The world’s largest log exporter, Russia, increased the shipments of logs in the first quarter of 2011 after having declined for four years, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly.Russia has for many years been, by far, the largest exporter of logs in the world. When the country announced a log export tax of 25 percent in 2007 and the intention to increase this tax to 80 percent in 2009, many forest companies in Asia andEurope decided to reduce their reliance on Russian logs. As a result, total log exports from Russia fell from 51 million m3 in 2006 to about 22 million m3 in 2009 and 2010.This downward trend, however, appears to have been broken in 2011. During the first few months, total softwood and hardwood log exports have been up by almost 40 percent compared to the same period last year, as reported in the Wood Resource Quarterly. Much of this increase in shipments has been to China, Finland and Japan.