Greenpeace Amazonia campainger Paulo Adario surrounded by illegal mahogany logs in the state of Para, Brazil.
The wood is mahogany, but it's also known as "green gold". For
good reason. One log earns an astonishing US$ 130,000 by the time
it's transformed into the solid mahogany dining tables sold at
high-class stores such as Harrods of London.
With stakes so high, it's no surprise current measures to halt
the illegal mahogany trade are failing. Despite Brazil's moratorium
on the harvest and export of mahogany since last year, prospectors
still fly hundreds of kilometres looking for isolated mahogany
trees, then bulldoze illegal access roads through pristine
rainforest. The over-exploited wood continues to flow into elite
showrooms.
Mahogany logging is the thin edge of the wedge driving massive
forest destruction throughout the heart of the Amazon.
But there are solutions. The major players in the illegal
mahogany racket are well-known and relatively few. All that's
lacking is international resolve to stop them.
A tale of two kings...
Just two mahogany kingpins control more than 80 percent of
mahogany exports from Pará state, Brazil's largest mahogany
producing region. They are behind the mahogany mafia which
organises the illegal exploitation and trade in "green gold".
The mightiest, Moisés Carvalho Pereira, is said to make an
astonishing US$ 1 million per day during the mahogany logging
season. He is said to be aided by an even more powerful friend; the
Brazilian senate's former president has been linked to the illegal
mahogany trade through Moisés.
When Moisés buys logs from Kayapó Indian lands, which is
illegal, the Indians are paid just US$ 30 per cubic metre. The
mahogany is sold on the international market for more than 45 times
that amount. Moisés uses so-called legal paperwork to cover up and
launder the illegal mahogany. Local corruption and lax controls
make this deception easier.
Kingpin Osmar Alves Ferreira also has a long history of
involvement in illegal mahogany coming from Indian lands. In 2001
Greenpeace exposed how Ferreira opened up an illegal road into the
Terra do Meio (the Middle Lands), a relatively undisturbed region
sheltering jaguars, alligators, spider monkeys and other animals
threatened with extinction. The road transports mahogany to a
sawmill run by a frontman for Ferreira, where Greenpeace found
illegally logged mahogany.
Five nations...
So where does all this illegal mahogany go? Just five countries
- the US, Dominican Republic, UK, the Netherlands and Germany -
import virtually all the Brazilian mahogany exported from Pará
state.
In the US, which is the world's largest mahogany import market,
about half of the mahogany comes though exporters connected to the
two mahogany kings.
And four importers
Buyers should shun suppliers linked to illegal operations. But
they don't. And just four companies - DLH Nordisk, Aljoma Lumber, J
Gibson McIlvain Co Ltd and Intercontinental Hardwoods Inc - account
for more than 85 percent of the mahogany trade linked to the two
mahogany kings.
DLH is particularly notorious. In 2001, it bought mahogany from
all five export companies linked to the two mahogany kings. DLH has
also been linked to other forest crimes in central and west Africa,
including buying from companies linked with arms trafficking in
Liberia. The company controls half the international Brazilian
mahogany market, and supplies the US, UK, the Netherlands and
Germany.
And whether they know it or not, retailers are also aiding and
abetting in this high level crime. They include high-class outlets
like the US's Ethan Allen, Ralph Lauren and Harrods in the UK.
Hostages to deception and murder
Logging is illegal on Brazil's Indian lands, home to the
nation's largest remaining mahogany reserves. Yet by 1992 mahogany
logging penetrated all 15 Indian lands in Pará state.
Loggers' modus operandi is to fell the trees, then negotiate a
price with the Indians.
Not surprisingly, a fair and legal contract between Indians and
loggers has never been known. Once drawn into deal making, Indians
like the Kayapó have found themselves in debt bondage to sawmills,
forced to pay their debts with more mahogany logging.
Unknown numbers of Indians have been murdered, a result of often
violent conflicts that flare up as they try to protect their land
from loggers.
A step forward
Although the picture of illegal mahogany logging in the
Brazilian Amazon is bleak, there is good news. Brazil extended the
moratorium on the exploitation, transport and commercialisation of
mahogany until February 2003. But this temporary measure is not
enough. Leading mahogany experts believe that mahogany will be
commercially extinct in the wild within the next two years if
current trends continue.
If international trade in mahogany is not going to lead the
species to commercial extinction, a rescue package to manage
mahogany in a sustainable way and effective international measures
to control the market are urgently needed. This kind of protection
is possible through CITES (the Convention on the International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)
Next month, CITES member countries will meet in Santiago, Chile
and mahogany is high on the agenda. Nicaragua has submitted a
proposal, on behalf of all Central America countries, to list
mahogany on Appendix II of the convention. This listing would
require guarantees of legal origin and proper harvest management of
the species that does not threaten its survival. This would be the
first step from words and good intentions towards concrete action
to protect mahogany and the rainforests of Central and South
America.
Yet the pressure from the industry on governments is intense.
The mahogany trade is big business. The mahogany kings in Brazil
stand to lose a lot of their illegal and destructive business if
the CITES proposal is approved.
You can help put pressure on the Brazilian government to support
the listing of Mahogany on CITES Appendix II and show the
international community that the exploitation and marketing of
"green gold" of the rainforest can happen without plundering the
future of the Amazon or the millions of people that depend on
it.
Take action!
Send a fax to President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso asking him to support the listing of mahogany, but also
to take a leading role in guaranteeing the proposal is
approved.
Read More
Greenpeace's
Partners in Mahogany Crime report