Writers: Washington has largely ignored illegal logging’s role in its fight against transnational criminal organizations

Illegal logging is the third most lucrative transnational crime, after counterfeiting and narcotics trafficking, authors say.

Environmental crime constitutes a growing economic and national security threat to the U.S. and countries around the world, they say.

Authors: 15 to 30 percent of the global timber trade is illegal.

They say the blueprint for fighting illegal logging already exists: better cooperation among governments.

Home Depot purchased from an importer more than 1.2 million doors that were manufactured with illegally sourced wood from Equatorial Guinea and misidentified as coming from the Republic of the Congo .

The EU banned Russian and Belarusian wood products so that Moscow could not underwrite its war effort with funds from the international logging trade.

Illegal logging is often intertwined with international conflict.

China is the largest global exporter of timber products.

China is “probably the world’s largest importer of illegal timber,” according to the Environmental Investigation Agency .

The U.S. and many other source and destination countries for illegal timber do not consider illegal logging and environmental crime priorities.