ENVIRONMENT: Spain Imports Illegally Logged Wood from Amazon

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Oct 18 2001 (IPS) - Around 50 million dollars worth of tropical wood illegally logged in the Amazon jungle was smuggled into Spain in just one year, Greenpeace Spain reported Thursday.

But Miguel Angel Soto, the head of the Greenpeace Forest Campaign in Spain, stressed that there were legal sources of timber from the Amazon, thus making the purchase of illegal wood unnecessary.

He pointed out that “1.2 million hectares of Amazon forest in Brazil and Bolivia” are legally logged, as certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

The FSC certification and product labelling system is the best existing initiative for improving forestry management and conserving the world’s forests, said Soto in Madrid, where he presented a report on the trafficking of Amazon wood.

“There are legal alternatives to the purchase of Amazon wood that has been obtained through illegal practices and corruption,” underlined the activist, who called on “Spain’s business sector to modify its modus operandi and begin to do business with eco- certified wood.”

The non-governmental FSC was founded in 1993 by representatives of environmental organisations, the timber industry, the forestry profession, indigenous peoples’ groups, community forestry associations and forest product certification organisations from 25 countries.

The FSC supports environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.

A new report by the World Bank, “From Natural Resources to the Knowledge Economy – Trade and Job Quality”, presented Thursday in Montevideo at the Bank-sponsored Annual Conference on Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, states that natural resources are “a proven recipe” for development in the region.

However, the report also warns of the slump in the prices of primary products and the irrational – and often illegal – exploitation of natural wealth.

For its part, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Wednesday that illegal logging practices were based on concessions obtained by corrupting public officials, or on the falsification of land titles or licences.

Other illegal practices by companies working in countries that export timber are logging without permission or outside the authorised areas, and cutting a greater number of trees, or larger or smaller trees, than is permitted.

Greenpeace took special aim Thursday at the cross-border trafficking of wood, as well as fraudulent declarations of exports or logging activity.

The organisation pointed out that illegal timber was frequently exported to consumer countries with fraudulent labels concealing its true origin.

According to the Washington-based environmentalist organisation Friends of the Earth, 300,000 cubic metres of illegally logged wood entered Spain in 1999, with an import value of 50 million dollars – and that total was just five percent of the tropical wood trafficked into the European Union that year.

The 300,000 cubic metres – which represented approximately 30 percent of Spain’s annual imports of wood from tropical regions – meant this European nation was responsible for the illegal exploitation of 60,000 hectares of tropical forest, said Soto.

“An important part of that illegal exploitation of forests occurs in Brazil, from which Spain is importing growing quantities of tropical timber, and where clandestine logging accounts for 80 to 85 percent of logging activity,” he added.

Brazil’s Environment Ministry acknowledges that the destruction of the Amazon jungle has continued unchecked, and reported that deforestation had increased 15 percent between August 1999 and August 2000.

According to Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE), which monitors the Amazon jungle region through satellite imagery, 19,836 square kilometres were deforested in 2000, compared to 17,259 square kilometres in 1999.

The Greenpeace report stated that five companies from Santarem, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Para, had been accused of engaging in illegal practices.

The companies have been accused of purchasing timber from ghost companies, continuing their logging activity despite the cancellation of forest management plans by authorities, and logging on public land. The five firms in question are Cemex, Curuatinga, Estância Alecrim, Madesa and Rancho da Cabocla, all of which export timber to Spain.

Greenpeace said the wood sold by those five companies – which accounted for 72 percent of Santarem’s timber exports last year – was purchased by importers, industries and shops throughout Spain. “Illegal wood, based on corruption and illegal practices, is sold with impunity, without anyone demanding guarantees for the origin of the products,” said Soto.

“Companies that buy tropical wood from the Amazon must accept a code of ethics to put an end to the sector’s complicity with corruption and illegal activities in the Amazon region,” the activist argued.

“Spanish companies, as well as firms in other European countries, must modify their purchasing policies and import FSC eco-certified wood, which is increasingly demanded by Spanish consumers, and which ensures environmentally sustainable development in producer nations,” he concluded.

ENVIRONMENT: Spain Imports Illegally Logged Wood from Amazon

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Oct 18 2001 (IPS) - Around 50 million dollars worth of tropical wood illegally logged in the Amazon jungle was smuggled into Spain in just one year, Greenpeace Spain reported Thursday.
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