As a professor at Texas Tech, Dr. Chuck Cannon has been, among other things, working to create a system of DNA fingerprinting for tropical trees to undercut the global illegal logging trade.
“If we just enforced existing laws and management policies, things would be pretty good, but unfortunately, that is where things fall apart in many tropical countries,” Cannon, who has spent the bulk of his long career in Southeast Asia, told Mongabay.com in a recent interview.
In both the EU and the U.S., international trade laws have been passed that require the legality of imported natural resources, such as timber. Currently, there is a demand for a system to quickly and cheaply verify the legality of these resources. The idea behind DNA fingerprinting is that regulators could take DNA samples from imported wood to verify that the products are the correct species and are coming from legal localities. Though many challenges remain before such a system could be implemented, Cannon thinks it has the potential to work.
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“The trends around the world can’t be ignored,” Cannon told Mongabay.com, “continued forest conversion, continued illegal logging, increased domestic and global consumption, and generally weak governance. The time for a revolution in conservation science really is now. Unfortunately, a magic bullet doesn’t exist that can solve all of the problems. The most successful programs are local, with a long-term personal commitment, and require a lot of unglamorous hard work.”
Read the full, original story: DNA fingerprinting for forest conservation
