‘These Forests Are the Lungs of the Country’: Thai Rangers Guard Precious Rosewood

You couldn't show us a shot of the tree? You couldn't show a shot of the slabs they hauled out? NYT wins this weeks lack-o-context award.

The poaching of Rosewood has been going on for many years and what is happening in Thailand is a sideshow compared to Cambodia. Bottom to top corruption is pervasive in both countries and none of this would happen if either government did not allow it to continue. A much larger threat to the regional forests is from two booming commodities; corn for animal feed and wild mushrooms. Every year millions of acres of forest- even inside national parks- are being cut and burned so villagers can grow corn on the steep mountainsides. There are three massive agribusinesses, two of them Thai and one from the USA, that buy this corn via middleman to use in their factory farming operations. The higher the price of corn, the more forest is cut and the more choking pollution from the forest fires every year. The second driver is the Chinese demand for wild mushrooms. Thai villagers burn the forest floors in the dry hot season to make mushroom picking easier once the rains arrive. It is a hugely lucrative shadow industry. In both cases, the national governments have done nothing to stop these devastating practices while the Chinese and Big Agribusiness get what they want.

How can we help? I would like to make a donation to these heroes.

We live in Udonthani Thailand having a small scale educational regenerative agriculture and agroforestry project that can act as a model for local farmers. We regularly visit smaller national parks in our area to be inspired by nature. The rangers there are facing the same problem. As they are smaller national park they highly understaffed and equipped to deal with poacher taking out the rosewood. Technology can help in support of biodiversity conservation just needs funding from willing organisations. I think we need to divert the billions we use to destroy our planet and use this money to invest in real wealth to create a beautiful thriving living planet. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/wwf-develops-a-new-technology-to-stop-poachers-in-their-tracks By the way there are also interesting environmental positive things happening in China, lets also focus our energy in reporting those. Instead of bashing China and lets not forget our western worldview is largely responsible for current destructive global consumerist culture. May all beings be happy!

We live in Udonthani Thailand having a small scale educational regenerative agriculture and agroforestry project that can act as a model for local farmers. We regularly visit smaller national parks in our area to be inspired by nature. The rangers there are facing the same problem. As they are smaller national park they highly understaffed and equipped to deal with poacher taking out the rosewood. Technology can help in support of biodiversity conservation just needs funding from willing organisations. I think we need to divert the billions we use to destroy our planet and use this money to invest in real wealth to create a beautiful thriving living planet. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/wwf-develops-a-new-technology-to-stop-poachers-in-their-tracks By the way there are also interesting environmental positive things happening in China, lets also focus our energy in reporting those. Instead of bashing China lets not forget our western worldview devoid of any spiritual meaning is largely responsible for current destructive global consumerist culture and has been and still is largely responsible for killing of most species, ecosystems and all that supports us. May all beings be happy!

Read the comments published here. With more reports like this, Yellow Peril racist paranoid and China-bashing will become respectable across America. Harvard professor Steven Pinker wrote in his book: "Violence has been in decline over long stretches of time and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence." The world is not entering a more peaceful period when people from the top two most powerful economies learn to hate each other's guts. Pinker should update his book.

Pretty easy to put the blame on Cambodians, I’m absolutely sure that Thais are also part of the illegal trade. Most of the Thai press refer to “people of influence” being involved. Of course, these are not Cambodians but rather Hi-So Thais. Thai propaganda insists that Thai people would never do anything to harm the environment. Academics stated that it was Cambodian smoke choking Bangkok earlier this year. All Thai coal-powered electricity generating plants and mining operations are non-polluting. Water 3 feet deep in the streets after rains is not “flood water” but merely “water waiting to drain”. I think the Thai people are quite capable of raping and pillaging their own environment without the help “foreign actors”. Do you really think a bunch of poor starving Cambodian interlopers are going to harvest and then transport along the Thai highway system for at least a couple hundred kilometers these trees worth $200k apiece without any assistance from Thai authorities? And, oh yeah, let’s blame China exclusively for the demand that stokes this illegal logging. Surely this poached wood also is available in Japan, Australia, USA etc. I understand that guitars manufactured with rosewood necks in America are quite popular.

China.... the worlds devil to conservation!

Why even bother? The Chinese will take what they want when they want -- China for the most part is a 3rd world nation and routinely exploits other 3rd world nations for their resources and leaves nothing behind. I can't believe how much deference is granted to a nation of over 1 billion people who still believe Rhino horn contains mystical properties that enhances male libido... China is backwards- and their way of thinking is antiquated and repugnant.

I am so tired of China’s appetite for ivory, pangolins, rhino horn, tiger testicles, dog meat and rosewood. How can they expect to be a world power when their superstitious citizens are endangering the health of the entire planet? I have stopped buying Chinese goods whenever I can help it (shopping for used items and refurbished items) and will spend my tourist dollars anywhere except China. We can only vote with our dollars to get their attention, they are too arrogant to listen to anything else.

China needs to wake up to the 21st century and discard these old superstitions and dynastic status symbols that are literally killing endangered species of all kinds - otherwise they have no place in the modern world.

China needs to have severe trade sanctions against it. It is absolutely ridiculous that they are allowed to get away with their criminal plunder of other poor countries assets. This is what they are destroying: Pangolins Ivory/Elephants Rhinoceros Taking Rare Cat Skins Killing endangered animals and taking endangered plants for their medicine. and more. If you really care about the environment and the species in it, then people should protest about this. Not be silent because your cell phone is made there.

Bless these noble protectors of nature and their revered resources, and shame on the Chinese for not supporting these efforts.

The basic problem here is that "the marketplace" laws of "supply and demand" work totally against the preservation of our precious natural world. The rarer the resource, the more profitable it is to poach it and subsequently sell it. Those that preach the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise are completely blind to this tragic paradox! The only solution is strict regulation and enforcement - plus eliminating corruption in high places that compromise such essential policies. Will mankind succeed in accomplishing this within a profit making system? Stay tuned!

Millions of Chinese perished, or lived their entire lives in harsh oppression, so that a new kind of society could emerge. The Communists could have used their iron grip on the people to guide the creation of a new kind of industrial society, one where hard work and ingenuity were rewarded, but where the worst excesses of naked capitalism were never allowed to develop. Instead, in China today conspicuous consumption, especially of endangered animals and plants, is encouraged, and the worst kinds of environmental rape are committed throughout the country. Historically, the capitalist west has been as dangerous to the environment as is China is today. And China tries to excuse itself by claiming it is still a poor country, so it cannot be held to the same high standards as the developed countries as the west. If that argument has any merit at all, it would be confined to the environmental effects of necessary development. Conspicuous consumption of endangered species has always been immoral, and the Chinese Communists' refusal to prevent it shows the true pointless legacy of the entire Communist movement in China.

Anyone else feel like we are losing in the movie Avatar? What is going to make nations like China ever stop? And of course they are not the only ones. It's exhausting and disheartening to constantly see corporate and national greed destroy the life of earth and see the suffering of earthlings. Honestly, it has a detrimental effect on us all, whether we realize it or not. I happen to be one who feels it each and every second, and know of so many others like me who just feel helpless against such greed and thoughtlessness.

I'm glad they changed the title. Bloodwood could also refer to a South American wood with beautiful deep red color also known as cardinal wood. A personal favorite. In Southern Africa, they have Bloodwood trees whose sap is bright red.

China needs to tap into its ancient spiritual roots and 're-educate' itself to value the rosewood (and other rarities) as a living being. Turning them into ornamental slabs of cellulose is against all the old wisdom.

Is there an education and public service program in China telling the emerging middle class about the responsibility of their newly earned affluence?

First it was elephants and rhino tusks. Tiger parts. Bear bile. More than a billion people eager to show off their newly-acquired wealth. Will any flora or fauna exist when most of China is “middle class”?

Deep within the forests and jungles of SE Asia, South Asia, South America and Africa are the last real rangers. There is a war being waged in these locations, and we should be supporting them in any way that we can. Best of luck to these brave men.

Until you stop demand, you will never end the supply.

US looking for oil, while China looking for rare animals and rare resources.

Is this rosewood in the Dalbergia species, like other endangered rosewoods?

China is going to eat all the animals on this planet. And now they are going to chop down all the trees. The whole culture of Chinese Communist frugality for the people has been infected with the Lifestyles of the Communist Party Leaders. Or I guess we should call it the Xtreme Capitalists Party of China. When all the flora and fauna is all gone, they can go back to being the Communist Party of China.

Poaching is stealing - plain and simple. Beyond someone stealing a loaf of bread from a store, or a lawnmower from your back porch - this particular theft is attacking a Unesco Heritage site of endangered and priceless Trees, AND their Forest habitat. This is a spit in the face to Ecology, and to fighting Global Warming - not to mention a great insult to the Nation of Thailand. What fuels this theft? One more time, Communist China's endless greed rears it's ugly face. Hungry wood-chuck Cambodians can out fox Thailand's under-funded and poorly equipped Rangers, and haul out endangered wood for pennies, while their Communist Chinese buyers reap large buckets of money for this "bloodwood". This is so typical of China's method of operation. This is SO out of balance. Theft is not a new thing, but when you add up Communist China's "rap sheet", that is more than a lot of Theft. You don't like what China is doing here ?? Fight back with your wallet. BOYCOTT CHINA . Communist China DOES NOT CARE what they steal or who they steal from. Tell it to the stolen Nation of Tibet. Tell it to ethnic minorities, locked up in "Transformation Camps". Communist China build phony "Islands" on reefs, turns them into Military Bases, and claims that the Land AND the Sea around them are theirs, too.

Be nice if they actually showed the reader a plank of rosewood.

And yet with a quick search on exotic lumber for sale web sites, this wood can be purchased here in the US.... Why?

Something tells me those wooden guns aren't going to scare anyone. Just a thought.