Seattle, Washington
In many parts of the world, illegal logging continues to drive deforestation and poses a significant threat to biodiversity, the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities and the rule of law. As part of an international effort to combat illegal logging, the U.S. Lacey Act was amended in 2008 to require that an importer must declare the species and origin of the forest product they are importing. Since then, government and academic labs have been working to develop methods to identify the species and origin of timber and wood-based products. However, the ability to scale these methods and make them available to enforcement officials and the private sector has yet to materialize.
One of the problems for enforcement agents tasked with Lacey compliance is an inability to quickly and accurately verify the information in customs declarations. For all but the most experienced wood scientists, timber and forest products are nearly impossible to identify to species. Additionally, there is little to aid an agent in verifying a timber or wood product’s origin.
This workshop will convene academic, government and enforcement sector entities to help map out the biggest challenges, and set up partnerships and collaborations to resolve these challenges in the United States. Core participants will include scientists who have built methods in wood identification using mass spectrometry, stable isotope, wood anatomy, genetics and near-infrared spectroscopy; scientists who employ these methods on non-wood based materials; and state and national enforcement agents who will provide insights on their needs.
For more information, please contact Meaghan Parker-Forney.
Resources
- Executive Summary: Development and Scaling of Innovative Technologies for Wood Identification
- Nature ignores borders ! Stable isotopes in timber tracking - Markus Boner Agroisolab
- Phytochemical Analysis of Timbers Using Direct Analysis in Real Time, Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (DART TOFMS) - Kristen Finch, Oregon State University; Edgard Espinoza, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- Natural Resource Trafficking: A Global Problem - Mike Cenci, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police
- Microfluidics for Timber DNA Analysis - Hal Holmes, University of Washington
- Identification of Central American Dalbergia - Mike Wiemann, Center for Wood Anatomy Research
- Timber Legality Policies: Fueling Perverse Outcomes? - Ivan Eastin, University of Washington
- CITES-listed tree species: timber identification - Milena Sosa Schmidt, CITES
- Machine vision wood identification: Xylotron - John Hermanson, U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory
- WRI/PIIPA Wood ID Project - Pacyinz Lyfoung, Public Interest Intellectual Property Advisors (PIIPA)
- Illegal timber trade: The scale, impact, and need for new tools to combat it - Linda Walker, GTFN North America
- Identifying Samples and their Sources: Case Studies and Lessons Learned - Brook Milligan, New Mexico State University
- Preparation and Calibration of USGS54, USGS55, and USGS56 Wood Isotopic Reference Materials - Tyler Coplen, U.S. Geological Survey
- Direct Analysis in Real Time-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry as a Tool for Rapid Plant Species Identification—Applications to Endangered Species Characterization - Rabi Ann Musah, SUNY Albany
- Current State of Technologies: Genetics - Valerie Hipkins, U.S. Forest Service National Forest Genetics Laboratory
- Random forests of forests: integrating data sources to combat illegal logging - Richard Cronn, U.S. Forest Services
- Recent research and practice on wood identification in China towards promoting legal logging and timber trade: combining wood anatomy, genetics and chemical methods - Yafan Yin, Chinese Academy of Forestry
- The role of herbaria in archiving physical specimens for plant research and reference purposes - Richard Olmstead, University of Washington
- New Advances in Wood Identification Technology - Eric Marek, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- ICCWC Guidelines for Forensic Timber Analysis - Shelley Gardner, U.S. Forest Service International Programs
- Using the Near infrared (NIRS) technology as a potential tool for the monitoring of mahogany trade - Tereza Pastore, Brazil Forest Products Laboratory
- FSC Certification and the need for wood identification tools - Phil Guillery, Forest Stewardship Council