{"id":19969,"date":"2016-02-01T11:41:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=19969"},"modified":"2016-02-01T11:41:09","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:41:09","slug":"19969-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=19969","title":{"rendered":"Business That Used Timber from Habitat of Endangered Siberian Tigers Fined Millions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"VirginiaA federal judge today ordered Virginia-based hardwood flooring retailer Lumber Liquidators Inc<\/strong>. to pay $13.1 million for importing hardwood flooring from timber in the habitat of the last remaining Siberian tigers, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition,\u00a0the company will pay more than $3.15 million in cash through a related civil forfeiture.<\/span><\/p>\n

The more than $13.1 million dollar penalty is the largest financial penalty for timber trafficking under the Lacey Act and one of the largest Lacey Act penalties ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lacy Act makes it a crime to import timber that was taken in violation of the laws of a foreign country and to transport falsely-labeled timber across international borders into the United States, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy knowingly and illegally sourcing timber from vulnerable forests in Asia and other parts of the world, Lumber Liquidators made American consumers unwittingly complicit in the ongoing destruction of some of the world’s last remaining intact forests,\u201d said Director Dan Ashe of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Adding, \u201cAlong with hastening the extinction of the highly endangered Siberian tiger and many other native species, illegal logging driven by the company’s greed threatens the many people who depend on sustainable use of these forests for food, clean water, shelter and legitimate jobs.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Amur Leopards<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The timber was\u00a0illegally logged in far eastern Russia, in the habitat of the last remaining Siberian tigers and Amur leopards<\/strong> in the world, according to the Department of Justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lumber Liquidators plead guilty last year in federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, to environmental crimes related to its illegal importation of hardwood flooring, officials announced.<\/span><\/p>\n

Much of the hardwood flooring was manufactured in China, according to authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to a statement of facts filed with the court, from 2010 to 2013, this is what happened:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Lumber Liquidators repeatedly failed to follow its own internal procedures and failed to take action on self-identified \u201cred flags.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"LumberThose red flags included imports from high risk countries, imports of high risk species, imports from suppliers who were unable to provide documentation of legal harvest and imports from suppliers who provided false information about their products.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite internal warnings of risk and non-compliance, very little changed at Lumber Liquidators, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, officials said Lumber Liquidators employees were aware that timber from the Russian Far East was considered, within the flooring industry and within Lumber Liquidators, to carry a high risk of being illegally sourced due to corruption and illegal harvesting in that remote region.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the risk of illegality, Lumber Liquidators increased its purchases from Chinese manufacturers using timber sourced in the Russian Far East, according to officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2013, the defendant imported Russian timber logged under a concession permit that had been utilized so many times that the defendants\u2019 imports alone exceeded the legal harvest allowance of Mongolian oak, Quercus mongolica, by more than 800 percent, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The investigation revealed a prevalent practice in timber smuggling enterprises, where a company uses a seemingly legitimate government permit to log trees, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Corruption and criminal activity along the supply chain results in the same permit being used multiple times and in areas outside of the designated logging area, sometimes vastly exceeding its legal limits.<\/span><\/p>\n

On other occasions, Lumber Liquidators falsely reported the species or harvest country of timber when it was imported into the United States, according to authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2013, Lumber Liquidators imported Mongolian oak from Far East Russia which it declared to be Welsh oak and imported merpauh from Myanmar which it declared to be mahogany from Indonesia.<\/span><\/p>\n

The illegal cutting of Mongolian oak in far eastern Russia is of particular concern because those forests are home to the last 450 wild Siberian tigers, Panthera tigris altaica.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rare-Siberian-tiger\"Illegal logging is considered the primary risk to the tigers\u2019 survival, because they are dependent on intact forests for hunting and because Mongolian oak acorns are a chief food source for the tigers\u2019 prey species, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mongolian oak forests are also home to the highly endangered Amur leopard Panthera pardus orientalis, of which fewer than 50 remain in the wild, federal officials maintain.<\/span><\/p>\n

In June 2014, in response to illegal logging and the decline in tiger populations,Mongolian oak was added to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, according to officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

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