By Roger Harrabin BBC Environment correspondent

A Malaysian minister has told the BBC he will act to block imports of illegal Indonesian logs, which have been turned into legitimate timber products for export to the UK and other markets.

Malaysia's Primary Industries Minister, Dr Lim King Yaik, said he would urge the Malaysian cabinet to impose a total ban on the imports within two weeks.

Timber products have been sold on to consumers in Britain who have no way of knowing that they are effectively buying stolen goods.

"I will ask our cabinet to agree with me and allow me to impose a ban on exports of logs, legal or illegal... I hope and I think within the next two weeks this announcement should come," Dr Lim told the BBC.

The Indonesian Government is trying to stop the destruction of the rainforests and has totally banned the export of uncut logs.

But some ministers admit that they cannot stop illegal felling because of widespread corruption, and they have asked other nations to help them by banning imports of illegal timber.

Illegal trade

Uncut round logs can be seen arriving by boat at Kuala Linggi, a new harbour built south of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Some of the timber boats from the Indonesian island of Sumatra even sport the Indonesian flag.

Environmentalists claim that the boats often change flags in mid-channel to avoid obvious detection.

Indonesian rainforests

Indonesia has about 10% of the world's remaining tropical forests - second only to Brazil Forest cover fell from 162m ha (400,300,000 acres) in 1950 to 98m ha (242,200,000 acres) in 2000 Nearly 2m ha (4,942,000 acres) are now being destroyed every year Source: World Resources Institute, Global Forest Watch, Forest Watch Indonesia

Developed nations including the UK are trying to stop the illegal trade.

Some 70% of Indonesian timber is thought to be illegal.

Malaysia's own internal record on illegal logging is much better. It has a mandatory one-year jail sentence for anyone caught for illegal logging.

But a Malaysian ban will badly affect some areas of the country which are heavily dependent on illegal log imports for their own timber industry.

Last month a United Nations report, Global Environment Outlook, warned that 15% of the Earth's land cover had been degraded by human activity - nearly a third of that due to deforestation.