Germany's timber detectives

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the outskirts of Hamburg, Dr Gerald Koch is surrounded by wooden objects - chairs, board games, paint brushes - ready for inspection. His team of scientists at the Thünen Institute of Wood Research are known as the timber detectives. They spend their days putting wood samples under the microscope to find out where they've come from, and if they’re suspect.

Berlin based environmental journalist Becca Warner explores the ongoing problem of illegal deforestation.

Why is it proving so hard to tackle, despite tightening EU regulations? What are the consequences for those living in Papua New Guinea where much of this timber originates? And what makes this group of German scientists so important in the battle to protect the world’s forests?

Presenter: Becca Warner Producer: Tom Pooley

A 4 kicks production for the BBC World Service.

Image: Gerald Koch and Becca Warner inspect timber samples (Credit: Tom Pooley)

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Becker-Warner.
0:10.7	I'm an environmental journalist based in Berlin.
0:14.2	Today, I've traveled north to Hamburg with my producer Tom.
0:23.0	Now, this program's all about deforestation, and I don't know about you, but when I think
0:27.9	about saving the world's forests, the city of Hamburg isn't what springs to mind.
0:33.0	But there's someone here I really want to meet, a man known as Germany's timber detective.
0:39.6	So it's through that? There's got to be an entrance around here.
0:45.2	Do you know what I mean? Like, that's a fence. That is a fence. But perhaps appropriately for a
0:49.4	detective, he's pretty hard to find. Let's go down there.
0:59.2	We're walking around the edge of a giant gated compound filled with thousands of tree species from all over the world.
1:03.6	Well, if we keep going, it's got a...
1:05.1	There's got to be a way in somewhere.
1:07.7	Should we just keep going?
1:09.8	Somewhere inside is the man we're trying to find.
1:13.0	Gerald.
1:14.1	Gerald.
1:16.1	Gerald.
1:17.7	Is that a sin?
1:18.6	Is that it?
1:20.5	Oh my God, it's an entrance.
1:22.0	Finally, we find a gate hidden in a hedge.
1:24.8	Morning.
	...

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