HN Reader

If I just built a house, and if there were some definitive test to know the wood came from somewhere illegally, who would I sue?

In the US, you would sue the person you paid (who would then sue the middleman company who sold them the wood, and so on down the chain until the chain eventually ends).

It’s interesting to think what a market would look like if we removed indemnity and limitation of liability from contracts (which allows liability to easily be passed down to vendors) in certain cases. I think that’s how it works in certain other countries.

E.g. what if the liability was solely with the person who sold me the wood (even if they’re actually “innocent” and simply bought from a fraudulent distributor).

I can easily see how it would help to keep all liability at the closest link to the consumer in the chain, but then again how realistic is it that any home builder is going to (reasonably) be able to do enough vetting of distributors and suppliers to know exactly how and where everything was made.

> “They [Nature Flooring] themselves don’t know what it is that they’re selling,” a timber industry insider told Mongabay, adding that minimal testing is done to check the species or origin of the wood.

> When contacted, AHF told Mongabay in an emailed response that it “does not use any illegally harvested wood products.” “We have a rigorous supplier vetting and compliance program to verify all wood products are legally sourced. Any inferences to the contrary are simply not true,” AHF said.

There's a bit of a he-said/she-said thing going on here. It seems like it would be pretty easy to verify samples whether the wood came from a plantation or not.

I could see importing some exotic hardwood from Cambodia (if they have any), but why is is cost effective to make shitty plywood with anything other than cheap locally sourced timber ?!

what isn't ending up in the west ?

This reminds me of the rampant fraud in the labeling and sourcing of seafood. See https://spu.edu/about-spu/press-room/Press/delgado-salmon-mi... For a recent example

People often associate illegal logging with general environmental destruction, loss of specific species (esp. long-lived hardwoods) and exploitation of protected national parks - which is all true.

The reality on the ground is just like any lucrative illegal activity, such as drugs: it is run by violent mafia cartels. The cartels bribe senior national politicians, terrorize/bribe local officials and threaten communities. Rival gangs often have shoot-outs in remote forest areas. Many poor/desperate young men who join the lumberjack crews never come back. The bodies will never be found.

Somewhat related, I just listened to this series about Cambodian art smuggling during the Khmer Rouge days. https://dynamitedoug.com/

I hope to visit Cambodia someday (I was about to do it in 2 weeks but then somehow I got tricked into taking a new job :-\).

In August (2024) the US increased the softwood tariff coming from Canada from 8% to 15% so I'd say US wood corp buyers are desperate for cheaper wood.

It's a big place here in Canada and the crown (aka the gov) owns all the land not owned by private owners, First Nations peoples, corporations do not. The US government hates that so they set a tariff.

Funny there are no US tariffs on Canadian oil drilled for on crown land though. Even Trump said no to that. lol

And what about all the illegal old growth being logged in sanctioned areas in bc Canada?

once the lumber becomes my house I’m calling it successfully laundered

10 years ago someone would be proposing how the blockchain could solve this problem.

I'm okay with it if it's for guitars. Flooring, no way. That's just going to end up demolished in a decade or two, which is a waste.

Use DNA and a blockchain to track the wood from plantation to store. This would be more transparent and harder to circumvent. Still potential for corruption at the first stage where it is entered into the ledger but then it should be reasonably resilient.

I find it somewhat ironic and hilarious that Americans depend on wood from across an ocean when Canada is right there and is covered by trees on at least 80% of its land

We pass all these struct labor and environmental rules in the US, then just import goods made with far worse labor and environmental treatment. This is why we need high tariffs.