One central measure the government took was a stern, and by most accounts effective, crackdown on illegal logging across China. Given that forest coverage on Chinese territory is only 17 percent, compared with a global average of 34 percent, this move was prudent regardless of logging’s contribution to China’s flood control problems.

But in another significant development, the logging ban was followed by tariff cuts on imported timber, demanded by the World Trade Organization in China’s entry negotiations. Now, China’s demand for wood products is soaring, causing environmentalists to worry that its efforts to protect its own forest are coming at the expense of its neighbors.

“The logging ban was fairly successful in reducing unsustainable forest extractions. But it was also clear that the ban had merely displaced deforestation from within China into other regions, especially, Southeast Asia,” said a paper published this year in the Journal of Contemporary Asia by Graeme Lang and Cathy Chan Hiu-wan of the City University of Hong Kong. … Read the full story [PDF].