AMAZON-ENVIRONMENT: U.S. Proposes Action to Reduce Mahogany Trade

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 1997 (IPS) - In a major victory for environmentalists, the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton has said it will push for international protection of the rapidly diminishing stands of big-leaf mahogany trees in the Amazon region.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the U.S. Interior Department has announced that it will ask the June meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Harare, Zimbabwe, to list the big-leaf mahogany as a species which could become extinct if trade in it is not controlled.

If the proposal is adopted, countries may continue to permit the export of mahogany so long as trade is not found to be detrimental to the tree’s survival in the wild or its role in its natural habitat. To export it legally, traders would be required to obtain special permits.

“This could be the single most important measure to protect the world’s rainforests of the decade,” said Randall Hayes, director of the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network (RAN).

Big-leaf mahogany is one of the world’s most important and valuable tropical timbers. Its virtual disappearance due to overlogging in Southeast Asia has increased its value and drawn Asian and other forest firms to the Amazon Basin.

“Mahogany is now the most expensive lumber from the Amazon in the world market,” said Steve Schwartzman of the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) here. A cubic metre of the wood can sell for one thousand dollars, according to observers in the trade.

Bolivia, which is the world’s second largest exporter of bigleaf mahogany, will co-sponsor the U.S. effort at CITES, the Fish and Wildlife Service said. In a statement released here, Alexandra Sanchez de Lozada, Bolivia’s Director of the National Authority for the Conservation of Biological Diversity, said that if current high levels of logging of mahogany continue to go unchecked, the sustainability of the species would be affected.

“From our studies in Bolivia, we can affirm that the populations are declining, and that this is producing genetic erosion,” she said.

Rainforest activists said the support of La Paz, as a major producer, will strengthen the U.S. initiative in Harare. But they are worried about Brazil’s position.

Bolivia along with Brazil, the world’s biggest exporter, both strongly opposed a similar Dutch effort to have mahogany listed for CITES protection in 1994. At that meeting, supporters of the measure, including the United States, fell just short of the two- thirds majority required to amend the CITES listings.

Since then, and amid evidence that the mahogany was being logged at an increasing rate, Brazil itself has taken some measures to protect the trees.

In August, the government of Brazilian President Fernando Enrique Cardoso imposed a two-year moratorium on the issuance of new logging concessions for mahogany and ordered a review of existing permits. The review found that more than 50 percent of those authorisations were irregular.

Activists are hoping that such action indicates Brasilia’s willingness to re-evaluate its position on a CITES listing before the Harare meeting. “The only thing that could possibly stop this initiative is if Brazil lobbies strongly against it,” said Schwartzman.

But indications here are not positive. “We are opposing it,” said one official who works on mahogany issues at the Brazilian embassy here. She declined to give her name or the reasons for Brasilia’s position.

In 1993, Brazil exported nearly 200,000 cubic metres of mahogany planks, about 80 percent of which went to the United States and Britain. Nearly two-thirds of mahogany exported from Latin America ends up in the United States where it is made into luxury goods as furniture, picture frames, caskets, and even toilet seats, according to Paul Martin of EarthCulture, a North Carolina-based group.

RAN and some other groups have campaigned over the past year in favour of an outright ban on imports of mahogany to the United States.

Failing that, activists have campaigned hard for a CITES listing for the big-leaf mahogany.

Two other mahogany species have already been listed with CITES: the Pacific Coast mahogany which was listed in 1973 and the Caribbean mahogany in 1992.

The U.S. decision to seek a CITES listing for the big-leaf mahogany follows a major lobbying campaign by non-governmental groups, like RAN and EDF. Last month, 137 groups, including the Audubon Society, Friends of the Earth USA, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defence Council, and the Sierra Club, sent a letter to Vice-President Al Gore and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit, appealing for their personal involvement in the matter.

“If (the United States) shows leadership on this issue, the proposal has an extremely high probability of success at the next Conference of the Parties to CITES,” they argued.

Gore has been a target since 1992 when, as a senator and vice- presidential candidate, he lobbied for CITES protection. After putting forward a similar initiative with Costa Rica in that year, the administration of President George Bush withdrew the proposal, apparently as a result of industry pressure.

Mahogany logging is considered a leading cause of rainforest clearance, according to Schwartzman and other observers. To get the mahogany to market, roads must be built in the jungle. After the logging is finished, cattle ranchers use the roads to claim new parts of the Amazon.