A Canadian TV documentary called “Liquidating the Forests” investigates illegal lumber stolen in Russia, shipped to China and sold in Canada. The 18-minute feature argues that Lumber Liquidators may be implicit in the illegal logging taking place in Russian’s far-east forests.
A Canadian TV documentary called “Liquidating the Forests” investigates illegal lumber stolen in Russia, shipped to China and sold in Canada. The 18-minute feature argues that Lumber Liquidators may be implicit in the illegal logging taking place in Russian’s far-east forests.
The documentary is one in a series of damning allegations made against the U.S.-based wood floor retailer in the past year. The documentary’s main points echo reports released by the Environmental Investigative Agency and Greenpeace. The company currently faces a number of lawsuits and is under investigation by a handful of federal agencies.
“Liquidating the Forests,” the title of the documentary produced by Canadian investigative television program 16x9, begins with footage shot undercover by the Sascha Von Bismarck, head of the EIA, released at the end of a three-year investigation in Siberia that shows an illegal logger being chased through a forest. Gunshots can be heard in the distance.
“We followed the trail to the biggest companies in the U.S. that were getting most of that wood,” Bismarck told 16x9. “Unfortunately that just blazed a trail that led predominately to Lumber Liquidators.”
Xingjia, a company accused of illegally sourcing its wood from the Russian Far East, sent more than $5.7 million worth of wood to the port of Vancouver. Some of that wood is eventually sold in North America and “much of it by Lumber Liquidators,” the head of the EIA told 16x9.
Lumber Liquidators released a lengthy statement denying the claims inferred by the documentary. The statement decried the EIA report for containing “fundamental inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims.” It also denied that it sells wood products in Canada and the U.S. that do not meet the emission standards for formaldehyde.
Wood industry veteran Don Finkell was interviewed for the documentary. He discussed the supply chain as it relates to China.
“Chinese companies that would make this product for me would source it from this warehouse and I would ask them, ‘How do you know it’s legal, where did it come from?’ They would tell me: ‘We don’t know; we can’t find that out,’” Finkell told 16x9.
The full documentary can be viewed online here: GlobalNews.