To halt global deforestation, start with the Home Depot

November’s Sunnylands Statement on Climate Cooperation represents an important step both towards addressing climate change and advancing U.S.-China cooperation.

Particularly notable for the battle to save the world’s forests is paragraph 19, affirming the commitment of China and the U.S. to halt deforestation. This includes implementation and effective enforcement of “their respective laws on banning illegal imports.”

With the U.S. and China both responsible for imports of forest products in excess of US $40 billion annually, this commitment could represent a critical step in the fight to address illegal deforestation and forest degradation.  

While a range of commodities from coffee to leather are linked to deforestation, the illegal sourcing of timber and wood products looms large over this effort, with the U.S. and China the two largest importers of wood products in the world.

Jointly stopping the trade in illegal timber is critical, in particular when it comes from tropical forests that play a vital role in the fight against climate change. Weak governance and illegal logging are positively correlated with increased carbon emissions. Illegal logging also tends to have other nefarious effects, including limiting states’ revenues, enabling corruption, and undermining regional stability.  

But where to start, when between 50 and 90 percent of the timber trade from tropical countries is reportedly illegal? As a member of the African diaspora working on African forest issues and fighting for African governance of our resources, I have a suggestion: a supply chain that ties together illegal logging and trade from the Congo Basin, manufacturing in China and re-export to other Asian countries

Hundreds of thousands of illegal timber products are imported into the U.S. and distributed by Home Depot, the largest home improvement company in the country. The scale of this supply-chain is significant: From 2017 to 2022, at least 1.2 million doors sold to U.S. consumers are at high risk for containing illegal timber. 

EIA’s recent report, titled The Dictator’s Door, exposes the overall supply chain, from the crimes committed in the forests of Equatorial Guinea to the no-questions-asked approach in the U.S.

Illegalities are systemic in Equatorial Guinea. As a source from a major forestry company described to EIA investigators, “Logging businesses can't survive if they follow the rules.” 

The illegalities that plague the forestry sector in Equatorial Guinea are compounded by corruption on the part of the institutions charged with the governance of the country’s natural resources. This corruption seemingly goes as high as Vice President Teodorin Nguema Obiang, son of the current president. EIA’s report confirmed an ongoing scheme, documented years ago by the U.S. Department of Justice, whereby the export of logs from Equatorial Guinea is contingent on payment of bribes directly to Nguema Obiang. EIA estimated the value of this bribe at U.S. $24 million annually, on average, from 2015 to 2021, in a country where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. 

This shady supply chain starts in Africa and runs through several countries of Asia, ending in North America. It is also unfortunately quite typical of the current state of the global timber sector. Given the opacity of the timber industry, the multiple geographies involved, and the changing nature of timber products, an effective common-goal-oriented approach between China and the U.S. is essential to tackling forest crimes that are often committed far from either country’s borders and that their joint demand drives. 

The nature of global timber flows, the absence of an international convention, and the systemic illegalities in the industrial logging sector call for more rather than less intervention from nation-states. Corporate commitments should certainly not be taken as a substitute for states’ rules, policies, and actions. Indeed, the sale across the U.S. of doors containing wood from Equatorial Guinea is, according to EIA’s findings, a violation of Home Depot’s own wood purchasing policy, which provides that the company will not source non-FSC-certified wood from the Congo Basin. There is no FSC-certified logging concession in Equatorial Guinea. 

The text adopted at COP28 recognized the need to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. This commitment is similar to what world leaders agreed to two years ago at COP26. And yet tropical deforestation rates increased last year, in particular in the Congo Basin. The U.S. and China have an opportunity and a responsibility to take decisive bilateral action, as hubs in the manufacturing of, and demand for, forest products.  

Inaction on wood supply chains is harming Africa’s natural resources and its forest communities. The other side of the coin is that forest communities have already had enough. If the U.S. and China clean up their supply chains, African forest champions are ready to do the rest. 

Raphael Edou is Africa program manager for forest campaigns at Environmental Investigation Agency.