To stop, or at least slow down deforestation of tropical forests, well-intentioned governments in Holland, Belgium, and other rich countries have imposed bans or restrictions on their own importation of tropical hardwoods, in order to curtail logging in the tropics, where virtually all the world's poorest countries are located. Dutch, Belgian, and American proponents of prohibition or tight restrictions on import of tropical hardwood products have relied upon environmental, economic, and moral arguments to justify their positions. Consider the economic arguments used to justify the bans. The premise of the European prohibition on imported tropical hardwoods is that logging is the principal source of deforestation in the tropics. This is not so, as we have seen.
Poverty is by far the principal cause of tropical deforestation.
The use of such measures by rich nations also raises serious ethical questions, quite apart from environmental and economic issues. It is doubtful that such policies could be justified on any ethical grounds that I might be able to support. In any case, well-meaning but heedless measures such as these are generally ineffective because they only restrict legal hardwood exports to rich countries. Smuggling of wood exports has also been common in Kenya, Zaire, Thailand, Philippines, Myamar, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Beware of those who claim to have complete answers.