After Herald report, feds move to curb trade in timber used by some Florida boat suppliers

The Justice Department has announced the creation of an inter-agency task force to combat transnational and domestic trade in illicit wood, including some used by Florida suppliers of the yacht industry.

The task force, a joint effort with the Agriculture, Interior, Homeland Security and State departments as well as the U.S. Council on Transnational Organized Crime, will investigate complex timber trafficking cases, develop new techniques to enforce U.S. laws surrounding the timber trade and build global partnerships to curb wood smuggling.

The announcement last month came in the wake of a joint investigation by the Miami Herald and Washington D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists highlighting how millions of pounds of teak worth at least $25 million has entered U.S. supply chains — potentially including Florida’s yacht industry — from the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar (formerly Burma), despite U.S. sanctions.

The sanctions have been in place since April 2021 and were imposed against the Myanmar state firm that de facto controls the teak trade for “the production and export of timber on behalf of the ... military regime” that overthrew the civilian government two months prior.

While announcing the task force’s creation, Deputy Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said that the trafficking undermines climate change mitigation efforts and causes widespread loss of biodiversity, while spurring forestry crime.

The task force, called Timber Interdiction Membership Board and Enforcement Resource Working Group, “stemmed from the sense that it would take an improved and coordinated effort to make progress in this fight,” Mizer said.

Earlier this year, U.S. agencies in charge of enforcing trade laws and sanctions all declined comment when the Herald asked about teak imports from Myanmar potentially violating sanctions. None confirmed if any action is being taken against the importers.

Three weeks after the Herald sent questions to the agencies and importers, the State Department had a meeting with “leading companies” in the sector “with special attention to teak coming from Burma,” an agency spokesperson said. The agency declined to provide the Herald a list of attendees or divulge details of what was discussed.

Marigold Norman of World Forest ID, an environmental nonprofit, specifically cited the Herald’s stories at the roundtable where the DOJ launched the TIMBER Working Group. She welcomed the agency’s move toward more stringent enforcement, especially since “high-risk and potentially sanctioned timber-flows continue to enter the United States.”

The Treasury Department, the lead agency that imposes sanctions, monitors violations and refers cases to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, is, however, not part of the task force, a spokesperson told the Herald.

The Herald’s investigation was in partnership with the nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 40 other news outlets across the world. The project, dubbed “Deforestation, Inc.”, highlighted the challenges of enforcing international laws and sanctions when it comes to environmental crimes.

At a time of increased focus on how the demand for natural resources finances conflict and exploitation, the Herald’s findings on the supply chain of teak — which makes its way into furniture, flooring and yacht decks — shed light on a product with a history of corruption and labor abuses and how consumers in Florida may be unwittingly financing a military junta’s repressive acts.

The nonprofit watchdog Environmental Investigations Agency, which has offices in both London and Washington, D.C, also published a report Tuesday May 16 that cites the Herald’s stories and through an analysis of trade data, lists the U.S. businesses that continue to import Myanmar teak. The watchdog had shared the names of these importers with U.S. authorities, including the State Department and enforcement agencies in December last year. They are now making the names public.

The flagged traders include two Florida firms — Sarasota’s Teakdecking Systems and West Palm Beach-based Florida Teak. The two companies, both of which supply teak to yacht makers, imported more than half a million pounds of teak from Myanmar after the sanctions were imposed, the Herald reported in March. They deny any wrongdoing.

Military control of Myanmar’s ports as well as the state firm that controls the timber industry means any sale of teak contributes to the junta’s coffers. Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar say the funds are being used by the military to buy “arms, equipment and fuel needed to wage its campaign of terror against the people.”

“The U.S. government needs to show political will and leverage its resources to enforce sanctions … to stop the trade in illicit timber and profits supporting the criminal, brutal Myanmar regime,” said the watchdog agency’s Faith Doherty.

The junta in Myanmar has so far killed nearly 3,500 people and arrested more than 22,000 civilians, according to human rights groups.