An environmental group has again slammed the Malaysian authorities for not showing any 'goodwill' to clamp down on illegal Indonesian timber trade in the country's free-trade zone (FTZ) ports.

Sam Lawson from US-based Environmental Investigation Agency was responding to the Malaysian Timber Industry Board's (MTIB) recent statement that as the regulating authority for the timber industry, it has to date no legislative authority to seize illegal shipments in FTZ ports.

Both Johor Port and Klang's West Port, which have been receiving shipments of illegal Indonesian timber, are FTZ ports, where cargoes in transit are exempted from duties and taxes.

MTIB argued that until certain laws are amended, only the port authorities can stop the shipments from entering.

It said that shipments of illegal ramin - a rare tropical timber that requires certification if originating from Indonesia - was allowed to pass through FTZ ports until April 8 this year.

Since then the ports are required to comply with an administrative ruling preventing such contraband from coming in.

Malaysia's Cites 'duty'

But Lawson pointed out that as party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), Malaysia has often failed to pass on information to enable the country of final destination to seize the wood, since it cannot due to legislative failings.

And when it did, the information was sent far too late for the receiving authorities of the contraband shipments to take action.

For example, the MTIB waited until May to inform Cites management authorities in Hong Kong, Beijing and Taiwan that the ramin seized in late February at Johor Port and West Port had been released for onward transhipment to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Kaohsiung.

By then, the shipments of illegal timber had been sold.

"There was no legislative reason why MTIB took until May 5 to carry out this Cites duty," Lawson said.

"Whatever the laws, it seems that if enough pressure is placed on the authorities, they do have the ability to act.

"One can only assume that the reason for the delay was to ensure that the Malaysian companies involved did not lose money by having their illegal shipments seized in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan," he said

"If this is the case, it once more betrays the lack of goodwill on the part of the authorities and that their real priorities have not changed."

Efforts 'not good enough'

Following intense campaigning by environmental groups like EIA and Indonesia's Telapak in February this year, Malaysia was forced to concede that there were legal loopholes that enabled illegal wood from Indonesia passage through Malaysian ports.

EIA's allegations had also included illegal wood being laundered through ports that were not free trade zones; that companies were using faked Cites certificates to ship out Indonesian ramin; and that the government failed to properly enforce two log bans it imposed in June 2003 and June 2003 on Indonesian logs.

"Our experience of the first ban (on round logs) is that it was utterly ignored on the ground until EIA-Telapak exposed this fact in October 2002 and again in April 2003. Only in late 2003 did we see any significant change in shipments being processed at the ports on the West coast," Lawson claimed.

"It is not good enough for Malaysia to adopt measures designed to deflect criticism and then fail to implement them," he said.

'Besieged' with questions

As a result of the green lobby, MTIB told malaysiakini that timber authorities have been besieged with questions from importing countries, requesting detailed reports on Malaysia's Cites certification and for timber species to be properly verified.

But Indonesia, which contains 10 percent of the world's remaining tropical forests, remains sceptical that unless importing countries adopt legal mechanisms to control the trade, illegally-harvested wood from Indonesian forests will continue to be laundered via Malaysia.

As it stands, neither the European Union nor United States, two of the largest consumers of tropical wood, have any laws which prohibit the import of illegally-sourced wood products.

The only mechanism since proposed in the EU calls for the setting up of 'voluntary partner agreements' - a bilateral understanding which limits seizures to uncertified wood originating from countries that have signed with the EU.

Environmental groups say this option would not work; the only effective solution would be a 'general prohibition' of all illegally-sourced wood, regardless its origins.