By Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOTPeople involved in the trade of forest products rarely have occasion to scrutinize Congressional farm legislation, nor are they concerned with wildlife conservation laws. That all changed this year when the farm bill passed by Congress, which also overrode President Bush’s veto to make the measure law, included provisions intended to protect worldwide forests from deforestation and illegal wood products from entering the United States. Those measures came in the form of amendments to the Lacey Act, a law entered on the books in 1900, which provides penalties for the illegal commercial transportation of wildlife and non-native species. This year’s amendments, however, focused on illegal logging, and provide for penalties ranging from $250 to $500,000, as well as prison sentences, for knowingly sourcing, or failing to exercise due care when sourcing, products that contain illegal timber or plants. Illegally logged wood is defined as wood that is sold below market price or wood cut in violation of treaties, laws and regulations. The legislation also creates a requirement for importers to declare the species and country of origin of any plant or plant product entering the country, including wood. Industry observers note that the law could have implications for the US furniture industry’s supply chain. “This important illegal logging provision will level the playing field that is currently stacked against US forest product manufacturers who are committed to trading in legal forest products,” said Donna Harman, president of the American Forest and Paper Association. “Illegal logging costs the American forest products industry an estimated $460 million each year in lost export sales.” The Environmental Investigation Agency, a Washington -based environmental watchdog group, said that failure to adhere to the provisions would increase risk of seizure and forfeiture of products made with illegally sourced wood. Import requirements have not been issued yet but are likely to come out in the next six months, said Alexander von Bismarck, president of the EIA. The law has a flexible “due care” concept applicable to retailers and importers, which could cause larger importers to be held to a higher standard than smaller independent purchasers. Big-box retailers might be expected to send investigators to talk directly to suppliers in source counties to ascertain whether their wood is sourced legally. “A mom-and-pop operations probably isn’t going to be expected to go overseas,” von Bismarck said. Countries with a higher record of illegal logging could also be more closely targeted by the enforcement community than countries with stricter logging laws, von Bismarck added. “The main purpose of the declarations is to provide the most basic information to the enforcement community,” he explained. “If teak is coming from China, there was good chance it was cut in Myanmar and is illegally funding the junta in that country.” Topping the EIA’s watch list is wood sourced from the Russian Far East, Russian timber moving through the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, and exotic species from Indonesia, especially those grown in Papua, New Guinea.