Dec. 13, 2007 A nonprofit watchdog group has released the findings of an undercover investigation that suggests retail giant Wal-Mart is selling wood products made from illegally logged timber. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reports that Wal-Mart's wood-sourcing policy "prizes low-price above all," with dire consequences for Russia's Siberian forests.

Eighty-four percent of Wal-Mart's wood products come from China, whose manufacturing sector relies on large quantities of high-risk timber, according to the report.

"Everybody in Russia from President Vladimir Putin down to local officials has openly acknowledged that much of the wood flowing from Russia to China is illegal," says Alexander von Bismarck, EIA's executive director. "But Chinese manufacturers told EIA investigators again and again that Wal-Mart doesn't ask where the wood comes from, only if it's cheap disputing Wal-Mart's claims that it avoids sourcing illegally logged wood."

EIA says its undercover team traveled to the Chinese factories, where they found evidence of 200,000 baby cribs made from high-risk Russian wood for Wal-Mart. Investigators then tracked the wood supply back to the Russian forest and found the Russian company logging in tiger habitat and making illegal cash payments to Russian police to move their timber, according to EIA.

"EIA is calling on Wal-Mart to stand by its CEO's goal to sell products that sustain our natural resources and the environment, and to remove illegally sourced wood from its supply chain," says von Bismarck.

Download EIA's report here (PDF).

Read Wal-Mart's sustainable forest and paper sourcing policy here.