WikiLeaks: only America can save Ussuriiski taiga?

VLADIVOSTOK. December 22. VOSTOK-MEDIA - U.S. Consul General in Vladivostok was seriously concerned about the illegal export of timber in the Far East.
Editorial RIA "Vostok-Media" it became known from official dispatches, which Mr. Thomas Armbruster sent to the U.S. State Department and announced in WikiLeaks.
In his reports, Mr. Armbruster wrote that in Primorye "timber mafia" thrives, the high officials of criminals cover it and periodic protests of local environmentalists do not cause a wide public resonance. According to official data, the difference in the volume of legally exported from Primorye and legally imported into China, the forest is 20 percent. Export of precious Korean cedar, whose buds are a source of food for wild boar, which, in turn, hunted by Red Book tigers and leopards, especially angered Consul General. Extremely negative, Mr. Armbruster estimated the effect of raising customs duties on export of timber, imposed by the Russian government to increase domestic processing. In fact, says consul general, this measure only intensified its illegal export.