China’s Timber Demand Is Destroying Forests in South Pacific Countries

Fishermen paddle off Kennedy Island in the remote Western Province of the Solomon Islands, on July 28, 2003. Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images

Forests in countries in the South Pacific are being decimated by China’s hunger for timber.

The Solomon Islands, the second-biggest supplier of timber to China behind Papua New Guinea, exported more than 3 million cubic meters of timber to China in 2017, according to a recent report by environment group Global Witness.