出现，”他说。“人们炒作红木就像炒股票一样。”

Siamese rosewood had been listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature since 1998. Then, last year, the species was listed as “endangered” on Appendix II to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, banning all timber exports without a Cites permit.

从1998年起，国际自然保护联盟(International Union for Conservation of Nature)就把交趾黄檀列为“脆弱”物种。去年，《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》（Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species，简称Cites）在附录二中将其列为“濒危”物种，如果没有Cites的许可，禁止所有交趾黄檀木材的出口。

However, the Cites ban only covers logs, sawed timber and veneers, a loophole in its enforcement that the Environmental Investigation Agency has urged Cites parties to close.

不过，Cites的禁令只涵盖原木、锯好的木材和木板，环境调查署已经敦促Cites的各缔约方弥补这个漏洞。

“The traders now can crudely process the timber in the source country and then export it as furniture, circumventing the ban,” Mr. Yu said.

于鸿雁说，“商人可以在产地粗加工，然后作为家具半成品进口，这样就避开了Cites的禁令。”

Addressing the demand side of the trade, the agency’s report calls on China to halt imports of all rosewood from the Mekong region until the source countries produce evidence that any future exports will not threaten their Siamese rosewood populations and therefore are sustainable.

为了应对木材贸易的需求，该机构的报告呼吁中国暂停所有从湄公河区域进口红木的活动，直到来源国家拿出证据，证明未来的出口不会威胁到该国交趾黄檀的数量，因而是可持续的。