Globally, illegal logging poses a significant threat. This results in environmental damage as well as lost profits for legitimate wood product producers and taxes for governments. A global value of $30 to $100 billion is estimated to be associated with illegal logging and processing. Field identification of wood species is fundamental to combating species fraud and misrepresentation in global wood trade. Using computer vision wood identification (CVWID) systems, wood can be identified without the need for time-consuming and costly offsite visual inspections by trained wood anatomists. While CVWID research has received significant attention, most studies have not considered the generalization capabilities of the models by testing them on a field sample, and only report overall accuracy without considering misclassifications. The aim of this dissertation is to advance the design and development of CVWID systems by addressing three objectives: 1) to develop functional, field-deployable CVWID models for Peruvian and North American hardwoods, 2) test the ability of CVWID to solve increasingly challenging problems (e.g., larger class sizes, lower anatomical diversity, and spatial heterogeneity in the context of porosity), and 3) to evaluate the generalization capabilities by testing models on independent specimens not included in training and analyzing misclassifications. This research features four main sections: 1) an introduction summarizing each chapter, 2) a chapter (Chapter 2) developing a 24-class model for Peruvian hardwoods and testing its generalization capabilities with independent specimens not used in training, 3) a chapter (Chapter 3) on the design and implementation of a continental scale 22-class model for North American diffuse-porous hardwoods using wood anatomy-driven model performance evaluation, and 3) a chapter (Chapter 4) on the development of a 17-class models for North American ring-porous hardwoods, in particular examining the model's effectiveness in dealing with the greater spatial heterogeneity of ring-porous hardwoods.

Export-oriented illegal logging has been recognized as a major global problem in environmental, social, and economic terms. It has been argued that export-oriented illegal logging does not benefit the community or government that should be benefited by its own natural resources. The emergence of policy initiatives targeting illegal logging could have the potential to increase the competitiveness of legally sourced timber products by removing illegal products from the market of the consuming country. The US Lacey Act amendments of 2008 set a precedent for the global trade in plants and plant products by putting in place incentives for US wood products importing companies to demand legally sourced and traded wood. This research addresses how the 2008 Lacey Act amendments have impacted the US wood industry, and how those affected by the amendments view the future of environmental policy and global illegal logging as impacted by the amendments. The majority of respondents in this study agree that steps should be taken to decrease global illegal logging, but some aren't convinced that the Lacey Act amendments will ultimately have the desired effect. According to this research, most US wood importers have made small changes to their operational practices. This study indicates the possibility that though US wood importers feel the responsibility to ensure their companies are compliant with legislation, they are not sure the 2008 Lacey Act amendments will ultimately hinder global illegal logging. Included in this study are also suggestions from US wood importers regarding policy implementation. These suggestions include an increase in communication between the US government and US wood products companies, an increase in future research, and the possibility of focusing the Lacey Act on certain high-risk regions. / Graduation date: 2012

La thèse a pour objectif de participer à l’étude de l’Union européenne et à celle des relations internationales en ciblant spécifiquement la régulation du secteur forêt-bois-papier. La question de fond est de savoir comment la gestion des forêts est construite en problème public européen. Prenant acte d’un agenda mondial qui donne à voir un problème forestier globalisé et des processus de gouvernance opposant multilatéralisme et acteurs transnationaux, la thèse propose de porter la focale sur les acteurs européens qui définissent et politisent les enjeux forestiers selon leur propre relation à la ressource. Pour ce faire, le travail de recherche s’appuie sur une hypothèse centrale selon laquelle l’institutionnalisation des territoires forestiers constitue une ressource d’action publique pour les acteurs face à la régulation politique multiscalaire. Afin de mettre en avant la capacité des acteurs européens à circuler parmi les échelles de régulation pour participer à la construction des politiques publiques sectorielles, la thèse s’appuie sur un cadre théorique empruntant aux Théories des relations internationales et à l’Analyse des politiques publiques. Forte d’une telle grille d’analyse sociologisée, une seconde partie s’articule autour de trois études de cas de politiques européennes de la forêt (la protection des forêts contre les feux, la valorisation énergétique de la biomasse forestière et la lutte contre le commerce international de bois illégal). Au total, elles montrent toutes trois la capacité des acteurs locaux à territorialiser des enjeux globalisés de gestion d’une ressource naturelle. / This work aims at contributing to the study of the European Union and International Relations. Through analyzing the regulation of forest-based industries and the globalization of forest issues, the aim is to identify how both have been constructed as a European public problem. This is implemented around a central hypothesis: forest territories are institutionalized by actors who participate in its regulation. In order to ascertain the ability of actors to move between scales of regulation, the thesis is grounded on theoretical tools derived from the Theories of international relations and Public policy analysis. After a first part dedicated to defining this approach, a second is presents three case studies of European public policy (forest protection against fire, t renewable energy and actions to counter the trade of illegal wood). In sum, each one shows the ability of actors to territorialize a globalized forest issue.

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This master thesis deals with the problem of audio-classification of the chainsaw logging sound in natural environment using mainly convolutional neural networks. First, a theory of grafical representation of audio signal is discussed. Following part is devoted to the machine learning area. In third chapter, some of present works dealing with this problematics are given. Within the practical part, used dataset and tested neural networks are presented. Final resultes are compared by achieved accuracy and by ROC curves. The robustness of the presented solutions was tested by proposed detection program and evaluated using objective criteria.

En el Perú, actividades ilícitas como la tala ilegal con fines comerciales, suponen una sustancial problemática para el progreso sostenible de la industria forestal maderera. Dicha situación impacta tanto en el mercado nacional como en el internacional. Si bien, en la última década el Perú ha potencializado su oferta exportable en cuanto a los productos de segunda transformación, como son los productos semielaborados de madera, la tala ilegal dificulta el posicionamiento internacional. De manera específica, EE.UU. corresponde a uno de los primordiales países de destino para tales productos y es a partir del año 2009 que el intercambio comercial se realiza en el marco del Acuerdo de Promoción Comercial existente entre ambas naciones. En tal sentido, el objetivo principal del presente estudio consite en analizar si la disminución de participación en el mercado de EE.UU., la afectación de las relaciones comerciales Perú - EE.UU., el aumento de la rigurosidad de la gestión forestal y la disminución de la disponibilidad de los recursos forestales son los principales efectos de la tala ilegal en las exportaciones de productos semielaborados de madera peruana al mercado de EE.UU. durante el periodo del 2013 al 2019 en el marco del APC Perú - EE.UU. Para el desarrollo, se empleó un enfoque cualitativo además de un diseño de teoría fundamentada. En ese sentido, se efectuaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a quince expertos con una amplia trayectoria en el sector forestal maderero peruano. Estas entrevistas, fueron codificadas y analizadas en el programa Atlas Ti, para finalmente establecer las conclusiones y recomendaciones de la investigación. / In Peru, illicit activities such as illegal logging for commercial purposes pose a substantial problem for the sustainable progress of the timber forest industry. This situation impacts both the national and international markets. Although, in the last decade, Peru has strengthened its exportable supply in terms of second-transformation products, such as semi-finished wood products, illegal logging makes it difficult to achieve international positioning. Specifically, the US corresponds to one of the main destination countries for such products and it is from 2009 that the commercial exchange is carried out within the framework of the Trade Promotion Agreement existing between both nations. In this regard, the main objective of this study is to analyze whether the decrease in participation in the US market, the impact on trade relations between Peru and the US, the increase in the rigor of forest management and the decrease in the availability of forest resources are the main effects of illegal logging on exports of semi-finished Peruvian wood products to the US market during the period from 2013 to 2019 within the framework of the Peru - US APC. For development, a qualitative approach was used in addition to a grounded theory design. In this sense, semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifteen experts with extensive experience in the Peruvian timber forest sector. These interviews were coded and analyzed in the Atlas Ti program, to finally establish the conclusions and recommendations of the investigation. / Tesis