Forests in the Amazon are increasingly threatened by illegal and unsustainable logging. Each year the Amazon’s forests are reduced by as much as 27,000 km2—roughly the size of Massachusetts. As the world’s top importer of forest products, the United States contributes significantly to this deforestation and forest degradation through increased market demand for high value commercial species, including mahogany and Spanish cedar.

Forests in the Amur-Heilong watershed, particularly those in the Russian Far East, are under tremendous pressure to supply timber to meet growing global demand for wood products. Increasing demand for this timber over the last two decades has fueled illegal and unsustainable logging in some of the Amur’s most valuable and threatened forests.