Thieves cut down 500-year-old trees

They were captured in a police raid in Taiping Mountain, Yilan and are facing possible jail terms.

On Sept. 28, the group of twelve, led by Chang D-ji, was tracked down by the police and arrested for violating the Forest Law. According to authorities, these illegal loggers have cut down 31 Taiwan Red Cypresses worth over tens of million of Taiwan dollars, to obtain around 100 pieces of burls. The 100 burls have a total market value of NT$2.8 million.

The burl is the woody bulb between the tree trunk and the root. It has a high price tag on the lucrative art crafts material market.

To steal the burls, the group traveled to the remote mountain areas of Yilan, Hsinchu, and Taoyuan which required 10-hour roundtrip by foot, according to Chou Jen-ping of Luodung Forest District Office. For burls growing on the unreachable parts of the tree, the looters cut down the entire tree and used chainsaws to cut off the burls. The 31 trees that were cut down were the precious Taiwan Red Cypresses, some over five-centuries old.

The looters left the trunks, which are potentially worth tens of millions of Taiwan dollars, intact because they could not move the huge pieces of wood.

In an interview with Chou, he stated this is the fourth time that the police have apprehended the group in action since June. During the previous arrests, the police only caught two to three members of the group.

This time they sent out around 500 police and successfully caught the entire group. According to him, the plunders stole the burls for money to spend for illegal uses such as purchasing drugs.

“The law does not intimate the thieves,” reported Chou. He stated Chang and his fellow thieves violated Forest Law #52, which assigns jail time from six months to five years for violators. Since illegal logging is considered a petty crime, the police can not detain the suspect and the group continued to steal each time after being released.

Chou said they will propose to the judge and prosecutors to issue a more severe penalty because this is a repeat offence by the group.

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