Ricardo Coelho
http://cooltheearth.wordpress.com/

Good point about the plastic. That’s obviously not a good thing. But what it good is that the tags are tiny (hopefully they are also made from recycled plastics although I am not hopeful on that point). In terms of the actual tagging process, here’s what Reuters said in their original article:

Officials in remote forests use handheld computers to scan the tags from the moment a tree is felled to its processing and export, and the live data is put onto Helveta’s secure database.

Every tree above a certain size in a plantation is given an individual barcode. When a tree is cut down, another barcode is attached to the stump and more tags are nailed to the processed wood to allow customs officials to audit exports at the docks.

Government officials and companies can track individual trees through the supply chain and view computerised maps of forests on the database. Timber leaving a forest or factory without tags will immediately be viewed as illegal, Newton said.

I agree with you that people on the black market might try to bootleg the tags, but Helveta seems to be on top of their game and even criminals do cost/benefit risk/rewards analysis to see whether making fake tags, hacking into the system and all the other hassle will be worth it. What my article is basically trying to say is that I think a lot of criminal WON’T think it’s worth it and quit. Guess time will tell, but thanks for bringing up your great points.

The plastic part should be obvious on its own, so I won’t say any more. The benefit problem I see here is that shoplifters at stores are controlled by RFID and controlled entrances/exits, not just by the tags on the products themselves. I fail to see how tagging these trees will somehow control whether those trees are poached or not.

If anything it will lead to a new black market in plastic tags and IDs. So this seems like a horrible waste of energy and resources for something that will have little perceived benefit.