Researchers at Wageningen
University are using dna testing to help identify tropical hardwood which has
been cut down illegally.
Around 30 to 90% of all tropical hardwood is logged
illegally, and checks on the origin of wood, however thorough, are not
particularly effective because documentation may be fraudulent, the universitysays.
The new method identifies the wood’s dna and is precise enough to
differentiate between trees cut down in places that are practically next door
to each other. This is important because position can mark the difference
between legal and illegally logged wood.
‘The fact that we can accurately
differentiate the origin of timber down to a 14 km radius is new,’ says lead
author Mart Vlam of the Forest Ecology and Forest Management Research Group at
Wageningen University. ‘Previous studies only managed to do that on a much less
refined scale.’
The research involved collecting several hundred timber samples
in five timber concessions in Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville together with two
logging companies. These samples were used to create a reference-database.
‘We
ran a blind test on some of the samples,’ says Vlam. ‘I had 12 pieces of timber
of which I knew the origin but the genetic specialists at Wageningen
Environmental Research didn’t. I gave them the samples and asked them to
identify which concessions they came from. They got it right 92% of the time –
that’s a great score.’
This study demonstrates that genetic analysis has great
potential for use in forensic testing of tropical hardwood.
‘But a lot needs to
be done before these tests can be used as evidence in court,’says lead
researcher Pieter Zuidema. ‘We need to collect timber samples from a much
larger area and our analyses and labs will have to meet strict criteria. We
can’t do that on our own, so we are collaborating in a worldwide network of
researchers, labs and authorities.’
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