Including all forests in Assessments Previous emphasis on problems in tropical rainforests has obscured issues in other forests. When the WWF study looked at all forests, the role of the timber trade immediately grew in significance. Unlike tropical rainforests, where there have been endless arguments about cause and effect in forest loss, in almost all temperate and boreal countries still possessing substantial old-growth forests, the timber trade is now undoubtedly the primary cause of natural forest loss. Previous emphasis on problems in tropical rainforests has obscured issues in other forests. Illegal logging operations Asssessments from the industry tend to draw on official studies of the legal timber trade.
Much illegal timber enters the international trade, with or without the knowledge of importers.
Often, illegality is tacitly accepted by the buyer. Changing global forest conditions Time has also increased the relative impact of the timber trade. Natural forest has now been reduced to fragments in many countries. As the amount of high quality, natural forest declines and is increasingly confined to areas which are inhospitable to human settlement, the proportion of this remnant that is damaged by the timber trade continues to grow. The actions of the national and international timber trade are now critical to the survival of most of the world's biologically richest forest ecosystems and therefore to the majority of species.