US-Malaysian Free Trade Pact Will Fuel Illegal Deforestation - Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR - A free-trade pact between the United States and Malaysia could encourage more illegal logging and accelerate rainforest destruction in Southeast Asia, an international environmental group said on Thursday.

The Environmental Investigation Agency said Malaysian timber exports included wood cut illegally from the vast but threatened rainforests of neighbouring Indonesia and warned that US demand for these exports could surge under a free-trade arrangement. "With no current means of preventing illegally sourced wood products from entering our markets, it is irresponsible for the US to continue to push for free trade with nations that play prominent roles in the illegal timber trade," said the report, written by the group's US-based activists. "This policy will only continue to destroy forests and livelihoods abroad while harming the timber industry at home."

Malaysia, which is Washington's 10th-largest trading partner, is in talks to negotiate a free-trade pact with the United States by year-end. It exported around 3.7 million cubic metres of sawn timber last year, up 16 percent from 2004, government data show. The Environmental Investigation Agency, which says its mission is to probe and expose environmental crime, and other green groups have said that more than a third of Malaysian timber exports come from illegal logs, mostly from Indonesia. The report said the United States had so far failed in its trade dealings in the region to insist on proper safeguards against illegally logged timber and called for any new free-trade deals to include tougher bilateral enforcement of the illegal trade.

US and Malaysian officials have barely mentioned environmental issues in their public comments on the talks, which began in Malaysia on Monday.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36850/story.htm

Nope, not farm, rather plant palm oil groves for biodiesel. George Monbiot has an excellent article on this.