BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) – China is deliberately mislabeling a threatened hardwood and using forged trade documents to illegally import it from Southeast Asia to supply its booming furniture industry, an environmental group said Tuesday.

Greenpeace said in a report that Chinese importers were evading an Indonesian ban on the hardwood known as merbau by labeling it as sawn timber. Importers also used forged documents which claimed the logs came from Malaysia, despite the fact that much of the merbau has already been logged out of that country.

China imported thousands of cubic yards of illegal tropical hardwood from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea last year, Greenpeace said.

“This is a highly prized species for luxury goods and the market demand in China as well as in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific is driving merbau to extinction,” said Tamara Stark, Greenpeace China’s Forests Campaign Coordinator.

She said at the current legally approved rates of logging, merbau will disappear from the wild within 35 years. With the illegal trade, it will likely happen sooner than that, she added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said the government “requests its enterprises to engage in logging and processing activities in accordance with the laws of other countries.”

“We have serious procedures for the import of timber,” Mr. Liu said, adding Chinese authorities supervise such imports and crack down on illegal activities.

China has the second-largest wood products manufacturing sector in the world, and is the largest trader in tropical timber. One of every two tropical logs traded globally is now destined for China, and China is the world’s largest market for merbau, Greenpeace said.

Most of the timber products made in China are destined for markets in America, Europe, Japan and Australia, with companies often unable to prove the legality of the timber, the group said.

Greenpeace did not name any foreign companies that are buying the wood products.

Greenpeace called on the governments of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to immediately propose merbau be listed on the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species to better control its trade. It also called on the U.S. and European countries to ban the import of illegal timber.

Manufacturers, it said, should also adopt systems for tracking merbau and other species to ensure the legality of the trade and sustainability of supply. They should also purchase timber that has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

“If the manufacturing sector here continues to rely on endangered species or wood that is illegal, large portions of the industry may collapse in the near future,” said Liu Bing, a Greenpeace Forests Campaigner in China.

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On the Net:

Greenpeace China: http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/