Wednesday, January 14, 2009
How to read effectively for understanding
In order to read effectively, you have to annotate properly as well. As you read, you must notice words that come back in the chapter. You have to make notes of the big ideas, and make sure they are easy to find. You can highlight the key ideas, and the important quotes that will help you later on.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Inside the war on Illegal Logging
A reporter at large: The Stolen Forests
by Raffi Khatchadourian
New Yorker,
October 6, 2008
The article refers to the illegal activities happening in Russian Far East and China, especially concerning illegal logging and wood products sold in the United States. In a small town in northern Manchuria, Suifenhe, is one of the main passages that comes from Russia to get to China. Nearly all the trains that come from Russia bring one commodity: wood -oak, ash, linden or other high-priced species. Chances are that if an item sold in the United States is made from wood and has been imported from China, it has come through Suifenhe. But the main concern is that more than half of all the wood transported there is harvested in violation with Russian Law. In the nineteen eighties, Suifenhe became what is known as Socialism with Chinese markets. Russians would come with furs and old military goods and sell them for Chinese goods. It became known as dao bao or "changing bags" and became a popular practice. This worked because of Russia's proximity and its distance from the Chinese government. Chinese "entrepreneurs" smuggled opium and ephedrine, which was widely available in China but not in Russia. Local mobsters flourished on both sides, and at some point they "clashed". There have been stories of people disappearing and being found with a few bullets in the head, drowned in a pond.
An environmental activist, Alexander von Bismarck, great-great-grandnephew of Otto von Bismarck, working for a non profit group called the Environmental Investigation Agency, has taken interest into finding out how plants, wildlife and industrial chemicals are smuggled. Equipped with a surveillance equipment, they decided to meet with smugglers as employees of Axion Trading, a front created by the E.I.A. When von Bismarck and his friend Wu arrived in Suifenhe, they saw what was quickly becoming one of the most violent and crime filled black market, slowly merging with the economy. We have to be aware that a fifth of the world's wood comes from countries that have trouble enforcing their timber laws, and that are experiencing the fastest rates of deforestation. But illegal logging only brings money for the local "mafia" and sellers, since most of the products made from illegal wood end up at Wal-Mart into $2 pool cues or toilet seats and do not benefit the country's economy. The local market in Suifenhe is mainly centered on "primary processing", meaning that they transform the freshly cut logs into sawn wood in order to ship it to factories all over the country.
One of the local suppliers of timber wood in China is the Suifenhe Longjiang Shanglian Import and Export Company, which was created in 1998 after the Chinese's ban on logging was enforced. One out of ten logs that comes through Suifenhe is owned by this company. Von Bismarck and Wu decided to meet with them and discuss their activities with timber and the Russian market. The company owns almost half of Suifenhe and all the railroads around the town are controlled by the CEO's family. According to the employees of the SLSIE, the company faces problems that concern illegality, and include transportation costs, custom fees and mafia protection money… According to them, "even the police is like the mafia", corrupted and asking for what they call "protection money" in order to keep making business here in Suifenhe. Von Bismarck has talked before Congress on the smuggling of logs and on the role of environmental activists that are often killed by the local mafias. The companies that export the finished goods made from wood, are in good terms with the Wal-Mart company in the United States, and is actually one of their major customers. But a recent study on illegal logging has changed the way Wal-Mart sells its products and a law has been put in place in order to improve illegal logging and to suppress all products made from illegal wood in the next 6 years.
by Raffi Khatchadourian
New Yorker,
October 6, 2008
The article refers to the illegal activities happening in Russian Far East and China, especially concerning illegal logging and wood products sold in the United States. In a small town in northern Manchuria, Suifenhe, is one of the main passages that comes from Russia to get to China. Nearly all the trains that come from Russia bring one commodity: wood -oak, ash, linden or other high-priced species. Chances are that if an item sold in the United States is made from wood and has been imported from China, it has come through Suifenhe. But the main concern is that more than half of all the wood transported there is harvested in violation with Russian Law. In the nineteen eighties, Suifenhe became what is known as Socialism with Chinese markets. Russians would come with furs and old military goods and sell them for Chinese goods. It became known as dao bao or "changing bags" and became a popular practice. This worked because of Russia's proximity and its distance from the Chinese government. Chinese "entrepreneurs" smuggled opium and ephedrine, which was widely available in China but not in Russia. Local mobsters flourished on both sides, and at some point they "clashed". There have been stories of people disappearing and being found with a few bullets in the head, drowned in a pond.
An environmental activist, Alexander von Bismarck, great-great-grandnephew of Otto von Bismarck, working for a non profit group called the Environmental Investigation Agency, has taken interest into finding out how plants, wildlife and industrial chemicals are smuggled. Equipped with a surveillance equipment, they decided to meet with smugglers as employees of Axion Trading, a front created by the E.I.A. When von Bismarck and his friend Wu arrived in Suifenhe, they saw what was quickly becoming one of the most violent and crime filled black market, slowly merging with the economy. We have to be aware that a fifth of the world's wood comes from countries that have trouble enforcing their timber laws, and that are experiencing the fastest rates of deforestation. But illegal logging only brings money for the local "mafia" and sellers, since most of the products made from illegal wood end up at Wal-Mart into $2 pool cues or toilet seats and do not benefit the country's economy. The local market in Suifenhe is mainly centered on "primary processing", meaning that they transform the freshly cut logs into sawn wood in order to ship it to factories all over the country.
One of the local suppliers of timber wood in China is the Suifenhe Longjiang Shanglian Import and Export Company, which was created in 1998 after the Chinese's ban on logging was enforced. One out of ten logs that comes through Suifenhe is owned by this company. Von Bismarck and Wu decided to meet with them and discuss their activities with timber and the Russian market. The company owns almost half of Suifenhe and all the railroads around the town are controlled by the CEO's family. According to the employees of the SLSIE, the company faces problems that concern illegality, and include transportation costs, custom fees and mafia protection money… According to them, "even the police is like the mafia", corrupted and asking for what they call "protection money" in order to keep making business here in Suifenhe. Von Bismarck has talked before Congress on the smuggling of logs and on the role of environmental activists that are often killed by the local mafias. The companies that export the finished goods made from wood, are in good terms with the Wal-Mart company in the United States, and is actually one of their major customers. But a recent study on illegal logging has changed the way Wal-Mart sells its products and a law has been put in place in order to improve illegal logging and to suppress all products made from illegal wood in the next 6 years.
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