Siamese Rosewood Elevated to Protected Status
Siamese Rosewood, which is illegally logged and exported from Cambodia in large quantities, will be protected internally as a threatened species following a decision taken in Bangkok yesterday. A meeting of the 177 countries party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted unanimously to protect Dalbergia Cochinchinensis, or Siamese rosewood, according to a statement from U.K.-based organization, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The move sees Siamese rosewood added to CITES’s Appendix II, which lists species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction, but may become so if trade is not controlled. The decision means that a specific export license has to be granted to internationally trade the timber. … Chinese customs recorded about 6,850 cubic meters of luxury wood logs—thought to be largely made up of rosewood— as having come from Cambodia in 2012. …
