Illegal logging is believed to account for between 15 and 30 per cent of the international trade in timber, with revenues running into billions of dollars each year.
This has prompted the EU, the World Bank and others to call for more effective use of anti-money laundering procedures as a way of tackling the illicit financial flows that support illegal logging.
Fern tracked money laundering legislation to see whether it could be used as a lever to help preserve the world’s forests. We concluded that anti-money laundering was not an easy weapon to use against timber crime. For more information read our report Stashing the cash.