Hevea Forest Plantations Can Help Sustain Timber Supply

By 1999 the demand for the wood had become a primary driving factor in planting more rubber plantations. These are not “forests”, although the author uses that term. They are monocultural plantations that are replacing native forest in many cases and are very low in biodiversity. Expansion of rubber plantations, like palm oil, often goes hand-in-hand with the clearing of native forests by timber companies.

Rubberwood is now a huge component of Malaysian furniture manufacturing. While it is still better than timber directly from endangered forests, it seems now that it, too, should be avoided.

http://www.frim.gov.my/


High Stakes: The need to control transnational logging companies

A Malaysian case study by World Rainforest Movement & Forests Monitor Ltd, August 1998
Full report available online in English

http://www.forestsmonitor.org/reports/highstakes/cover.htm