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China's spectacular economic growth over the last decade is having a dramatic impact throughout the world. It has become a leading nation in terms of its demand for forest products, and its influence is being felt as far afield as Cameroon and Cambodia, Indonesia and the United States. Burgeoning domestic consumption, in a nation with very limited per capita forest resources, has fueled the rapid rise in China's imports of forest products. Growing demand in the US, Europe and elsewhere for low-cost wood products manufactured in China has also contributed to the country's ever-increasing demand for foreign timber. China has rapidly become the wood workshop of the world, capturing almost a third of the global trade in furniture over the last eight years. In many supplier countries, particularly those with weak governance records, the increasing trade flows into China are associated with unsustainable harvesting, illegal logging and the abuse of forest communities' rights. However, China's growing demand also creates the possibility that millions of low-income forest producers can benefit from this new market. Trees and forests are the primary asset of millions of the world's poorest people and when governments enable the poor to use them wisely, they can be an important instrument of rural development. China is now in the world's spotlight, with governments, industry and development agencies eager to learn more about the global impact the country is having on forests and forest industries. Until recently, they have been hampered by a scarcity of reliable information and a lack of rigorous, publicly accessible analysis of macro-level trends …