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12/31/2007: "Timber thieves show how depleted our resources are"

With the overseas demand for North American hardwoods growing, it's become a more costly issue for private landowners, whose tree farms and woodlands make up 55 percent of U.S. timber production, forestry officials say. The rest comes from lands owned by the state and federal governments, the logging industry and other investors.

Because timber theft often goes unreported or unprosecuted, few track cases nationwide. However, a 2003 Virginia Tech University study estimated that landowners lose in excess of $4 million to timber thieves each year in the otherwise poor but hardwood-rich Appalachian states.

Also, domestic prices for hardwoods, such as cherry, walnut and white oak, have increased about 10 percent over the past decade, according to analysts, but the demand overseas, especially in China and southeast Asia, has increased substantially over the past few years.

[ When everything's for sale, you use it all up and then go looking for more like a drug addict. Are you sure capitalism is a great system? ]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22441335/