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Battling Siberia’s devastating illegal logging trade

Vocab:
consortium: an association of companies for some definite purpose
burly: adj. beefy, muscular and heavily built
perturb: v. disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed

Summary: This article talks about the illegal logging trade from Siberia to China. If this keeps on going, the article stated, then the “largest forest on the planet” will disappear in 20-30 years time, as well as species such as the Korean pine, oak and linden. These trees help maintaining the ecosystem. Loggers in this illegal business carry guns and high-tech saws that seems to make an insignificant amount of noise. Also, they are backed up with watchmen and influential people (bribing, anybody?), and behind it all are the Chinese mafias and businessmen, as well as the Russian.

Reflection: I was a little bit disturbed on the last part of the article when a man said, “All this small stuff doesn’t perturb us. My son worked as an inspector and was murdered, but we’ll never give up [on fighting against illegal logging].” because this article brings “money” and “morals” together to contradict each other. Are we that blinded by money that we kill our own kind, as well as the nature that brought us up?

Location: Siberia (capital: Novosibirsk)

Citations:
Daniels, Alfonso. “Battling Siberia’s devastating illegal logging trade.” BBC News. BBC News, 27 Nov. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8376206.stm.

Filed by dle12 at November 29th, 2009 under School and tagged diep, geography 10