Wood and wood products are essential to large areas of the world economy, yet until now there has been no single definitive reference source to which those new to or requiring a strategic overview of the industry could turn for a comprehensive picture of the market chain from forest to consumer. "The International Timber Trade "remedies this, providing a detailed overview of the entire timber and timber products business in an authoritative and accessible style. Written by a leading expert, "The International Timber Trade" is essential reading for a wide range of interested groups including managers in the timber industry and trade, the financial community with interests in the sector, academics and students in forestry management and related studies, government agencies and their advisers in helping to develop policies for the sector and international trade, and finally those working in international development organizations and in national and international non-governmental bodies.

Illegal logging and trade in timber is a major cause of forest degradation in the world today. Not only does it threaten biodiversity-rich old growth forests, it also endangers the livelihoods of the traditional communities that are dependent upon them. But controlling this global problem is not a simple matter of enacting new laws and enforcing new regulations OCo the rules already exist. If countries are to manage their forest sustainably they must implement existing laws effectively, and they must do so now! Cut and Run offers readers valuable insight on how this might be done."

First Published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the Qing period (1644–1912), China's population tripled, and the flurry of new development generated unprecedented demand for timber. Standard environmental histories have often depicted this as an era of reckless deforestation, akin to the resource misuse that devastated European forests at the same time. This comprehensive new study shows that the reality was more complex: as old-growth forests were cut down, new economic arrangements emerged to develop renewable timber resources. Historian Meng Zhang traces the trade routes that connected population centers of the Lower Yangzi Delta to timber supplies on China's southwestern frontier. She documents innovative property rights systems and economic incentives that convinced landowners to invest years in growing trees. Delving into rare archives to reconstruct business histories, she considers both the formal legal mechanisms and the informal interactions that helped balance economic profit with environmental management. Of driving concern were questions of sustainability: How to maintain a reliable source of timber across decades and centuries? And how to sustain a business network across a thousand miles? This carefully constructed study makes a major contribution to Chinese economic and environmental history and to world-historical discourses on resource management, early modern commercialization, and sustainable development.

This atlas presents technical information for professionals who process and use temperate or tropical timber. It combines the main technical characteristics of 283 tropical species and 17 species from temperate regions most commonly used in Europe with their primary uses.

This book examines development issues, particularly spatial integration, in Sub-Saharan Africa regarding its tropical timber trade, and the related formal-informal operational turf creation, control and dynamics. Focusing primarily on Ghana, Owusu examines the scramble to control the timber trade by various political and socio-economic interests, from the colonial to the neo-liberal era. In relation to this, Owusu documents the structural and organizational changes that have occurred in the region resulting from national and international development policies, such as modernization and neo-liberal structural adjustment on industrialization and development, and assesses the roles played by powerful international organizations such as The World Bank as agents of economic change. The discussion is couched in the critical but often unrecognized or neglected role the discipline of geography and its associated perspectives play in relation to examining and understanding the unequal relationship between the advanced and developing economies, and how that relationship affects development and trade behavior of developing economies. The core argument made regarding this relationship is tied to the structuralist perspective that Africa's persistent underdevelopment problem is rooted in the very structure of its political economy. Based on the discussion, Owusu identifies and distills lessons from Ghana's experience for Development policy and practice in Africa and comparable Developing countries in the 21st Century.

Timber is a vital resource that is all around us. It is the house that shelters us, the furniture we relax in, the books we read, the paper we print, the disposable diapers for our babies, and the boxes that contain our cereal, detergent, and new appliances. The way we produce and consume timber, however, is changing. With international timber companies and big box discount retailers increasingly controlling through global commodity chains where and how much timber is traded, the world's remaining old-growth forests, particularly in the developing world, are under threat of disappearing - all for the price of a consumer bargain. This trailblazing book is the first to expose what's happening inside corporate commodity chains with conclusions that fundamentally challenge our understanding of how and why deforestation persists. Authors Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister reveal how timber now moves through long and complex supply chains from the forests of the global South through the factories of emerging economies like China to the big box retail shelves of Europe and North America. Well-off consumers are getting unprecedented deals. But the social and environmental costs are extraordinarily high as corporations mine the world's poorest regions and most vulnerable ecosystems. The growing power of big retail within these commodity chains is further increasing South-North inequities and unsustainable global consumption. Yet, as this book's highly original analysis uncovers, it is also creating some intriguing opportunities to promote more responsible business practices and better global forest governance.