Plunder for profit
The UK and Brazilian mahogany trade
Richard Hering
& Stuart Tanner
Acknowledgements
This report is dedicated to all those in Brazil who are fighting this trade and
other despoliation of the Amazon, and who often in so doing put their lives at
risk.
Special thanks to the following individuals and organisations:
in Brazil:
Diego Pelizzari, Tarcisio Feitosa da Silva; Sr. Afonso, Rebecca Spires, CIMI;
Regina Célia Fonseca da Silva; Juliana Santilli; Marcio Santilli; Nilde Barros;
Julio Gaiger; Dom Erwin Krautler; Wellington Figueiredo Gomes, FUNAI;
Isabelle Giannini, Sergio Leitão, Instituto Socio-Ambiental; Adalberto
Verissimo, IMAZON; Johan Zweede, Roberto Smeraldi, Friends of the Earth
International Amazonia Programme.
in the UK:
Philippa Yeeles, Angie Zelter; Sarah Tyack, Friends of the Earth; the
Greenhouse Norwich.
Design:Dina Koulama, Steve Russell
2
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Plates
Maps
Introduction
Where mahogany comes from
Why it is illegal to extract from Indian reserves
Mahogany logging and the Indians
Legal victories against loggers
“For the English to see” — the response of the timber trade
The faking of legality
1995–96 — the plundering of Indian reserves continues
The “laundering” of mahogany for the export market
— the “Dispatches” case
How mahogany logging destroys the environment
The Brazilian Government’s response
“Not one hectare of sustainably managed forest....”
— the failure of mahogany management
Theft and the survival threat
— the case of the Arara Indians
Fraud and dependency
— the case of the Xikrim do Cateté Indians
Towards sustainability?
— the management project of the Xikrim do Cateté
Fighting the loggers — Indian direct action
Amazonians against illegal logging
The international campaign
Arguments with the timber trade
What you can do
Notes
Table
5
8
14
16
17
19
22
24
26
32
35
41
42
45
49
51
53
54
57
59
63
64
68
3
4
1 Laranjal village of the Arara
Indians in southern Pará.
2 The Indians of the western Arara
(Cachoeira Seca) reserve - only 47
now survive.
3 Tibié Arara - the “mother of
everyone”.
5
6
7
4 Iarumdã Arara: “The loggers
destroy the forest and kill off the
animals.”
5 Tigariô Arara: “My people are
very angry with the loggers.”
6 Iogó Arara: “ We need to cut some
stick so we’re prepared for when
the loggers arrive”.
7 Xikrim warriors of the Cateté
reserve.
8
8 Riverside landing of illegally felled
mahogany logs inside the
Menkragnoti indigenous reserve Oct 1994.
9 Trucks bring the logs to the banks
of the river Xingú.
10 From here the logs are floated
down-river in rafts. These logs
were apprehended by the Federal
Police, but were later smuggled out
to pose as legal timber on the open
market.
11 An illegally-felled mahogany inside
the Cachoeira Seca reserve of the
Arara Indians - Jan 1996.
9
12 Loggers measure an export-grade
log inside the Cachoeira Seca
reserve - Jan 1996.
13 Carving a logging road into the
Xikrim do Cateté reserve - July
1995.
14 Felling a large export-grade
mahogany inside the Xikrim do
Cateté reserve - July 1995.
15 DirectTV journalists covertly
mark a log before accompanying it
out of the Xikrim do Cateté
reserve - Nov 1995.
10
16 The three logs from the Xikrim
reserve are sawn for export in a
local sawmill - Nov 1995.
17 The journalists, posing as timber
trade researchers, persuade the
grader to mark the planks so that
they can keep track of them when
they leave the sawmill.
18 The export-grade planks are
loaded for transport to the port
town of Belém.
19 Documents show that the illegal
mahogany is headed for Danish
company Nordisk Timber, a major
exporter to Britain and the US.
11
20 DirectTV journalists reinforce the
grader’s marks with ultra-violet
paint, only visible with a special
torch.
21 The historic port of Belém, where
in December 1995 DirectTV
journalists identified the marked
planks inside Nordisk Timber’s
yard.
22 Belém docks. Despite positive
identification, Nordisk prepared
the illegal timber for export, and
IBAMA gave the wood an export
license.
23 740 CBM of Nordisk mahogany
docked at Heysham, Lancashire
on January 8th 1996. Despite
being a signatory to the
NHA/AIMEX Accord, Nordisk
refused access to identify any
illegal planks.
12
13
1
Introduction
After twenty years of large-scale extraction, the logging of mahogany from the
Brazilian Amazon remains unsustainable, and to a great extent illegal. Despite
the timber industry’s protestations to the contrary, the latest evidence from
Brazil shows that mahogany is still being plundered from Indian reserves and
other protected areas. In addition, this report shows that to this date there is no
sustainable extraction of mahogany in the entire Brazilian Amazon. Instead, its
practitioners show scant regard either for the ecology of the Amazon region or
for its people.
This report argues the futility of treating the ecology of the Amazon region
and the people who live in it as inevitably separate or in conflict. We show that
the sawmill worker who wants health and safety in the workplace and the right
to join a trade union also opposes illegal logging from the forest around him.
We also show how the Indians who want to “develop”, to improve their lives,
want to do this in such a way as to preserve and bolster their traditional culture, in harmony with the environment and other Amazonian peoples, rather
than in conflict with them under the control of powerful logging interests.
As we write, the fifth anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
approaches. Despite declarations of intent to preserve and protect the Amazon
made at that meeting, recent satellite information shows that the rate of
Amazonian deforestation, after a decline in the late 1980s, is once again
increasing. The region responsible for this increase is also the area where
mahogany is explored and extracted.
To an unusual extent the mahogany trade is dominated by just two countries, the United States and Britain, which together account for three-quarters
of the export market.1 The continuation of illegal logging depends on this
export trade. Importers in these countries should be condemned for their continuing failure to acknowledge the extent of the problem with mahogany and
to take appropriate action. The authors of this report demand an immediate
moratorium on buying mahogany to be implemented by British and US timber importers, until such time as the trade can be run on a legal and sustainable basis.
We base our conclusions on three main sources: firstly, our own year-long
investigation of illegal logging operations in the region, which demonstrates
exactly how illegal mahogany is “laundered” through to the export market;
secondly, substantial new field research commissioned for Friends of the Earth
International, which confirms and quantifies the continuing widespread illegality of the mahogany trade; and lastly, the history and viewpoint of the
Amazonian Indians, whose opinions we sought about the invasions of their
land for export timber.
14
The crucial argument which runs through all of this is that the illegality of
the logging of mahogany is not an abstract, technical issue, but one which has
had, and continues to have, a cruelly damaging impact on the indigenous peoples of the region. As we enter the next millennium, many indigenous peoples
are threatened with extinction. In some cases they are at the point of dying out
physically, in others of losing forever their identity, culture and customs.
To cite just one example, last year (1996) contact was made with a small
group of Indians in the state of Rondônia, a mahogany region. Their people
had been subject to a programme of genocide, and it was thought that no one
had survived. To the amazement of those who made contact with them, these
few survivors spoke a language which had officially been declared extinct.
15
2
Where mahogany comes from
In Brazil, broad-leaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) is found in a wide band
across the terra firma of the southern Amazon, from close to Brazil’s northern
coast crossing west into Bolivia. It extends over four states: Pará, Mato Grosso,
Rondônia and Acre. Large-scale exploration began around twenty years ago at
the eastern end of this band.
After two decades of intensive logging, this species has become commercially extinct in the areas of the eastern Amazon, such as the Tocantins valley,
where the logging commenced.2 As it becomes scarce in the original areas of
exploration, the logging of mahogany is moving inexorably further and further
west, and today has reached even the Javarí valley on the frontier with Peru.
Nevertheless, 64% of mahogany still comes from the eastern Amazon state
of Pará,3 and British importers still buy 85% of their mahogany from this area.4
For this reason, much of the information in this report concentrates on this
region, and aims to provide up-to-the-minute examples to illustrate a wider picture. It is important to stress, however, that the destructive, predatory and illegal extraction detailed in this report is common throughout the entire region
where mahogany is found.
Twenty-two percent of the mahogany zone is covered by Indian reserves.
The timber industry argues that there is no need to extract mahogany from
such protected areas, because there is a great deal remaining outside the
reserves. Current estimates are that there are some 16 million cubic metres of
mahogany outside Indian reserves.5 However, in large areas this mahogany in
a very low density, too low for commercial extraction. In the area we investigated in the south of Pará, as far west as the river Xingú there was practically
no mahogany available for commercial extraction outside indigenous reserves.
By contrast, mahogany is found much more abundantly in Indian territory,
making the risk of illegal extraction worth taking.
16
3
Why it is illegal to extract from Indian reserves
“The lands traditionally occupied by the Indians are set aside for their permanent
possession, leaving to them the exclusive use of the riches from the soil, the rivers
and the lakes existing in them.” (Brazilian Constitution 19 88) 6
The traditional lands of Indian tribes have been legal entities in Brazil since
before large-scale mahogany exploration began. The Brazilian Constitution of
1988 recognized this, and a detailed programme was introduced for creating
permanently demarcated reserves protected by the law.
All of the Indian reserves in the south of Pará are demarcated, meaning that
they are inalienably set aside. At times the timber industry has claimed that
there is uncertainty over the exact borders of Indian reserves. But every reserve
has legally-defined boundaries, with a map and precise coordinates.
Occasionally, confusion as to the exact boundaries can arise because some
reserves have not yet been physically demarcated. Physical demarcation
involves marking out the boundaries of the reserve with marker posts at set
intervals and signs stating that the area is a reserve. Resistance and delay to this
process is usually because of local pressure from powerful interests, including
logging companies. The lack of physical demarcation does not however affect
the legal status of the reserves.
One of the crucial needs for the protection of Indian lands is to complete
the physical marking of reserve boundaries. The Brazilian Government should
be obliged to carry out this work, regardless of opposition from local interests.
Instead, in January 1996, Presidential Decree 1775/96 was issued, which permitted people with claims to Indian land pre-dating 1988 to appeal against a
demarcated reserve boundary. While this was a retrogressive step, it should be
pointed out that no cases have yet been found in favour of altering reserve
boundaries within the region where mahogany is found. While appeals are
pending, the current reserve demarcation remains in place. If appeals fail, or
the deadline for their submission expires, they cannot be made again.
There are two basic ways in which timber is extracted from Indian reserves,
both of which are illegal. The first is simple theft, without the knowledge of the
Indians. The second is by way of a contract, written or verbal, between the loggers and certain members of a tribe.
It is illegal to extract timber from Indian reserves whether it is done with or
without the consent of an Indian tribe. The laws which cover this are set out
below:
1) Indian lands are subject to “permanent preservation”. (Forest Code 1965)
2) Extraction of resources from indigenous reserves by outside persons is illegal.(Indian Institute 1971)
17
3) In the case where there are contracts with Indians, the contracts can be
shown to be illegal because they breach the previous laws due to their
intent to exploit these resources. They are also illegal because they are
always detrimental to the interests of the Indians, which is a breach of civil
law. Often the contracts lead to a situation of debt bondage, which is illegal
since it is a form of slavery (Brazilian Constitution 1988). (Lawyers at the
Social-Environmental Institute, who work on behalf of the Indians, say they
have never seen a fair and legal contract for mahogany logging.)
4) Even if the contract were with full Indian consent and involved fair remuneration, it would be illegal because Indian lands are public lands, and
resources from them are inalienably within the public domain. In other
words, the indigenous peoples have custody of the lands in perpetuity, but
ultimate ownership of the land rests with the Federal Government.
18
4
Mahogany logging and the Indians
At a conservative estimate, over 2 million cubic metres of mahogany were
extracted from indigenous reserves between 1982 and 1992.7 Since the early
1980s, when large-scale extraction began, most British-bound mahogany has
come from the reserves of the Kayapó Indians in the south of Pará state,
despite timber industry denials (the British timber industry has always denied
that it buys timber from indigenous reserves). In 1987, according to the
Brazilian Government’s export agency, 69% of all mahogany leaving Brazil
came from these reserves.8
Mahogany exploration continues to be the driving force behind the invasion of Indian territories in the dry land of the southern Amazon. Mahogany
grows in a low density, and to get to the widely dispersed trees a vast network
of roads must be built through the forest. In the south of Pará alone, it is estimated that 3,000 kilometers of roads have penetrated Indian reserves and other
protected areas. To take an example from the Xikrim do Cateté reserve; the
extraction of 600 mahogany trees required the building of 130 kilometres of
primary roads and 173 kilometres of secondary roads. 9
Once the roads have been built to obtain the mahogany, settlers are able to
move in and start to clear the forest for pasture. Logging and the subsequent
colonisation lead to a dramatic reduction in levels of food resources for the
Indians, especially game. Research by the Insitute of Socio-Economic Studies
found high levels of malnutrition among Indians. 10 There was a strong degree
of correlation between areas where Indians were malnourished and areas
which had been invaded.
The invaders also bring with them unfamiliar diseases to which the Indians
have little resistance. The consequences of this can be seen clearly amongst the
tribes in southern Pará. In 1995 the Araweté Indians, who number 221, suffered 220 cases of malaria, the entire tribe bar one. In the same year the
Xikrim/Kararaô of the Trincheira reserve suffered 22 malaria cases amongst a
population of only 50.11 Both of these reserves are yearly plundered for
mahogany. A 1995 report by FUNAI,12 the National Foundation for the
Indians, the Brazilian government agency responsible for Indian affairs, states
that as a direct consequence of miners and loggers being on the lands of the
Kayapó, the g roup suffered a steep rise in respiratory disorders, malnutrition,
malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoea, as well as sexually transmitted diseases,
alcoholism and mercury contamination. Overall, the contracting of these diseases probably accounts for more premature deaths amongst the Amazonian
Indians than anything else.
A common argument heard in Brazil is that the Indians have too much land
for the size of their individual groups. The fact is that the forest, though diverse
19
and abundant in life, does not provide very concentrated sources of food and
other resources. This is why most tribes are traditionally semi-nomadic. They
settle in an area of the forest for a certain amount of time, and hunt over a wide
area and create forest plantations. Traditionally, when the game and the land
become exhausted the tribes have moved on, only coming back to a former settlement when the game and the land have fully regenerated. To sustain a
healthy and growing tribe requires large areas of forest. Where the population
of a tribe has declined to a very small number, there is all the more need for
their land to remain free of molestation, because that tribe is in danger of
extinction. Since first contact with European colonisers in the sixteenth century, the indigenous population of Brazil has fallen from six million to around
three hundred thousand today.
In many cases FUNAI has been able to intervene to give protection to an
Indian tribe, to enable their physical survival. But then there are serious problems with the way of life the Indians are obliged to lead. FUNAI encourages
the Indians to abandon their semi-nomadic lifestyle and live in fixed settlements. This is partly desirable to protect the tribe from invaders, and partly the
kind of set-up any state bureaucracy prefers for its administration. In such communities, the Indians cannot generate enough food for themselves and also suffer from the diseases brought in. They therefore become reliant on food and
medicines from outside, and prey to the overtures of loggers who offer these
things in return for timber.
Such deals for the illegal extraction of wood take a number of different
forms. Loggers have in many cases initially made contracts with corrupt
FUNAI officials, acting “on behalf” of the Indians. Other deals have been concluded with Indians themselves. Why is it that tribes sometimes sell wood?
The first thing to point out is that the Indians have had no choice as to whether
or not mahogany was extracted from their lands. The only choice was whether
they received any money for it. In many cases, tribes made deals to sell timber
in response to the fact that they were already being robbed. The timber industry repeatedly cites the example of the Kayapó tribes of southern Pará as
Indians who want to sell wood, but in the case of several Kayapó communities,
mahogany extraction actually started as pure theft.13
When deals are made, there is often fierce opposition within the group. The
logging companies therefore tend to target specific members of a tribe who are
“friendly” and pay them directly for the wood extracted. These payments can
be in the form of goods, such as cars, food and light aircraft. But such contracts
are always severely detrimental to the interests of the g roup as a whole and in
no way reflect the value of the wood being extracted.
Such deals with certain Indians, whether they are traditional tribal leaders
or members of the younger generation rebelling against the authority of their
seniors, lead to tension and conflict within a given indigenous group. Payments
20
made to a few individuals destroy the delicate social balance of traditionally
egalitarian communities. In the case of the Kayapó, it is estimated that 90% of
the income generated from wood and mineral sales has gone to 10% of the population.14 Worse still, the Indians lack knowledge of the money economy and
are often cheated of a fair price. This fraud is compounded by more wood
being extracted than was stated in the contract.
Another tactic loggers have used to extract mahogany from reserves has
been to dash into the reserve, fell the timber quickly, and then negotiate with
the Indians on the basis that the trees are already cut down, and will simply rot
otherwise. The situation is exacerbated when the logging companies fail to pay
the Indians what was promised and charge them hugely inflated prices for any
service they render them. By 1992, the Kayapó ended up in debt to the logging
companies to the tune of around $2 million.15 Rather than benefitting from the
logging trade, they suffer environmental devastation, social degradation and
debt bondage. The story of the Xikrim do Cateté tribe, a Kayapó grouping
who tried to deal with loggers and then realized their mistake, is told in
Chapter 14.
Some indigenous g roups have always refused to deal with loggers. In such
cases loggers simply steal from their land. Often this is done without the
knowledge of the Indians, as there are now too few members of the tribe to
monitor the reserve effectively, as is the case with the Parakanã and the
Araweté in southern Pará. Such a case of pure theft is detailed in section 13.
Often, the indigenous peoples try to defend their land against logging invasions, and many have suffered violence in doing so. For instance, in 1988 a
local logger hired 20 gunmen to murder a group of Tikuna Indians who
opposed logging on their land. The Indians had arranged to meet the military
police about the harassment they were suffering from the loggers. Whilst they
were gathering in a house for the meeting, the gunmen ambushed them and
fired into the house. Fourteen Indians were killed and 23 wounded.16 No one
has been tried for the shootings.
The opinion of most of the Indians who were once lured into selling timber
has changed in recent years. They no longer believe that such deals can benefit their tribes in any way. Instead they are now aware of the spiral of cultural
degradation and social disintegration which results. What the Indians want
and need is development under their control, whereby they can gain the space
and the means to determine their own future.
In an attempt to break the loggers’ stranglehold, in 1992 a number of
Indian tribes decided on a new method of resistance and resolved to use the
lawcourts to try to expel loggers from their land.
21
5
Legal Victories Against Loggers
In order to bring legal cases against loggers inside their reserves, Indian tribes
sought the help of a Brazilian non-governmental organization, the Nucleus of
Indigenous Rights (N DI).17
The N DI brought a total of five actions, requested by tribes from six different reserves. Four of the reserves are in the south of Pará, while the remaining two are in the state of Mato Grosso. While the NDI was aware that these
cases represented only a tiny fraction of the total illegal extraction from indigenous reserves, they were constrained by limited resources. They therefore
chose carefully to bring cases which could be exemplary, creating a legal precedent for further actions. The Indians and the NDI won each and every case.
Two of the lawsuits were against Brazilian logging companies. All four logging companies found guilty in these cases (Peracchi, Maginco, Bannach and
Impar) were large producers and important members of the Pará state timber
exporters’ association AI MEX. While Impar appears to be no longer in business, Peracchi continued after the legal action to be the largest single producing exporter. Maginco is the second largest exporter to Britain, whilst half of
Bannach’s 1994 exports went to Britain. The infractions of these companies
were not minor. Estimates are that between 1989–1992 Bannach and Peracchi
extracted some 80,000 cubic metres of mahogany from the reserve of the
Xikrim do Cateté. It is impossible to calculate the amount extracted by
Peracchi, Maginco and Impar, as no contracts were ever made with the
Parakanã or Araweté Indians.
The remaining three NDI lawsuits were against individual loggers. Federal
Prosecutors in the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso have also bought legal
actions. At one point in 1994 over a dozen loggers in Mato Grosso and
Rondônia were in jail, having been caught by the Federal Police in a documentchecking operation.18
Operation Kayapó
In late 1994, following an injunction banning logging and mining activities
inside the Kayapó reserves, a major operation was launched to stop these activities. With the cooperation of the Kayapó Indians, FUNAI officials and the
Federal Police removed all gold-miners from the reserves and apprehended
5,583 cubic metres of Kayapó timber in the logging town of São Félix do
Xingú.19 It was easy to identify this timber, as at this time the loggers were so
blatant as to paint the name of the tribe on the logs. One of the major companies involved was Pau d’Arco, an exporter to Britain.20 The Federal Court then
judged that this apprehended timber should be auctioned and the money put
into sustainable forest projects for the Kayapó Indians. The Kayapó put their
22
faith in this process, having realized that their dependency on the logging and
mining industries was destroying the environment of their reserve and the
social and cultural fabric of their tribe. However the auctioned logs, by now
dried out and worth much less than their original value, did not raise a significant amount of money for the Indians.
At the same time, there was also an estimated 20,000 cubic metres of felled
timber still in the reserves, including an enormous log-landing on the river
Xingú.21 In December 1994, after loggers using hired gunmen continued to
take out mahogany, in spite of the police operation to close the reserve, the
Kayapó Indians of the A-Ukre village wrote two letters to make the following
pleas to a judge:
“ We from the A-Ukre Kayapó have decided to ask you as Judge to help us
resolve the problem of a logger who has been swindling us for two years. In
1993....[the loggers] took a lot of wood from our reserve, but did not pay anything, and didn’t show a receipt to the A-Ukre community. This year, 1994, the
same logging company came again promising lots of things, talking of building
houses for the community, and took more timber.”22
“Without any proof, they say that we have a large debt to them... This time
we have proof of how many cubic metres they took... Another logger... has a
contract with the A-Ukre village. He has already sold half the A-Ukre wood,
but has not given the smallest sum of money to us... he is trying to take more
wood which is felled inside the Kayapó A-Ukre reserve. If there exists a law to
protect forest, land, animals, fish, birds and Indians why is this law not being
used?”23
Despite this ongoing theft, in January 19 95 resources for the Federal Police
action ran out and were not renewed. Therefore none of the timber already
felled inside the Kayapó reserves was ever apprehended. All of the timber pictured in the photographic section of this report, photographed in October
1994, has now disappeared, and the primary-grade mahogany will have been
sold for export to countries such as Britain.
It must be stressed that the NDI cases against loggers covered only a small proportion of the actual illegal extraction from Indian reserves. Although the cases
were won, five years on the Indians have not yet received any compensation to
enable them to repair the environmental damage to their lands. Meanwhile, the
evidence for the cases depended on illegal contracts for timber signed either
with Indian leaders or with F UNAI. After the success of these actions, loggers
refrained from agreeing anything in writing with Indians or FUNAI officials,
making further legal actions more difficult to mount. Nevertheless the success
of the actions gave fuel to the British and US campaigns against the mahogany
trade, and the timber industry was under intense pressure to respond.
23
6
“For the English to see”
— the response of the timber trade
‘The undersigned companies dedicated to the timber industry... declare, and make it public, and
good for all legal rights, that they are committed not to utilize or acquire illegal logs or timber
originated from Indian Reserves.’ (Declaration by AIMEX — December 19 92)
In September 1993, the above agreement was signed between Brazilian
exporters, represented by the association for timber exporters from Pará state
(AIMEX), and British importers, represented by the National Hardwoods
Association (NHA) of the Timber Trade Federation. It was by the timber
trade’s own admission a “gentlemens’ agreement”, voluntary in every respect,
and with no sanctions to be applied to a company which did not comply with
it.
The reaction of campaigners to the NHA/AIMEX Accord was therefore
sceptical. While any initiative from the timber industry to stop buying illegal
wood was welcome, the question now was how a voluntary agreement such as
this, self-monitoring and without legal status, could possibly be effective.
Brazilian NGOs working on behalf of the Indians questioned even the intentions of the Accord, which they viewed as being a document simply to placate
international concern, or, as they say in Pará, “for the English to see”. This
proverbial phrase is commonly used in the region to mean something that is
for appearance’s sake. It has a peculiar appropriateness when used in connection with the theft of indigenous wood. It originated in the mid-nineteenth century, when Brazilian landowners feigned compliance with the anti-slavery laws
of the British Empire by hiding their slaves from the view of British traders. A
well-run plantation without slaves would be shown to any concerned British
party, “for the English to see”.
Campaigners in Britain have asked for independent monitoring of the
Accord, and have proposed reputable Brazilian organisations to carry it out.
The UK Timber Trade Federation has so far rejected this idea.24
To trade and transport mahogany legally, a company must possess for each
consignment the correct documentation from IBAMA, the Brazilian government agency responsible for environmental protection. The NHA/AIMEX
Accord was revised in November 1995 to oblige exporters of mahogany to provide or keep available all of this documentation. At the time of writing, 18
months later, it is however clear that not all AIMEX companies have complied.
All those who have not are, at a very basic level, in contravention of the Accord
they have signed. This is crucial as, in the words of Michael James of the TTF,
the IBAMA documentation “double-banks” the Accord. 25
Another weakness of the Accord is that it only covers AI MEX members,
24
i.e. the exporting companies, and excludes non-AIMEX companies who sell to
the bigger exporting companies. This is a crucial failing, permitting the possible laundering of illegal timber which is sawn by non-AIMEX members and
then sold to AIMEX companies, who can then act as middle-men to distance
British importers from the actual illegal extraction in southern Pará.
In a sense the NHA/AIMEX Accord went no further than to codify what
was already reality. The bigger exporting companies had already been forced
to withdraw from indigenous reserves by the legal victories of the Indians,
which threatened them with large fines and a sullied reputation on the international market. In the words of a FUNAI official responsible for vigilance in
Pará state: “You don’t any longer find the big companies inside the reserves.
You find the smaller companies who then sell to the big companies... Now in
Britain you can’t tell if your mahogany comes from an indigenous reserve or
not.”26
As we were to discover when working undercover in the south of Pará, the
mechanism for laundering illegal timber is very simple, and shows that the
NHA/AIMEX Accord is useless to prevent it (see below Chapter 9).
But how much mahogany is illegal? Recent research by Friends of the Earth
International based on IBAMA reports for the years 1994 to 1996 allows us
for the first time to estimate accurately the amount of illegal logging in
Amazonia. FOEI has created an Illegal Logging Index, which calculates the
amount for each of the Amazonian states. It estimates that overall timber
extraction in the state of Pará in 1996 was 68% illegal, the highest for any of
the Amazonian states. 27
25
7
The faking of legality
The shocking statistic that more than two-thirds of timber extraction in Pará is
illegal shows more clearly than ever an industry out of control. That such a calculation was possible is largely due to the fact that in 1996 IBAMA officers
were instructed as part of new Brazilian Government initiatives to conduct an
unprecedentedly thorough audit of all the authorizations which legalize the cutting of timber. This was then to be followed by field inspections of these timber management projects. This analysis revealed an astonishing level of irregularity, with many projects operating without even the basic legal requirements.
In simple terms, there are three means of logging mahogany legally: to possess an I BAMA-approved management plan, to log a plantation (not yet possible with mahogany), or to obtain permission from IBAMA for forest-clearing
for farming, with substitution planting for the mahogany felled.28
A management plan is normally drawn up by IBAMA, and allows a company to extract a fixed quantity of mahogany per year from the area of the project, with the aim of preserving the existing eco-system, and of enabling the
regeneration of the species extracted.
When timber is extracted from either this or from an area authorized for
forest clearance, it must be transported with a document called an ATPF, stating that the timber comes from that particular area. The owners of a management project must not extract more than the total amount of the concession in
the time period specified, so the sum-total of the quantities recorded on the
ATPFs must not exceed the total amount of the concession. When the sawn
timber leaves the sawmill to go to the port town — in this case to Belém — it is
accompanied by a fiscalization document, declaring for tax purposes the quantity of timber and the price, and the buyer and seller. This document must be
stamped at every fiscalization post along the road to Belém. When the wood
arrives in Belém, prior to shipping the exporting company needs an export permit from IBAMA. This is the trail of documentation which is supposed to
“double-bank” the NHA/AIMEX Accord.
But the IBAMA analysis in 1996 of the first stage of this process, the management projects, resulted in 550 out of 729 timber projects (all species) being
either suspended or cancelled. In other words 75% of concessions were found
to be “irregular”.
The audit of the 95 management plans for mahogany in Pará state, and the
field inspections of around half the projects which followed it, allow us to draw
the following conclusions about the nature in which mahogany is extracted,
transported and exported:
26
1. Of a total of 95 mahogany management plans, only 21 were confirmed as
regular by the 1996 audit. 29 This is just 22% of the total number of projects, resenting just 28% of the total volume of mahogany permitted to be
extracted.
2. In 1994 British timber companies bought mahogany from 17
AIMEXcompanies, but only six of these companies had mahogany plans
approved in 1996. Therefore no fewer than 11 of the signatories to the
NHA/AIMEX Accord were trading solely with irregular management projects, or with none at all.
3 British importers also bought from five non-AIMEX companies in 1994,
who had made no promise to trade legally. Of these, four were found to
have no regular management plans in 1996.
4. Altogether these 15 irregular traders sold 55% of the mahogany coming to
Britain via the port of Belém in 1994.30
5. Exportadora Peracchi, the largest single exporting producer in 1994, had all
eight of their mahogany management plans suspended in 1996.
6. Nordisk Timber, the largest single exporting agent in 1994, in that year
bought only 3% of their mahogany from companies with regular management projects.
It is impossible here to detail all the abuses and infractions of these companies
since they signed the AIMEX Declaration four years ago. As an indication of
the depth and extent of the abuses, it is useful to look at the cases of the two
major exporting companies quoted above.
Peracchi
The suspension of all eight of Peracchi’s mahogany management plans in 1996
is the latest chapter in a long history of illegal trading by this company.
In the years 1991–92, Peracchi was illegally logging inside six different
Indian reserves in southern Pará (the Kayapó, Xikrim do Cateté, Kararaô,
Trincheira/Bacajá, Koatinemo, Apyterewa, and Araweté).31 In 1992–94,
Peracchi was one of four companies expelled from indigenous reserves by the
legal actions of the Indians, and the only company to be injuncted from further
logging in more than one case. In the first case, they were also the only company to mount an appeal to have the injunction lifted, which they lost 10
months later.32
Next, Peracchi appealed to have the case transferred to a local court in the
south of Pará. In the opinion of the NDI lawyers, who first brought the case
against Peracchi, this was because local judges in Brazil are more malleable to
powerful interests.33 Peracchi also failed in this appeal.
Presidential Decree 1775, passed in January 1996, for the first time gave
people disputing territory inside an Indian reserve the right to appeal against
27
its demarcation. Peracchi once again took the opportunity to appeal, claiming
land inside the Apyterewa reserve, an indigenous area much explored by loggers, from which Peracchi was injuncted from further logging in 1993. No decision has yet been made, and the boundaries of the reserve remain in force.34
In April 1995, Peracchi was fined by IBAMA for trading timber without
authorization, in excess of the permitted volume for cutting.35 While making a
TV documentary in 1995, the authors witnessed illegal logging inside the
Xikrim do Cateté reserve. The loggers stated repeatedly that they sold to
Peracchi 36 and offered to take the authors to Peracchi the next time they took
logs from the reserve.37
In 1996, all of Peracchi’s management projects were finally suspended, but
not before they had exported a massive quantity in the four years since they
had signed the NHA/AIMEX Accord.38
The woeful condition of Peracchi’s management plans should be contrasted with the company’s public relations policy as the leading exporter of
mahogany. It was customary to offer visitors to their premises in Belém promotional videos and to show them a nursery of young trees.
Nordisk
It was to Nordisk Timber’s premises in the port town of Belém that we accompanied timber stolen from the Xikrim do Cateté reserve in 1995. The company’s obstructive conduct when we informed them that they had bought illegal
timber is told below (Chapter 9). An analysis of the official data may go some
way to explain Nordisk’s sensitivity, and help us better expose some of the
mechanisms for laundering illegal wood.
Nordisk Timber, part of a Danish multinational, was the largest single
exporting agent for mahogany in 1994, trading over 15,000 m3.39 (The total
mahogany exported from Brazil that year was 96,587 m3.)40 Interestingly, these
figures show Nordisk as a producer of over 1,000 m3, whereas their solitary management project for mahogany, approved in 1996, shows an authorized volume
for extraction of just 57 m3. So who actually produced this 1,000 m3? And why
do these companies not appear on the export figures?
One sawmill company that never appears on the export statistics is nonAIMEX company Matidal (previously known as Mondai), who in 1995 sold
all of their export-grade mahogany to Nordisk. This timber included the stolen
indigenous wood we tracked to the Nordisk yard. Was this wood then exported labelled as produced by Nordisk? Matidal, meanwhile, a medium-sized
sawmill capable of cutting 30 m3 of mahogany per day, is not recorded in the
IBAMA audit as possessing any management plan. Is this some kind of clerical error? Does this mean that Matidal was recording all of its large quantity
of mahogany as coming from forest clearance authorizations? If so, where is
the substitution planting of mahogany saplings? Nordisk claimed to have
28
ceased buying from Matidal while they investigated our case. Reports on the
ground in the logging town of Tucumã in late 1996 indicated that Matidal had
continued to trade mahogany throughout the 1996 season, buying from loggers working inside the Kayapó reserve. It seems more than likely that Nordisk
is not recording the identity of some of its mahogany producers, citing the timber as their own.
Another company which according to the IBAMA Audit has no management plan is AIMEX company Parawood Ltd. It was to Parawood that the illegal loggers in the our film claimed to have sold most of their timber in 1995.
In that year, Parawood had a contract to supply their mahogany to Nordisk. In
1994 they exported 87% of their mahogany via Nordisk.
A detailed examination of the Belém export statistics implies that a huge
part of Nordisk’s mahogany may be illegally sourced. Between January and
October 1994, Nordisk exported 15496 m3 of mahogany, making it the largest
single exporting agent. Of this only 527 m3, or 3%, came from companies with
management plans subsequently confirmed by IBAMA. To the UK Nordisk
exported 2,9 28 m 3, with only 141 m3, or 5%, coming from companies subsequently found to have regular plans. It could of course be that 97% of
Nordisk’s mahogany comes entirely from the forest-clearance authorizations of
medium-sized farmers, but this is extremely unlikely, given the huge quantity
involved. General opinion, including that of British timber importers, is that
that extraction by forest clearance permit is more likely to be irregular than
extraction via management project.
Problems with “confirmed” plans
The I BAMA analysis of 19 96 took a scythe to the 25 companies signed up to
the NHA/AIMEX Accord, so that there now remain only four AIMEX companies who are signatories to the Accord and who still have substantial
approved mahogany management projects (Juary, Madestelo, Semasa, and
Maginco). Does this mean that British traders can safely buy from these firms?
An examination of the IBAMA reports from 1994 and 1995 shows on the contrary a catalogue of irregularities, including the trading by these companies of
excess volumes from the very projects which were subsequently confirmed.41
Juary
It is astonishing that Juary should have had their two management plans confirmed, after having traded huge excess volumes since 1993. I BAMA reports
show that in 1993 Juary traded no less than 10,757 m3 more than their authorized volume, while from December 1993 to October 1995 the excess was
6,525 m3, making a grand total of over 17,000 m3 in a 3-year period. 42/43. This
confirms stories on the ground of massive illegal purchasing by this company.
In October 1994, we visited undercover the Juary sawmill in Redenção, and
29
were able to film logs painted as coming from the Menkragnoti Indian
reserve.44.
Semasa
Apart from their having traded excess volume, and having had a management
project cancelled for not in fact existing, the case of Semasa is particularly interesting for the light that it sheds on how little we can rely on management plan
quotas to calculate fully the extent of illegal trade.
For instance, the authorized volume of one of Semasa’s management projects was based on an estimate for the density of mahogany which was nearly
three times the regional average. The company then went on to trade in excess
of this already overestimated volume in 1994-95.
Nevertheless, this project was confirmed in the most recent field inspection
of September 1996 for the extraction of another 16,000 m3.45 This situation
points to a major problem with trusting management plan quotas. Even if an
excess volume is not traded, it may simply be that the project does not possess
the volume permitted to be extracted, and the remainder of the quota is made
up with illegal timber from elsewhere. The fact that such falsification is a common occurrence was confirmed in a recent report in the Brazilian press concerning the IBAMA inspection activities of 1996. IBAMA confirmed that
many sawmills were presenting documentation in perfect order, falsely declaring timber as coming from management projects which was in fact illegally
sourced.46
Uncollected Fines
Although the fines issued to timber companies for infractions suggest some
level of policing of the trade, the rate of actual collection is extremely low. In
the case of Pará state the amounts collected represent just 10.5% of those
issued. Absurdly, this represents just 56% of the cost of the original enforcement activities, so the Brazilian state is actually making a loss when trying to
bring timber companies to justice.47
Other Problems with IBAMA’s Control Activities
While there are competent and committed officials among the IBAMA staff,
too many officials and technicians are not competent.
The Friends of the Earth International-Amazônia Programme research
reports a catalogue of problems with IBAMA’s ability to enforce Brazilian law
vis-a-vis the extraction of mahogany. The following points were made:
•
30
IBAMA control and inspection activities lack even basic professional
requirements. Any assertion that a certain amount of timber originates
from a particular legally established management plan is highly question-
•
•
able, at the very least.
Officials are very lax with criteria for approval. One major problem is that
when a company opposes an inspection, or is simply “not interested”, the
inspection does not happen or is cancelled.
The Agency has too many officials in desk jobs, and too few in the field.
The IBAMA report on management projects in 1995 concludes: “those
who merely extract logs do not execute the project. They are selling contracts
for a fictitious commodity, faking documents to justify timber which comes
from other areas, such as indigenous areas, conservation units, invaded areas,
etc., IBAMA itself, in this form, is contributing to legalize such practices.”48
The Technical Deficiencies of Management Projects
Unprecedented research was carried out in 1995 by a team of forestry specialists in order to determine the quality of forestry management in actual
approved projects.49
Their conclusions include the following:
•Management plans are not used for the actual production of wood, but
rather to satisfy a legal requirement. According to the Embrapa foresters, “it
would not be an exaggeration to confirm that the logging activity in the microregion studied is purely extractionist. Techniques are not applied in order to
produce timber aside from that which is naturally occurring, without man’s
assistance.”
•The execution of plans does not meet legislative requirements, nor is this
programmed as part of the initial projects.
•“Not one single project that was visited fully considered the minimum
requirements of good management, based on the recommendations of the
ITTO”.(Embrapa)
To sum up, mahogany importers cannot justify buying even from companies
with recently approved management plans. This is because of these companies’
recent history of irregular trading from these same management projects, and
the lack of any new infrastructure in the south of Pará which would permit the
effective monitoring of these projects. It remains impossible to know whether
or not your mahogany is legal — there is a high chance it is not.
31
8
1995–96 — the plundering of Indian reserves
continues
Despite the legal victories the Indians have scored since 1992, and the
NHA/AIMEX Accord signed by the industry in 1993, logging from indigenous reserves continues apace.
In 1995 logging invasions were reported to FUNAI in no fewer than 10 of
the 12 Indian reserves in the south of Pará. 50 The authors’ personal experience corroborates this. While working undercover in the region during that
season we witnessed, talked to, and heard of loggers working inside the Xikrim
do Cateté, Trincheira-Bacajá, Cachoeira Seca, Arara, Araweté, Apyterewa and
Kayapó reserves.
The F UNAI information for the following season in 1996 shows a similar
picture, with reports of logging invasions of nine Indian reserves in the south
of Pará, and 26 reserves in the mahogany belt overall.51
Below we detail just a small sample of the recent cases.
The Apyterewa Reserve of the Parakanã
By the time of the Parakanãs’ legal victory in 1993 against the four AIMEX
companies logging inside their reserve, the lands of this small group were
already heavily invaded and degraded.
In a process similar to that which happened with the reserve of the western Arara (see Chapter 13), these invasions were reinforced by the settlement
of 1,500 families inside the reserve boundaries. As with the Arara, this was carried out with the help of INCRA, the government land reform agency. Once
again, a social problem was created which acted as a front for illegal logging to
continue. While the Parakanã have traditionally been fiercely opposed to logging on their lands (see Chapter 16), and still are, there is evidence that under
so much pressure their resolve was weakening in the last season (1996).
One factor in the Parakanãs’ reduced resistance to loggers is the long-term
sickness of the group. In 1995 alone they suffered 106 cases of malaria in a
population of 201, and were also stricken with Hepatitis B, both diseases
brought by outsiders.52 In 1996 the Parakanã were once again desperate for
medicines, and, in the absence of provision by FUNAI, were forced to deal
with the loggers, who duly sent a plane-load. The logging began in October,
and medicines from F UNAI only arrived in December.53
Younger members of the Parakanã, aged between 16 and 18, appear to have
been suborned by the loggers, paid only food and alcoholic beverages to show
the best locations of mahogany to the invaders.54 The two FUNAI officials
staffing the Apyterewa vigilance post were forced to leave the area because of
a series of threats from the gunman in charge of the logging operation.55 Most
32
alarmingly, a FUNAI report in December 1996 revealed that the logger had
distributed arms and ammunition to the younger Parakanã. Tarcisio Feitosa of
CIMI warns of the tension between the Parakanã which could result: “Apart
from the environmental degradation, there could be a war between those who
have been suborned and those who don’t accept this situation.” 56 The FUNAI
report concludes that the logger’s actions have encouraged others who have
already announced their intention to explore the lands of the Parakanã.
The Kayapó Reserves
“Operation Kayapó”, the closure of the Kayapó reserves to loggers in 1994,
must now be deemed a failure. As described above,57 the funds to continue the
operation and to apprehend the 20,000 m3 of timber lying felled inside the
reserves dried up in 1995, and were not renewed. In February 1996 Kayapó
Indians took hostage F UNAI officials in their frustration at this, and demanded that the resources be provided to apprehend the timber and sell it at auction.58 This did not happen. During the 1996 season large quantities of timber
were once again extracted from these reserves, with the participation of members of the group. Reports are that ten to twelve trucks of mahogany a day
were coming from the Kayapó reserve to the logging town of Redenção.59 The
town of Tucumã was also receiving Kayapó wood, with one of the buyers
being Matidal Ltd, who had bought the indigenous timber tracked by the
authors in 1995. The head of “Operation Kayapó” at FUNAI, Wellington
Figueiredo, told us despairingly: “All that work we did to close the reserves,
and now the situation is as bad as before.”60
The Sararé Reserve of the Nambikwara
The Hahaintesu Indians of the Sararé reserve, a small group of 79
Nambikwara Indians in the state of Mato Grosso, are now on the brink of survival. Previously this tribe suffered near-genocide when a highway was built
through their lands, in a situation which became known as “the Brazilian
Biafra”. Their small reserve is rich in gold and the precious timbers of
mahogany and cherry. In 1993, logger Sebastião Bronski Afonso was sued by
the N DI for stealing timber from the reserve, but no restitution has yet been
made to the Indians (see Table 1). Now supposedly protected as part of a
World Bank project worth $258 million, in 1996 the Sararé reserve was invaded by no fewer than 8,000 loggers and miners.61 After the invasions, there was
a delay of two months before any response came from the Federal authorities.
When this was finally made, the invaders agreed to leave. On the next day,
15th November, the invaders entered the Indian villages, destroyed property
and tied up and tortured the Indians they found, including children aged eight
and 11.62
33
The Javari Valley — various indigenous groups
This is the furthest frontier of timber extraction, bordering Peru in the far western Amazon, where there are tribes who have had virtually no contact with
outsiders. This makes them particularly vulnerable to disease imported by loggers. In one of its reports indigenous peoples’ coordinating body COIAB states
that “in the region of the Vale do Javari the proliferation of mosquitoes and the
resulting increase of malaria is principally due to the presence of loggers in the
region, penetrating further and further into the interior looking for hardwoods
such as cedar and mahogany.”63 Nineteen Indians died from malaria in the
Javari valley over the period of a few weeks. In 1995 there were 313 cases of
malaria amongst the 3,000 members of the Javari valley Indian tribes, or 10.4%
of the population.
34
9
The “laundering” of mahogany for the export
market — the “Dispatches” case
In July 1995, after being commissioned by Channel 4 in the UK to produce a
documentary on the mahogany trade, we succeeded in penetrating an illegal
logging operation working out of the town of Tucumã in the south of Pará. By
pretending to be economic researchers investigating “productivity and waste in
the timber industry”, we were able to record the entire process of the extraction
and “laundering” of illegal timber for the export market.
The logger we worked with, an ex-official of FUNAI, was exploring an area
of the western part of the Xikrim do Cateté indigenous reserve. His operation,
which consisted of a small team of ten people, illustrated perfectly how the
process of illegal logging had changed as a consequence of the NDI legal
actions which expelled the big companies from the reserves. Now the most
risky part of the process, the felling and extraction, was done by small loggers,
whose timber would then be bought by the large export companies.
Our first trip with the loggers took us up a well-known logging road called
the “Morada do Sol” (or “Home of the Sun”), which runs north from Tucumã.
Until recently this area was primary rainforest. But now either side of the road
is deforested and converted to pasture for cattle. It was the burning season, and
the fires which consumed what remained of the forest created intense heat and
huge palls of smoke. During the summer this smoke descends on the town of
Tucumã itself, making the sun a barely-visible red orb behind the perpetual
smog.
After several hours’ journey we reached a forested area. A few kilometres
into the forest we encountered the loggers’ bulldozer, voraciously flattening
trees to carve a road into the reserve. Estimates are that in the south of Pará
500 kilometres of logging roads are built in this way each year, cutting into primary rainforest.64
We then crossed into the lands of the Xikrim do Cateté. A clear boundary
between the farmland and the trees formed the boundary of the demarcated
reserve. When the road ended we walked the rest of the way to the loggers’
camp along hand-cut trails, arriving there late at night.
The next morning we were stunned to see a particularly beautiful forest,
with tall, widely-spaced trees casting sharp shadows on the forest floor. After a
breakfast of boiled tortoise and beans, the loggers showed us the extensive network of trails they had cut through the forest. They led to the mahogany trees
they had marked for felling.
Everyone in the party knew there was no mahogany worth extracting in
this region outside the indigenous reserves. As one logger told us: “The farmers have only got very thin trees left, and it’s not worth it for us to come this
35
distance from the town for that... the only place where there are big trees which
we can work with to earn decent money is in the indigenous area.”65 This is
not just true for the area around the Xikrim reserve, but for the whole of this
region as far west as the river Xingú. Therefore all the mahogany trucks coming down the Morada do Sol during the summer months, and we witnessed a
large number, were coming from Indian reserves, mainly from the Apyterewa
and Trincheira-Bacajá, lands of the Parakanã and the Kararaô-Kayapó.
Everyone knew exactly where the borders of the Xikrim reserve began, as
it is physically demarcated with marker posts. This interested us, as the timber
trade in Britain had at times argued that the boundaries of the reserves were
uncertain and under dispute. We already knew that, legally speaking, Indian
reserves had precisely-defined, indisputable boundaries, but we thought that
maybe individual loggers on the ground, working without maps, were uncertain where farmland stopped and reserve land began. In fact, the loggers
repeatedly told us the exact moment when we crossed the border.
Later that day we witnessed the felling of the mahogany trees. In order to
free the tree for felling, the chainsaw operator first cuts the surrounding trees
which are either tangled with it, or would impede its path. When the trees fall
they then cut their own swathe through the forest. On average, 31 trees are
severely damaged for each mahogany tree extracted.66
The logger in charge of this illegal operation, sitting by a top-quality
mahogany log which had just been felled, explained to us that the primarygrade wood would be sold for export, while the Brazilians only bought secondgrade. It was crucial for him to find and take out export-grade timber, because
of the costs involved in coming this distance. 67
When the timber trade says that the majority of sawn mahogany goes to
the internal market, this is technically correct, but not actually relevant.
Because of the costs and risks involved in extracting timber from an Indian
reserve, it is the higher price earned for the export wood that makes such illegal extraction economically viable. Also, it is the boles of older trees which contain export-grade mahogany, producing large planks with a wide grain. These
older, larger trees are found in less explored areas of the forest, such as Indian
reserves.
Back in the town, we waited for the bulldozer to finish its rinding and splintering journey to the felled trees so that we could accompany the mahogany
out of the reserve. However, unluckily for these loggers, some Xikrim warriors
had heard the logging machinery while they were on a hunting expedition.
They informed the local FUNAI officials, and an expedition was mounted
which included FUNAI, four warriors from the Xikrim tribe, and the Federal
Police. After a chase through the forest, four loggers were arrested, and their
machinery confiscated.
The British timber trade has taken some comfort in the fact that this illegal
36
operation was apprehended. In fact the loggers simply carried on after the
arrests, when necessary under cover of dark. When we spoke to them, they
were philosophical about their misfortune, only regretting the inconvenience
that they now needed to cut the roads by hand, so as not to alert the Indians.
Nor was this by any means the only illegal operation inside this reserve, but
rather one of at least seven during the 1995 season.68 Only one, the operation
we were working with, had legal action taken against it. Because of this rare
police action during our visit, we were no longer trusted. Everyone in the logging town thought that we were spies. Eventually we managed to regain the
loggers’ trust, and they invited us to go on one of their clandestine missions.
By now the operation had taken out 115 trees from the Indian reserve that
season, with another 30 or so felled and awaiting extraction. Because of the
quantity of trees already taken out, we now needed to go deeper into the
reserve. Eventually we reached a felled tree five kilometres inside. The three
logs were loaded up and the truck crawled out of the reserve at walking pace.
The driver explained that this year they were selling their logs mainly to the
sawmill of Parawood Ltd., an AIMEX company which was selling half its
mahogany to Britain 69, and a signatory to the NHA/AIMEX Accord. When
they had “lámina” quality, the very best grade of mahogany, the driver told us
they also sold to Peracchi, one of the biggest exporters of mahogany.
We arrived at the Parawood sawmill in Tucumã in the pitch dark at 3am.
The gates were opened and the three logs were unloaded. But the following
morning the logs were no longer in the Parawood yard, and it turned out that
the loggers had decided to sell the wood to another sawmill. This company was
Matidal Limited, a non-AIMEX firm which, because of this lack of “exporter”
status, needed to sell on their primary-grade mahogany to an AIMEX company. We should stress that this moving of the illegal logs was not due to any
squeamishness about handling such timber on the part of AIMEX company
Parawood. These particular loggers had already sold most of their wood this
season directly to Parawood, and Parawood had accepted ‘our’ timber in the
middle of the night. The loggers had on this occasion sold to Matidal because
of a faster payment.
The three logs were calculated to produce five cubic metres of sawn timber,
for which the loggers were paid $200 per cubic metre. The primary-grade sawn
timber was then sold on to the exporter at a price of $508 per cubic metre. We
spoke to the owner of the mill, who admitted to us that he often buys timber
“under the counter”.70
The next day the three logs we had accompanied were sawn, producing 44
export-grade planks. The grader marked all of the planks from our three logs
with straight crayon lines. This mark was distinctive, so that the illegal timber
had marks recognisable to us, but of a common enough type so as not to be
recognisable by anyone else. We were also able covertly to mark thirteen of the
37
planks with ultra-violet paint, only visible with a special torch.
The following morning 40 of the planks were loaded onto a truck to go to
the port town of Belém. The sawmill company Matidal was contracted for that
season to sell all their export-grade mahogany to Nordisk Timber in Belém,
part of a Danish multinational company, an AI MEX member, and a member
of the British Timber Trade Federation. During the three-day journey to the
port town of Belém, we witnessed the official stamping of the false fiscalization
documents, which legalized the illegal wood, and which presented it as legal
when it arrived at Nordisk in Belém.
Knowing that we had legal proof that there were now 40 identifiable planks
of stolen timber inside the Nordisk yard, we went to IBAMA to show them our
evidence and make a denunciation. If IBAMA suspects an irregularity with a
consignment of timber, they have the power to apprehend it, pending further
investigation. We now wanted to see if the relevant government agency would
prevent the export of this stolen wood. We accompanied IBAMA officials to
the Nordisk yard, and after a brief search found 15 of our marked planks. We
used the special torch to demonstrate the invisible ultra-violet marks to the
IBAMA official in charge of the search. But the timber was not apprehended,
and the IBAMA officials made excuses and left the premises.
Afterwards, Nordisk made the timber we had identified inaccessible by
putting it into the kiln for drying. We repeatedly asked IBAMA to take action.
Instead the consignment was given an IBAMA export permit. In a farcical end
to a frustrating fortnight, we finally arrived at IBAMA for a scheduled meeting with the Superintendent and awaiting us were officers from the Federal
Police. They arrested us for having out-of-date visas, which had unavoidably
become overdue during our work in the forest. Our reward for informing the
appropriate government agency about stolen timber was to be deported from
the country.
Meanwhile undercover work in Belém port confirmed that a ship was set to
sail which was carrying no less than 740 cubic metres of Nordisk mahogany to
Britain. This g ave one last chance to halt the further sale of this stolen wood.
We alerted Nordisk in Britain, and asked to inspect the mahogany when it
arrived at the port of Heysham, so that British consumers would not unwittingly buy it. Nordisk refused. They also refused to be interviewed for the
“Dispatches” programme, but sent out a letter to all their customers prior to
transmission of the programme denying the allegations.
The stolen mahogany had been effectively laundered. British companies
could now unwittingly buy the stolen wood, because they were buying it from
a “clean” source, Nordisk, a signatory to the NHA/AIMEX Accord. Nordisk
could turn a blind eye and buy the stolen property, because the timber arrived
at their warehouse in Belém with all the correct legal paperwork. The sawmill
Matidal Ltd knew that they had bought illegal wood, but were at little risk of
38
being discovered, because they had not themselves extracted the timber from
the Xikrim reserve. If the loggers who had extracted it were caught, the case
would stop there, as had actually happened that season to that particular operation. The response of the loggers had been to carry on, at weekends and
under cover of dark.
Nordisk were signatories to the NHA/AIMEX Accord, but when alerted
that they were in possession of timber from an indigenous reserve, they took
no action and continued to sell the wood on to unsuspecting clients. They then
refused to make themselves publicly accountable via our documentary. The
IBAMA documentation, which according to the British timber trade was supposed to “double-bank” the Accord, was all fake. IBAMA itself, on whom the
timber trade relies to investigate infractions, when presented with sworn
denunciations, complete filmed evidence, and the uniquely-marked wood itself
inside an exporter’s yard, took no action to apprehend the timber. Instead they
gave it an export permit to be sold abroad.
39
10
How mahogany logging destroys the environment
Amazonian deforestation on the increase
June 1997 is the fifth anniversary of the Rio Summit, but the latest analysis of
satellite pictures shows that deforestation in Amazonia, after a decline from
1988 until 1991, is now actually increasing again at a rate of over 10% a year.71
Closer analysis shows that in the states in the northern Amazon
(Amazonas, Roraima and Amapá), and in the eastern Amazon (Tocantins and
Maranhão) deforestation has in fact continued to decline since 1991. The
increase in deforestation overall is entirely accounted for by a huge increase in
the four central states (Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Acre). These states
contain the mahogany zone. Could there be a connection?
The two biggest causes for this increase in the rate of devastation of the
Amazon are cattle ranching and the selective logging of high-value species.
Historically, cattle ranching, rather than selective logging, has been blamed for
the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest. The four “mahogany states” mentioned above, which show an increase in deforestation, are also Brazil’s “agricultural frontier”. Cattle-ranching had previously been encouraged by misplaced Government incentives to raze areas of forest for pasture. Nevertheless,
as the market for cattle becomes saturated and the tax breaks for it are
removed, there has been a growing perception of the increasing role of selective logging per se as the principal cause of Amazonian deforestation.
It is important to clarify how this could be the case, since selective logging
of mahogany does not by itself devastate the rainforest in the manner of, say,
clear-cut logging in south-east Asia. Selective logging leaves plenty of the original forest intact, which may regenerate, given time.
The recovery of the species extracted is another matter entirely. Mahogany,
for instance, does not regenerate after having been selectively logged (see
Chapter 12). However, the problem for the eco-system in general however is
that the forest never is left to regenerate. Once the logging roads are built to
extract the high value timber, it is then possible for settlers to move in and clear
the forest, or makes economically viable the extraction of other, much lower
valued trees. In the case of mahogany this is aggravated by the fact that the
trees are widely dispersed (around one medium-sized tree per hectare).72
It is only mahogany’s very high value on the export market which makes
it economically viable to build the many hundreds of kilometres of logging
roads into the rainforest necessary to extract it. If it were not for mahogany’s
high price, lower-valued species would not be extracted, and settlers could not
enter, because there would be no road. The final stage of this process is when
settlers’ farms are bought up by a major landowner. Whereas a typical settler
family will clear 10% of their area for pasture, the big farmers who follow clear40
cut their areas for large-scale cattle-ranching. This is why mahogany extraction
has been called “a perfectly-designed checkerboard for maximum environmental destruction”.73 The essential point is that mahogany is the beginning of
a process which ends in clear-cut.
If we look at an area which was initially selectively logged, such as
Paragominas in the Eastern Amazon, what we see happening now is the clearcutting of that forest. This has also begun to happen in the areas of the eastern
Amazon where mahogany was first extracted. In the Marabá area, often the
only tree left standing, in an otherwise totally burnt landscape, is the brazil nut,
because it is illegal to fell this tree. In recent years there has been increasing illegal trade in brazil nut wood, with sawmill owners arguing it is the only way
they can survive. 74
Selective logging and forest fires
Recent research by a Brazilian NGO75 shows that forest degradation, mostly
caused by selective logging such as for mahogany, is one of the principal causes of forest burnings in the Brazilian Amazon. The selective logging of a forest
area leaves gaps which allow the entry of fire. Then, when neighbouring pasture-land is burnt at the end of each dry season, fire is able to catch in the forest area.
11 The Brazilian Government’s Response
The 1996 Audit and field inspections of management projects by IBAMA were
part of an “ecological package” by the Brazilian Government to try to get
Amazonian deforestation under control.
The major legislative measure in this package was Presidential Decree
1963/96, which placed a moratorium for two years on new concessions for the
extraction of two species of timber, mahogany and another export wood, the
wetland species virola. In this decree there was implicit recognition both that
mahogany was being extracted illegally, and that it contributed substantially to
deforestation. It also showed that international pressure makes a difference.
However, the measure is insufficient to rectify a trade which is structurally
illegal in the manner of the mahogany trade. Existing concessions were allowed
to carry on, and in 1996 fewer than half of them were inspected. And two years
is not enough to put right a trade which does not yet log mahogany sustainably at all.
41
12 “Not one hectare of sustainably managed forest...”
— the failure of mahogany management
All the available research shows that mahogany logging in the Brazilian
Amazon is illegal on a massive scale. Nevertheless, there is certainly likely to
be a percentage that is technically legal. The problem for British importers and
consumers is that, without a thorough scheme for the physical tracking of timber from source to importer, it is absolutely impossible to know whether your
mahogany is legal or not.
But if we imagine for a moment a scenario where the mahogany coming
from Brazil could be proved to have been extracted fully in accordance with
Brazilian law, a further crucial question is begged: would such extraction actually be sustainable, that is, would it provide for the natural regeneration of the
species and of the native eco-system?
The IBAMA legislation for managing forest is on the one hand crude and
lacking in technical finesse, and on the other hand over-complicated and little
understood.76 Understanding of I BAMA norms is extremely low, and the regulations are widely disrespected. The resulting rate of non-compliance provokes the response from the Brazilian Government of applying new regulations, rather than enforcing existing ones. An excessive number of rules then
leads to further loss of credibility, and the seeking of illegal alternatives by logging companies in order to by-pass the legislation. It also encourages corruption among I BAMA officers.
As stated there are three legal ways to log mahogany: to possess an
IBAMA-approved management plan, to log a plantation (not yet possible with
mahogany — see below), or to obtain permission from IBAMA for forest-clearing for farming, with substitution planting for the mahogany felled.77
Problems with Re-planting
This last scenario follows the very crude model of planting half a dozen
mahogany saplings for each cubic metre extracted. This re-planting does not
have to be done in the same area (which is in any case being cleared for farming), but merely in the same state, and does not have to be done by the owner
of the permission to de-forest, but can be carried out by the purchasing
sawmill. In any case, according to the legislation, forest-clearance authorizations should only be given for forest that has already been degraded. This
should not then include areas containing mahogany, which would be extracted in early incursions, before the degradation of the area justifies permission to
clear it for agriculture. Therefore, such authorizations should not be given out
at all for mahogany logging. In any event, forest-clearance authorizations are
considered to be a small percentage of the total of concessions given out. 78
42
We saw evidence of how this is carried out in practice when visiting a large
AIMEX company sawmill in the south of Pará.79 We witnessed a dry-as-dust
planted area inside the grounds of the sawmill, which contained ranks of feeble-looking saplings planted extremely close together. This looked to us like a
cynical enactment of the letter of the legislation, rather than any serious
attempt at regenerating the species.
Problems with Management
In terms of management projects, a major problem is that selective logging of
the best trees contributes toward the extinction of the species by not allowing
it the conditions it needs in order to reproduce. A peculiarity of broad-leaf
mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) is that in order to regenerate naturally, it needs
gaps in the forest canopy. In other words, to hope to regenerate mahogany, you
need to cut down all the other trees around it. 80 If this is ever done at all within the current predatory logging model, it would only be after the first cut,
which has taken out all the best trees, whose seeds will therefore not grow.
Recent research in Brazil and Bolivia concludes that, although mature mahoganies seed well and disperse this seed over a wide area, there is virtually no natural regeneration following selective, high-grade logging as is currently carried
out.81
How to Log the Amazon Sustainably — the 5/30/5 Rule
IBAMA’s regulations do not produce sustainable mahogany. The FOEI
Amazonia Programme has recently proposed a simple alternative to the layers
of complex I BAMA regulations for timber extraction.82
The 5/30/5 Rule is a formula which could be the basis for sustainable logging. The inital ‘5’ indicates the average number of trees which could be
extracted per hectare, the ‘30’ the minimum number of years needed for a cutting cycle, and the final ‘5’ indicates the width in metres of the protective strip
which should be kept around management areas so as to avoid fires in the
exploited forest.
Problems with Plantations
There is much optimism in the south of Pará about the possibilities of growing
mahogany in plantations, but in the opinion of the authors this should be treated with some scepticism.
First of all, mahogany saplings in plantations suffer greatly from attacks
from the shoot-borer bug (Hypsipyla spp.) in their early years. This infestation
has thus far compromised or ruined most attempts at mahogany silviculture,
as the bug causes the young tree to sprout multi-branched stems, rather than
the single straight bole required for later harvest.83 Experiments with insecti43
cides have not proved cost-effective.84 Some trees, however, respond to the
shoot-borer by pushing up a single straight bole which then escapes the infestation. Unfortunately, research attempting to locate straight-boled wild trees in
order to find out which grow in this fashion is compromised by the fact that it
is exactly these trees that loggers first extract.
At present there is no plantation-grown mahogany ready for commercial
extraction in Brazil, because the plantations are not old enough. Local estimates of the amount of growth needed for a commercially-extractable
mahogany tree vary between 20 and 50 years. However, scientific estimates
suggest that to produce the normal minimum commercial diameter of 80 centimetres a mahogany tree must grow for 105 years.85 In any case, the exporting of younger trees would require a change of taste on the part of importers,
for instance in the traditional British market, which demands older, widergrained timber.
To summarise, there is at present no sustainable extraction of mahogany in the
entire Brazilian Amazon. In the opinion of one leading forestry expert in Brazil,
it is impossible for the timber trade to demonstrate one hectare of properly
managed forest from where mahogany is extracted.86 Currently, mahogany is
mined, not harvested.
44
13 Theft and the survival threat
— the case of the Arara Indians
The Arara, from the Xingú catchment area in the south of Pará, are a group
who have always opposed logging on their lands. They are also a tribe on the
edge of extinction, whose fate illustrates perfectly how mahogany logging
threatens the very physical survival of some indigenous peoples. The case of
the western Arara in particular illustrates how a nexus of powerful interests,
inaction and corruption by government agencies, and the pitting of landless
poor against Indian tribes too small to defend themselves, leads to the destruction of the Indian patrimony.
The Arara are unique in the region in being a Caribe people, originally
from the north coast of South America. It is only possible to guess at how colonial expansion displaced them so far to the south, isolated from other tribes of
their grouping. Now they number just 160, and are the only people who speak
their language, of which no non-Arara has mastery. They have a culture which
has aspects in common with that of other tribes of their grouping, including a
vast and complex cosmology, the knowledge of which has been passed down
through the village shamans. They now live in two villages on the river Irirí,
as far as possible from the loggers’ incursions.
When they were forced to move down to the river, this was at first an alien
environment for the Arara. They had to learn how to fish, having traditionally lived in the interior of the forest, where they hunted game. They still hunt,
but they told us of the damaging effect that logging invasions have had on
wildlife stocks, listing the species affected.87
Iarumdá Arara told us: “The loggers destroy the forest and kill off the animals. We’ll have nothing left to eat.... we’ll die of hunger.”88
The western Arara, who now number only 47, have a traumatic history of
fleeing successive invaders of their lands. Older members of the village talk of
once living near the “big river”, perhaps the great Amazon river itself, but no
one knows for sure. In general, there is the feeling that the past is too painful
to talk about, and consequently this tribe is in danger of losing its own history.
In the 1970s, the notorious Transamazonian Highway was built to open up
this region for the extraction of minerals and timber, and, in the formula of the
Brazilian Government at that time, to settle “people without land” into a “land
without people”. The implication was that the Indians who were already living
on this land were not people. The Highway divided the Arara lands, and actually passed through their village. The Indians fled the road-building machinery, leaving behind their plantations. They headed south, but loggers and settlers brought in by the new road soon came after.
45
In the years that followed, the Arara ran in fear whenever they heard the
loggers’ chainsaws. They were unable to settle and grow food; their children
cried with hunger, and the Arara came to see all white people as killers.
Because of this, when officials from the Indian agency FUNAI first made contact with the western Arara in 1987, the tribesmen shot at them with arrows,
and two men died. Sr. Afonso, a survivor of this expedition who still works
with the Arara, showed us the vivid scars left by the arrow-wounds in his own
body. Having been lured by FUNAI to the safer area by the river, the Arara
could now set about building a more permanent village where they could once
more plant food.
When we visited the village of the western Arara a frail old woman introduced herself to us. Her name was Tibié, and she was also known as the
“mother of everyone”. To our amazement we discovered that this name was
not just a title of respect. When Tibié was younger, this branch of the tribe had
been reduced to a single couple, Tibié and her brother. Today she is the Eve of
a modern-day Creation Story, and the entrie village of 47 people are her
descendants.
“I’m the mother of everyone,” she told us. “All my children are here, they’re
grown up. Now I’m old, I can’t run anymore, I can hardly walk. I’ve moved
so many times. If the loggers come, I’ll send my sons after them.”89
So here is a tribe which has tenaciously fought its way back from the brink of
extinction, in the face of a continuous invasion of their lands. The latest invasion has been for mahogany, and was led by timber company Bannach, a
major supplier with strong British links.90
The Bannach Sawmill
The presence of logging company Bannach inside the reserve of the western
Arara is one of the most notorious cases of the theft of mahogany from Indian
lands. In 1983, I NCRA (the government agency for land reform) in a typical
gesture in favour of powerful interests, granted Bannach permission to build a
road ninety kilometres long, which stretched from the Transamazonian
Highway to the banks of the river Irirí.91 The road cut down the middle of the
Arara lands, separating the two groups of the tribe.
Despite the demarcation programme for the reserve that began in 1985, it
was 1991 before F UNAI first took legal action to expel Bannach from Indian
land. In the intervening period, the company had built a sawmill by the river,
some thirty kilometres inside the reserve, and had extensively plundered the
land around for mahogany. In the 1991 case, the judge made a preliminary
decision against Bannach which he subsequently withdrew. During this time
Bannach continued to use its influence with local political powers to apply to
have the area of the reserve it was occupying made into a municipality. Not
46
until June 1995 was the case to expel Bannach finally won, and the illegal
sawmill closed down.92 In any case, by this time there was not enough
mahogany left to sustain the operation, and the sawmill was ready to close.
When we visited the mill in September 1995 we witnessed the appalling
consequences of the exploration of the previous decade. All the way down the
Bannach road we saw the charred land of the farms of the 1,500 settlers who
had followed the logging company, and had then acted as its labourers. Here
we were witnessing a typical situation following mahogany extraction. Once
again, if the logging company had not built a road, the settlers would simply
not have been able to enter Indian land. Very often when these cases occur
across the Amazon region, the timber company actively encourages settlement,
even drafting people onto the land. As with the Apyterewa reserve of the
Parakanã (see chapter 8), this then creates a social problem, making it politically very difficult to remove families who have created their homes on Indian
land. Under cover of this occupation, illegal logging operations can then continue. This is exactly what happened with the reserve of the western Arara.
When we arrived at the now derelict sawmill we found 20 fresh logs cut by
a settler. These were the last remnants of the mahogany from the surrounding
area. Bannach was in negotiation with the settler for the purchase of these illegal logs, despite its eviction from the reserve by law and the sawmill’s closure.93
Delays in demarcation favour illegal logging
When the Transamazonian Highway was built, dividing the Arara lands, the
upper boundary of the Indian territory was originally fixed as the highway
itself. Then, in a process that has happened with many other reserves, ten kilometres were removed to allow for settlers. When loggers and settlers
encroached further, the reserve boundaries were pushed back still further.
Now both Arara reserves are legal entities, with maps and a full set of coordinates giving the limits of the territory, like all the other Indian reserves in the
south of Pará. The eastern Arara reserve (Arara I) is also physically demarcated. Even this, however, is not enough to stop the logging invasions every season, and incursions for settlement.
In April 1995, a group of 20 invaders staked an illegitimate claim to an area
of the Arara I reserve. After investigation, it turned out that the invaders were
not in fact landless, and that a local logging company was involved. The
reserve was also invaded for mahogany in both 1995 and 1996.
Much worse than this is the case of the neighbouring reserve of the western Arara (Cachoeira Seca), which is not physically demarcated. Resistance
and delay to the process of marking reserve boundaries is usually due to local
pressure from powerful interests, including logging companies. This is clearly
demonstrated in this case by the ten-year delay in expelling Bannach from the
reserve.
47
During our investigation on the Transamazonian Highway, we came across
plans for a large-scale logging operation inside the reserve, where the intention
was to take out 1,500 trees. We visited the area, where the loggers had already
felled 50 trees, and saw how the local council for the logging town of Uruará
was able to use the absence of physical demarcation. They had published their
own proposal for reducing massively the reserve of the western Arara, printed
on official maps.
This “proposal” has absolutely no chance of succeeding legally, but on the
ground it was serving as a pseudo-legal justification for logging and colonisation. For instance, when we interviewed the local head of INCRA, the government agency responsible for land reform, he showed that he knew exactly
where the reserve began, but preferred to use the incorrect map produced by
the town council. He was at that time trying to gain title deeds for people settled inside the reserve, claiming this to be the best land for planting.
Scandalously, the local council was actually building a road inside the reserve,
and the loggers we were working with were aiming to use this road for the illegal extraction of mahogany from deep inside the reserve. One logger was a
local town councillor.
So Bannach was expelled, but only once the mahogany had gone. Now estimates are that more than 30% of this reserve has been lost to settlers, and
colonisation continues into the areas where commercially-viable stands of
mahogany still exist. In the neighbouring town of Uruará, land inside the
reserve is bought and sold at will, often with the sanction of the government
agency for land reform.
There is plenty of land in the Amazon far more suitable for settlement by
the landless. However, this land is held by rich land owners with political clout.
If settlers occupy this land, even if it is unproductive or held for purely speculative reasons, they suffer violent expulsion, and are often killed. There have
been two such massacres in the state of Pará in the last eight months.94
The Arara have always been opposed to invasions on their land and have
never done any deals with loggers. They know the consequences of logging,
and are committed to continuing their traditional way of life.
“They steal the wood secretly,” Tigariô Arara said. “ It’s ours. They never
tell the Arara. They come in, cut the timber, take it out and sell it for themselves. We’re left with nothing.”
If further onslaughts such as this are permitted, it is highly questionable
whether the tribe will survive long into the next century.
48
14 Fraud and dependency
— the case of the Xikrim do Cateté Indians
The Xikrim-Kayapó have lived in the region of the Cateté river since before
the European colonisation of Brazil in the 16th century.95 Their reserve was
demarcated from 1981 and ratified by presidential decree in December 1991.
More numerous than the Arara, today the Xikrim number around 500 individuals and their reserve is physically demarcated. The Xikrim do Cateté are
not currently under threat of physical extinction. Nevertheless, the Xikrim
story is one which demonstrates very clearly the predatory nature of logging
and its disastrous effects on an Indian tribe.
The group was isolated until the building of the PA-279 highway which
opened up one of the richest areas for mahogany and gold in the Brazilian
Amazon. Since the building of the road, the lands of the Kayapó tribes in the
area, including the Xikrim, have been invaded in order to extract these two
commodities. In 1989, some leaders of the Xikrim decided to contact the companies which were stealing mahogany from their land and make a contract
which would ensure they received something.96 They agreed to the exploitation of 100,000 m3 over a five-year period. However, the contract shows how
Indian tribes are often cheated in such deals. Incredibly, logging company
Bannach received 50% of the wood as payment for services rendered, the services being the actual extraction of the timber.
The regional administrator of FUNAI commented “It’s the first time I’ve
seen a timber company being paid for extracting timber.”97 The Xikrim were
to receive $20 per tree. The market price at the time was around $320 per tree.
Low as this price was, the Xikrim did not receive even this much. An analysis
of the financial dealings of the company showed that the Xikrim in fact ended
up in debt to the company. Bannach contracted another company, Exploradora
Peracchi, to speed up the extraction of the timber. When the financial dealings
of this company were analysed they revealed that Peracchi claimed to have
spent over half a million dollars on the Xikrim Indians’ needs, a sum that the
Indians then owed to the logging company. It is not known if the Xikrim are
aware of what Peracchi claimed to have bought for them. What is certain is
that at no time were the Indians able to get into credit by the sale of timber.
This is a standard tactic of the logging companies, inducing Indians into a state
of debt bondage.98
In 1992 satellite images showed the criss-crossing of roads covering the
entire Xikrim do Cateté reserve. At the end of that year, the Xikrim realised
that their reserve was being destroyed and that they were being cheated of any
payments due to them. They therefore attempted to annul the contract with the
logging company. Bannach, confident that nothing would be done, contracted
49
more logging companies to speed up the extraction. They gave the Xikrim a
light aircraft and built a road linking their village to the nearest town of
Tucumã. The light aircraft now lies rusting; the road has grown over. Neither
of these things benefitted the tribe.
From the beginning, the decision to agree to a contract with the loggers was
not supported by the whole group. The fact that the reserve was being
destroyed and the tribe was not benefitting, even in the short term, increased
and deepened the divisions in the village. This led to a move by those opposing the logging to try to expel the loggers by legal means. A team of lawyers
from the Nucleus of Indigenous Rights in Brasilia and the anthropologist
Isabelle Giannini assisted the tribe in their struggle against the logging companies. The legal action was successful. In April 1994 a Federal court injunction
was granted prohibiting Bannach and Peracchi from further logging inside the
Xikrim do Cateté reserve.
Having succeeded in expelling the big timber companies, the Xikrim must
now extricate themselves from continuing dependence on the loggers. Once
members of a tribe have entered the economy around them in this way, the
road back to creating their own subsistence is very difficult to take. This cultural disintegration has split the Xikrim tribe. A group of older members have
separated from the rest of the tribe, and built a village further up-river, where
they live a more traditional lifestyle. Meanwhile loggers have continued their
pressure on a small group of younger tribesmen, and informal (and illegal)
deals for mahogany have continued. At the heart of this is the tragic paradox
of the Kayapó tribes. While the Kayapó are the Indian peoples of the south of
Pará with the richest extant culture, readily visible in their music, dance, and
body-painting, they are also the tribes most in danger of disintegrating through
submergence in the money economy around them. All of the Kayapó groups
are aware of this, and are desperately seeking a way out of a situation over
which they have never had control.
As a potential way out of this dependence on unsustainable logging and
predatory practices employed by the representatives of logging companies, the
Xikrim do Cateté are now attempting to set up a project for the logging of
mahogany on their land, controlled by the tribe itself. This will be the first
attempt at a genuinely sustainable extraction of mahogany, and aims to provide
an income for the tribe without further environmental or cultural degradation.99
50
15 Towards sustainability? — the management project
of the Xikrim do Cateté
One of the major stumbling blocks to the sustainable management of
mahogany is the universally predatory model, with which any attempt at such
management would have to co-exist. As shown above, the economics of the
mahogany trade are founded on illegal extraction and the mining of the natural resource for quick profit.
There is currently only one meaningful experiment in the sustainable
extraction of mahogany in the Brazilian Amazon. Significantly, it is located on
Indian land, and is run by the indigenous peoples themselves.
The Management Project of the Xikrim do Cateté Indians
Because of the intervention of the timber industry in their history, the Xikrim
do Cateté tribe found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. One unacceptable option was to continue to sell mahogany, the extraction of which was
destroying their forest, dividing their people, and wreaking incalculable damage to their culture.100 To put a stop to this, they had already brought and won
the legal case to exclude timber companies from their reserve.101
The burden of debt and dependency which some leaders of the tribe had
incurred through their reliance on timber monies was causing these leaders to
continue to make deals with loggers. Although the tribe was now unanimously hostile to further timber extraction from their reserve, it would be impossible for the tribe to extricate itself completely from this dependency. The
Xikrim enlisted the help of anthropologists and foresters, and made the decision to try to set up a genuinely sustainable management project inside their
reserve, which would both provide a regular income for the tribe and enable
the preservation of their eco-system.
As a general proposition, the foresters involved in this project believe
mahogany management to be perfectly possible, given the right ecological conditions.102 What is required is to divide the area into parcels for a long enough
cycle, then to begin by cutting and extracting all species except mahogany in
one parcel at the beginning of a logging season. The mahogany trees must be
left standing to allow two seed-drops in the clearing to enable natural regeneration. The mahogany trees can then be extracted from the first parcel at the
end of the next season. Meanwhile all species have been cut from the second
parcel, and so on. The process is aided by “enriching” — manual planting of
the fallen mahogany seeds.
After the intensive logging of the previous decade, the first difficulty for the
Xikrim was to find an area with a great enough density of trees. The first area
selected for the project was close to the area of the illegal operation with which
51
we worked undercover in 1995, an area which had already been logged several times, and was now lacking the required density for sustainable but commercial extraction.
A workable area has now been found: 2,000 hectares of relatively virgin
forest, contiguous with the land of the Vale do Rio Doce mining company.
During 1996, the Indians and the foresters worked together to plot every tree
on the site, and to mark the trees and trails with coloured tape. (In the previous attempt, illegal loggers had been removing the markers.) The project is
planned to start in 1997, and certification is currently being sought for it via the
British-based Forestry Stewardship Council, which certifies sustainably-produced timber. It offers the possibility that the Xikrim do Cateté will once more
take control of their own destiny.
52
16 Fighting the loggers - Indian direct action
The Indians do what they can to protect their lands from invasion. The conflicts which arise from these confrontations can lead to deaths on both sides.
Invariably, however, it is the Indians who are out-numbered and out-gunned.
In spite of the risks involved, many Indian tribes continue to resist the invasions of their land. For example, in 1993 the Parakanã Indians reacted to the
discovery of loggers on their land by destroying their equipment and burning
their trucks. 103
The two tribes which we visited during our investigation in the south of
Pará both took action against the loggers during 1995.
The expedition undertaken by the warriors of the Xikrim do Cateté along
with the Federal Police and FUNAI against the loggers we were filming inside
their reserve in 1995 has already been recounted (see Chapter 9). In early
1996, after watching our footage of the illegal logging on their lands, the
Xikrim warriors decided to make an example of the first logger to enter that
season. When they came across the first one in April, they set fire to his truck
in order to warn off others.
The Arara had come across loggers on their land in the previous logging
season of l994. They told us what happened:
“They were marking trees along the paths, and we heard the noise of the
bulldozer. We went after them, and there they were. They were taking wood,
and we went after them, and got right up close to them. We told them: ‘You
can’t do this, you can’t work in our area, you can’t deal in our wood, it’s ours’.
And we sent them away, and off they went... we took their fuel, everything,
their chain-saw, their rifles. They ran off. We took their camping stuff, their
clothes, their radio.” 104
They explained that they knew the loggers would come back and that they
were determined to keep on expelling them.
“We’ll burn up his truck, and send him away. If he asks us to sell him timber, we’ll tie him up. ‘You want to buy wood? Well you can buy it’. And we’ll
take him and tie him up at the bottom of the mahogany tree. ‘It’s there, you
just bought it, it’s here, and you can stay with it until it rots, then you’ll be let
go, then you can leave.’... The Indians are very angry with the loggers, my people are very angry with the loggers.”105
Iogó Arara, one of the oldest women in the tribe, performed for us a “logger-scaring” dance, blowing a whistle and symbolically striking trees with a
stick.
“I think the loggers will come in the summer, and this is what we’ll say:
‘White man, why do you come here? Go back, you can go home.’ We need to
cut some sticks so that we can be prepared for when the loggers arrive.” 106
53
17 Amazonians against Illegal Logging
The “Manifesto to the People” — 1992
In November 1992, 67 popular organizations, the majority from Amazonia,
formed the “Coalition against Predatory Logging” and signed a Manifesto
demanding that the Brazilian Government prohibit further mahogany logging.107 Signatories covered a very wide spectrum of social movements, including Indian campaigning groups, rural workers’ and rubber-tappers’ trade
unions, human rights activists, and artists. The manifesto demanded that the
Brazilian government should ban mahogany logging until the damage to the
Amazonian environment was properly assessed, and legislation passed to control it. This was supported by a succinct but comprehensive analysis, including
the following points, which add a crucial perspective from the point of view of
the people of Amazonia:
1) Landless colonists prefer to settle in the vast areas already cleared, rather
than areas of virgin forest, where conditions are much harsher, but which
they are forced into by Government failure to enact land reform.
2) The argument that the exploitation of mahogany is a source of economic
development for the Brazilian Amazon should be contested. The
mahogany industry is made up of a chain of informal actors and middlemen who are controlled by a small élite group of sawmill companies and
exporters. The industry generates relatively few jobs, and the bulk of the
profits are made in the importing countries or in the south-east of Brazil.
The mahogany sawmills belong to business groups who moved to
Amazonia after exhausting the timber resources of the forest on the Atlantic
coast and in the south of Brazil.
3) The solution to the problems caused by the mahogany industry should be
seen as a first step in the implementation of policies and programmes to end
all forms of predatory logging in Amazonia.
The British timber industry has often argued that to stop buying mahogany
was unacceptable because of the job losses, in both Britain and Brazil, which
would result. It is therefore essential that we heed the point of view of timber
workers.
An aspect often ignored by those who investigate illegal logging is the conditions of the workforce. Research has shown the frequent use of illegal procedures in the working relationship between employers and employees in the
extraction and processing of timber.108 Workers on the southern Pará farms of
major logging exporters Maginco and Bannach were found to have been
reduced to semi-slave conditions via a chain of induced indebtedness.109 Such
54
workers have often been brought from the poverty-stricken regions in the
north-east of Brazil by agents known as “cats”. The workers then have to pay
the costs of the “cat”, and often have to buy food and other essentials from
company stores at inflated prices. Thus they arrive in a state of debt from
which they are never able to escape. In the timber industry, workers who
explore and cut the trees are usually without written contract and paid on a
piece-rate basis. In sawmills severe industrial accidents, such as severed limbs,
occur, owing principally to lack of training.
Our own experience on the ground corroborates these conclusions. For
instance, the chain-saw operator in the illegal operation we worked with in the
Xikrim do Cateté reserve carried out skilled, arduous and dangerous work, but
had no contract, and in the end received no remuneration whatever for his
work, despite the success of the operation that season in extracting around
$60,000 worth of mahogany. Workers in large sawmills in Uruará on the
Transamazonian Highway were frequently not paid for periods of two, three
or four months. 110
The situation of small farmers, who wish to exploit timber on their land in
a sustainable manner, is considerably weakened by the monopolistic control of
the large sawmills with their predatory model of extraction. Meaningful longterm attempts at planting mahogany have been made by small farmers along
the Transamazonian Highway. The Arara Indians from the neighbouring
reserves are now developing a project to sell mahogany seeds to small producers along the highway.111 One small farmer in this region showed us how he
could himself saw logs to a high quality with a chainsaw, producing around a
cubic metre of mahogany a day. But if he tried to sell sawn timber to a sawmill,
the company refused to buy. They were only interested in buying raw logs at
a low price, wanting to make the profit from sawing themselves. The principal
recommendation of a conference in this region in 1995 was for the establishment of a cooperatively-run sawmill for small producers, so that they could
escape the economic stranglehold of the big companies.112
The “Charter of Rio Branco” — 1996
In August 1996 the National Union of Workers in the Construction and
Timber Industries of Brazil held a seminar in Rio Branco and signed a comprehensive charter on timber and sustainable development. As well as environmental recommendations, the charter made the following proposals:
1) Training for workers must be offered to improve qualifications, health, safety, productivity, and equal opportunities for women.
2) A policy guaranteeing free choice of employment must be implemented.
3) The right must be granted to create unions and promote collective agreements.
4) Labour negotiations must incorporate environmental clauses.
55
5) The piece-rate system for paying loggers according to the number of trees
felled must be reviewed and replaced.
6) The Rural Land Tax, which currently promotes deforestation by penalizing
forest land as “unproductive”, must be reviewed.
7) There should be no fiscal incentives for the export of timber or timber
products.
8) Funds for regional development should be directed towards small producers, and be given according to the environmental sustainability of the activities.
9) Credit should favour the establishment of cooperatives which promote the
aim of sustainable management and the training and technical assistance
for these activities.
10) Roads to link the Amazon to the Pacific should only be constructed after
consultation with local communities.
11) Rural and traditional communities should be fully involved in the process
of developing management plans.
The Charter ended with the demand for a moratorium on the logging of
mahogany and other species threatened with extinction, and the promise to
take symbolic direct action to stop some ongoing illegal logging activity.
56
18 The international Campaign
The UK Campaign
The UK-based campaign against the mahogany trade has encompassed a wide
range of activities in the last six years, including holding up a mahogany-carrying ship at Tilbury dock, occupying a major importer’s timber yard, and sitin protests at the premises of importing agents. It has always been colourful,
has caught the eye of the public and the media, and has kept the timber trade
guessing. Campaigners have also conducted very high quality research.
Together with the excellent material from Brazilian NGOs, this information
enables campaigners such as Angie Zelter to make formidable arguments to the
British timber trade, who have been pressured in a systematic way.
“Ethical Shoplifting”
Perhaps the most memorable campaigning strategy started in July 1993 when
a group of protesters from Norwich went into their local department store and
‘liberated’ several items of mahogany furniture. They then took them to the
local police station and demanded that the items were investigated as stolen
property belonging to the indigenous peoples of Brazil. This became known as
“ethical shoplifting”. In the coming months, actions by the “Citizens for the
Recovery of Indigenous Peoples’ Stolen Property” were registered around the
country, including one at Harrods at Christmas, where the aim was to recover
an entire dining table.
“Mahogany is Murder”
In 19 92 Friends of the Earth launched the “Mahogany is Murder” campaign
following an open letter to the British public from Jose Lutzenburger, exSecretary of State for the Environment for Brazil. The letter stated that the
trade in Brazilian mahogany was out of control and most of the mahogany
entering the UK was illegally extracted from Indian reserves. Lutzenburger
pleaded with the British public not to buy mahogany.
Using its local groups, FOE launched a consumer boycott of mahogany,
applied pressure in the retail and timber sector and lobbied local MPs to put
pressure on the UK Government for controls to be placed on mahogany
imports.
FOE has also joined in demonstrations outside the Timber Trade
Federation and large mahogany retailers such as Harrods and staged protests
and actions, such as “ethical shoplifting” around the country. There was also a
demonstration on a ship bringing imports of Brazilian mahogany into the UK.
In February 1995, FOE held a “Mahogany Week” which was a massive public information campaign involving over 100 FOE local groups, schools,
57
celebrities and exhibitions around the country.
The power of the consumer has been clearly demonstrated in this campaign. Five of the largest DIY stores, B&Q, Sainsbury’s Homebase, Texas,
Great Mills and Do-It-All, responded to Friends of the Earth’s lobbying pressure by agreeing to stop selling Brazilian mahogany.
FOE is now lobbying for Brazilian mahogany to be listed on Appendix II
of the Convention of Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which addresses
trade in threatened species.
The US Campaign
The Rainforest Action Network campaigns on the mahogany issue in the
United States. In March 1996 thirteen activists from Rainforest Action
Network and affiliated southeastern US human rights groups boarded a ship
in Savannah harbour to prevent it from unloading its cargo of Brazilian
mahogany. The activists climbed the ship’s central mast and two cranes, and
hung a huge 15 x 40 foot banner from the bow of the ship that read: “Ban
Mahogany Imports, Save the Amazon!” The activists stayed locked in position
for five hours and prevented the mahogany from being unloaded.113 The
activists met with the Georgia Port Authority, agents from the shipping line
and US Customs, who agreed to hear the allegations that the mahogany was
stolen from Amazonian Indian reserves. No charges were pressed against the
demonstrators.
58
19 Arguments made by the Timber Trade
(and how to refute them)
Finally, here is a summary of the arguments for the campaign. The following
points made by the “timber trader” have in fact all been made at some time by
representatives of the timber industry.
Timber Trader: We only buy mahogany from signatories to NHA/AIMEX
Accord, who do not extract from Indian reserves.
Answer: They used to be in the reserves, but the Indians won court cases to
expel them. Now what happens is that the big companies buy from smaller
operators, who take all the risks, and who do extract from the reserves. The
NHA/AIMEX Accord is a voluntary “gentlemen’s agreement”, with no
legal or disciplinary powers. It also has no mechanisms on the ground sufficient to ensure legality, and no independent monitoring.
Timber Trader: The I BAMA documentation “double-banks” the Accord.
Answer: The I BAMA documentation is very easy to falsify. It therefore guarantees absolutely nothing.
Timber Trader: But the “Dispatches” journalists only found three illegal logs
in seven months.
Answer: The “Dispatches” journalists could only do one clandestine tracking
operation, after which they lost their “cover”. The same loggers took out 115
trees from the reserve that year, despite taking time out being arrested.
There were six other operations inside that reserve that year, and they didn’t get arrested. There were logging invasions in ten reserves in the south of
Pará. In 1996 there were reported logging invasions in 26 different indigenous reserves in the mahogany belt.
Timber Trader: Even if some mahogany comes from Indian reserves, the
majority of it is legal because it comes from official IBAMA “management
plans”, which are always located outside Indian reserves.
Answer: The latest research concludes that 68% of timber extracted in the
state of Pará is illegal, the highest for any of the Amazonian states. 85% of
British imports of mahogany come from the state of Pará. In the IBAMA
Audit of 1996, 78% of management projects were suspended or cancelled.
Many companies trade excess volumes on their ‘legal’ concessions, which is
illegal wood. Even if a company trades within its authorized volume, there’s
no guarantee that the managment project site has that much mahogany in
the first place, so an unknown quantity may be illegal, “filling up” the quota.
Timber Trader: But the IBAMA infractions issued against AIMEX members
for excess volumes were erroneous, because they were underestimating the
conversion factor of logs to sawn wood. Productivity is higher with
59
mahogany than other species.
Answer: Let’s look at AIMEX company Juary, who has mahogany management plans approved in 1996, and sells a large amount to Britain. On one
plan, between May 1994 and June 1995, Juary managed to trade 10,529 m3,
while the authorization was only 6,684 m3. That’s very good productivity....
Timber Trader: Most of the mahogany goes to the internal market.
Answer: True. Only 20–30% of mahogany that enters a sawmill actually goes
to the export market, but it is the higher price of export-quality wood that
justifies the building of roads for hundreds of kilometres into illegal areas.
The export trade also necessitates these invasions, because it is in the illegal
areas that you are more likely to find the older, bigger trees which yield the
higher quality.
Timber Trader: The primary cause of deforestation is not timber extraction,
but cattle-ranching and slash-and-burn settlers.
Answer: Mahogany extraction is the beginning of a process which ends in
clear-cut.
The high price of mahogany makes possible the building of roads, which the
settlers then come down, from whom the cattle-ranchers buy the land.
Timber Trader: The Indians want to sell their wood, and they get a good
price. Do you want them to stay in the Stone Age?
Answer: No one is against the Indians’ “development”. However, the kind of
exploitative and culturally degenerative relationship that deals with loggers
have always meant are always detrimental to the interests of an Indian tribe.
What the Indians need and want is development under their control.
Timber Trader: There are now mahogany plantations which will be able to
provide plantation-grown mahogany to the international market.
Answer: Plantation-grown mahogany accounts for a tiny proportion of internationally-traded mahogany, perhaps 1.5%. Brazilian plantations are much
too young to supply export-quality mahogany.
Timber Trader: IBAMA has set in motion management plans for the sustainable harvesting of mahogany. Peracchi for instance has planted 5 or 10
trees for every one they’ve taken out.
Answer: While some IBAMA officials are competent and committed, too
many are not, and are at best inefficient and at worst corrupt. The lack of
funding for the Agency means that it cannot at all be relied upon to monitor adequately the extraction of mahogany. Even if Peracchi had planted this
many seedlings, “sustainable harvesting” is defined as: “use of natural forest
which indefinitely maintains the forest substantially unimpaired in the environmental services it provides, as well as in its environmental quality.
Clearly, any harvest must not exceed the regeneration rate of the resource
nor impair the potential for similar harvests in the future.” Under these criteria, there is not one hectare of sustainable harvesting of mahogany cur60
rently in the entire Brazilian Amazon.
Timber Trader: The UK is not the largest importer — the US is.
Answer: This is correct — the position has changed in the last ten years. But
between them these two countries are responsible for three-quarters of the
trade. A moratorium in the UK would make a massive hole in the export
trade. Also indications are that the traditional nature of the British market
demands older trees, which are more likely to be illegal, because they normally get taken out on the first cut.
Timber Trader: If we pull out, someone else will move in, like the Japanese.
Answer: This argument has no basis. In 1994, the Japanese bought 55 cubic
metres of mahogany via the port of Belém, whereas the British bought
20,000 cubic metres.
Timber Trader: No one has defined satisfactorily what “illegal logging” is.
Answer: Yes they have. Logging is illegal in Brazil when it is from indigenous
reserves or from other protected areas. It makes no difference whether you
pay some Indians for it or not. If you make a contract to extract from an
Indian reserve, it’s an illegal contract. Logging is also illegal when it is carried out without an authorization which satisfies the requirements of
Brazilian environmental legislation.
Timber Trader: Some Indian reserves are not demarcated.
Answer: All the ones your suppliers are based near are legally demarcated,
with a map and list of coordinates which plots the exact borders of the
reserve. Not all reserves are physically demarcated, with marker posts.
Often this is because local powerful interests, including logging companies,
have impeded this process. It makes no legal difference whatsoever. Any logger who wants to know if he is inside a reserve or not could go along to
FUNAI and study the map. Not many of them do.
Timber Trader: Mahogany is not close to biological extinction.
Answer: Absolutely correct. The estimate is that there are 16 million cubic
metres of mahogany outside Indian reserves. But it is commercially logged
out in these areas, because the average density is only one tree per 10
hectares. 1 per 4 hectares is just within the range of commercial viability. In
Indian reserves the average density is one tree per 3–4 hectares, which is
commercially viable.
Timber Trader: Stopping buying mahogany would lead to unacceptable job
losses in Brazil.
Answer: The timber workers in Amazonia, via their trade union, have
declared themselves against working with illegally-sourced timber, and have
promised to take direct action against it. They demanded a moratorium on
the logging of mahogany.
Timber Trader: The situation is getting better, so we should carry on.
Answer: What’s the evidence for this? The estimate of 68% illegal timber from
61
Pará state in 1996 doesn’t suggest this. How much illegal timber is it acceptable to buy, in your opinion?
Timber Trader: Even if the situation is deplorable, the answer is to work with
the suppliers to improve the situation.
Answer: You won’t be able to clean up the mahogany trade just by applying a
bit of pressure to the suppliers. The problem with this trade is that it is structurally illegal, and out of control. What is needed is a moratorium on the
trade until such time as it can be made both legal and sustainable.
Timber Trader: A trade ban is against GATT, and under international law
the Timber Trade Federation cannot discriminate against a supplier.
Answer: A fundamental precept of free trade is that you can freely choose
what you buy and don’t buy. So every mahogany importer can make a simple ethical decision to stop.
62
20 What you can do
For information on its mahogany campaign,
write to Friends of the Earth:
Sarah Tyack
Assistant Campaigner
Biodiversity and Habitats
Friends of the Earth
26–28 Underwood Street
London N1 7JQ
(+44 171) 490–1555 tel
(+44 171) 490–0881 fax
e mail: [email protected]
Video:
“The Mahogany Trail”
40 mins VHS PAL or NTSC
First broadcast on Channel 4 “Dispatches”, May 1996.
Joint winner of the Bill Travers Award for Investigative Filming of
Environmental and Wildlife Issues, 1997.
This film shows exactly how illegal mahogany gets “laundered” onto the international market. In a year-long undercover investigation, film-makers Richard
Hering and Stuart Tanner penetrated illegal logging operations inside Indian
reserves and followed the stolen mahogany from its original felling inside the
reserve, out to a sawmill, and on to a ship bound for Britain. Along the way,
the timber companies tried to obstruct them. Hering and Tanner sought the
help of the Brazilian government environmental agency IBAMA, who failed to
take any action to stop illegal wood leaving the country. They also recorded
the opinion of the Amazonian Indians on the theft of precious wood from their
reserves.
Price: £15 organisations / £10 individuals
Hire by negotiation
DirectTV Productions Ltd
33 Cowley Road
OXFORD OX4 1H P
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel. 01865 437878 Fax: 01865 437879
63
Notes
1 S ISCOMEX figures for exports from the port of Belém 1994 — US 46%, UK 31%
2 FUNATURA (1993), Projeto Mogno. Sumário: Occorência e Distribuição de Mogno na Amazônia.
Brazil.
3 SISCOMEX (1994) — Belem; DECEX (Departamento de Operaçoes de Comércio
Exterior ). Brazil 19 94.
4 Interview with Michael James, Timber Trade Federation — March 1996.
5 Barros, et al (1992), Natural and Artificial Reserves of Swietenia Macrophylla King. in the Brazilian
Amazon — a Perspective for Conservation. FCAP. Belém, Pará, Brazil.
6 Senado Federal (1988), Constituição, República Federativa do Brasil.
7 FUNATURA (1993).
For a fuller account of the effects of mahogany exploration on Indians prior to 1992, see
— Monbiot, G (19 92) Mahogany is Murder — Friends of the Earth, London, and
— CEDI (1993) ‘Green Gold’ on Indian Land — logging company actvities on indigenous land in the
Brazilian Amazon; São Paulo.
8 CEDI, (1991) Aconteceu Especial 18 — Povos indígenas no Brasil 19 87–1990. São Paulo.
9 CEDI, (1991) Aconteceu Especial 18 — Povos indígenas no Brasil 1987–1990. São Paulo.
10 Verdun, Ricardo Mapa de Fome entre os povos indígenas no Brasil - uma contribuição à formulação
de políticas de segurança alimentar — I NESC, Brasilia, 19 94.
11 C IMI (Conselho Indigenista Missionario), 1996 — A violência contra os povos indígenas no
Brasil: 1994–1995, Brasilia.
12 Letter from Wellington Gomes Figueiredo, cited above.
13 CEDI (1993) ‘Green Gold’ on Indian Land. The Kayapó communities (and some of the logging companies) in question are the Kuben-Kran-Kren (Maginco, Campos Altos, Impar),
the Xikrim do Cateté (Pau d’Arco), the Kararaô (Madecil), and the Xikrin do Bacajá
(Maginco).
14 FUNAI Brasilia, personal comm. with DirectTV journalists — Oct 1994.
15 Monbiot, G. Mahogany is Murder.
16 Survival International Urgent Action Bulletin 1988, cited in A View from the Forest Floor;
Survival International 1994.
17 See Appendix (i) for an explanation of exactly how mahogany is illegal.
18 Letter from Marcio Santilli of the NDI to the UK Timber Trade Federation — July 15th
1994.
19 Letter from Wellington Gomes Figueiredo, Coordinator for the Expulsion of Loggers
and Miners from the Lands of the Kayapó Indians, FUNAI, to Prosecutor-General Aurelio
Rios — 15th Feb 1995.
20 Para inglês ver — FOEI-AP 1995; & S ISCOMEX export figures from the port of Belém
1994.
21 Letter from Wellington Gomes Figueiredo, cited above.
22 Letter from 28 A-Ukre warriors — December 1994
64
23 Letter from “Querreiro and leaders” from the A-Ukre village — December 1994.
24 AI MEX, the timber exporters’ association in Pará state, and the National Hardwoods
Association of the UK Timber Trade Federation.
25 Transcripts of meetings between campigners and timber traders — unpublished.
26 Transcript of meeting between women’s negotiating team and Timber Trade Federation
— Jan 1995.
27 Regina Célia Fonseca da Silva — FUNAI — interview with DirectTV journalists — June
1995.
28 FOEI-AP - “Forest Management at Loggerheads” — Sao Paulo, 1996.
29 Brazilian government Diario Oficial, July 1995 — “IBAMA Portaria No. 48, Cap. 1, Da
Exploração das Florestas Primitivas e Demais Formas de Vegetação Arbórea na Bacía
Amazônica.”
30 Results of the audit — 16 plans cancelled, 58 suspended, and 21 confirmed.
31 S ISCOMEX export figures from the port of Belém 1994.
32 CEDI (1993) ‘Green Gold’ on Indian Land.
33 See Table 1
34 Letter from Juliana Santilli, NDI, to Angie Zelter — Aug 1994.
35 Personal comm. with FUNAI Brasilia — Jan 1997.
36 I BAMA infraction documents 1995 — Peracchi fined R$1,557 for trading 77 CBM of
irregular timber.
37 Video footage taken by DirectTV journalists — Nov 1995.
38 Unrecorded statement to DirectTV journalists — Nov 1995.
39 S ISCOMEX figures for exports from Belém 1994.
40 S ISCOMEX figures.
41 DECEX — Brazil.
42 Friends of the Earth International — Amazonia Program (FOEI-AP), 1996 — Forest
Management at Loggerheads — 1996 Update Report on Illegal logging in the Brazilian Amazon. São
Paulo.
43 F OEI-AP, Nov 19 94 — Illegal — An Independent Investigation of Illegal Practices in Mahogany
Logging and Trade in the Brazilian Amazon. São Paulo.
44 FOEI-AP, 1996 — Forest Management at Loggerheads.
45 DirectTV video footage.
46 FOEI-AP, 1996 — Forest Management at Loggerheads.
47 A Província do Pará — 4th Jan 1997.
48 FOEI-AP, 1996 — “Forest Management at Loggerheads”.
49 Cited in F OEI-AP (1996) “Forest Management at Loggerheads”
50 CPATU-Embrapa reports, 1995 — cited in FOEI-AP “Forest Management at
Loggerheads.”
51 Information given to DirectTV journalists by FUNAI Belém, taken from official reports
— Feb 1996.
52 Information from FUNAI Brasilia, taken from official reports — Jan 1997.
53 CIMI — A violência contra os povos indígenas no Brasil: 1994–1995, Brasilia, 1996.
65
54 Personal comm with Dra Edna Miranda, FUNAI Belém, Jan 19 97.
55 Report from Carlos Fausto, National Museum of Rio de Janeiro — posted to Internet 3rd
Feb 1997.
56 Província do Pará — Feb1997 — Exploração de mogno gera conflito com os Parakanã.
57 Província do Pará — Feb1997 — Exploração de mogno gera conflito com os Parakanã.
58 See chapter 5 — Legal Victories against Loggers.
59 “Provincia do Pará” — Feb 1996.
60 Johan Zweede, personal comm — Jan 1997
61 Personal comm — Feb 1997.
62 CIMI, Nov 1996, Report “Emboscada contra Povo Nambikwara”, Brasilia.
63 Ibid.
64 C OIAB Informe Urgente: Epidemia de malaria atinge os povos indígenas do Vale do Rio Javarí;
Manaus, Aug 1994.
65 Monbiot, G — Mahogany is Murder; 1992
66 DirectTV video footage.
67 Verissimo, A & Uhl, C — Extraction of a High-Value Natural Resource in Amazônia: the Case of
Mahogany — IMAZON — 1993.
68 Video statement taken by DirectTV journalists.
69 Information and map from FUNAI Marabá — Feb 1996.
70 SISCOMEX figures for exports from Belém 1994.
71 Covert audio recording by DirectTV journalists — Nov 1995.
72 Project PRODES report, July 1996. — Brazilian Amazonia Deforestation Assessment
1991–1994, São José dos Campos.
73 Lamprecht, H, 1989 — Silviculture in the Tropics; GTZ, Eschborn , Germany.
74 Uhl, C personal comm, cited in Monbiot G. (1992) Mahogany is Murder.
75 Forest Management at Loggerheads.
76 IPAM research commissioned by the World Bank within the Pilot Programme for
Brazilian Rainforests, cited in FOEI-AP Forest Management at Loggerheads, 1996.
77 For a detailed analysis see F OEI-AP, 1996 — “Forest Management at Loggerheads”.
78 Brazilian government Diario Oficial, July 1995 — “IBAMA Portaria No. 48, Cap. 1, Da
Exploração das Florestas Primitivas e Demais Formas de Vegetação Arbórea na Bacía Amazônica.
79 DirectTV video footage — Campos Altos sawmill, Redenção — Oct 1994.
80 See chapter 15— “Towards sustainability?”
81 Gullison, R.E., (1995) Conservation of Tropical Forests Through the Sustainable Production of
Forest Products: The Case of Mahogany in the Chimanes Forest, Beni, Bolivia.
82 FOEI-AP: Forest Management at Loggerheads.
83 Natural Resources Defense Council — “Sustainable Harvest of Mahogany” — in
Mahogany RAG Packet 1993, San Francisco.
84 Rodan, B.D., Newton, A, & Verissimo, A — “Mahogany Conservation: status and Policy
Initiatives”, in Economic Conservation, Vol 19, Nr 4, 1992, Switzerland.
85 Gullison, 1995.
86 Johan Zweede — Tropical Forest Foundation — personal comm with DirectTV journalists —
66
May 1995.
87 Interviews by DirectTV jounalists with members of the Laranjal village — June 1995 (video).
88 Video interview — June 1995.
89 Video interview — June 1995.
90 SISCOMEX export figures from the port of Belém 1992 – 1964 m3, 1098 m3 to UK, 1994
– 961 m3, 475 m3 to UK.
91 Monbiot, G. Mahogany is Murder.
92 Justiça Federal — Processo No. 91.00456–1 — June 1995.
93 DirectTV footage — Sept 1995.
94 In April 1996 19 landless people were massacred by military police in the municipality of El
Dorado. In January 1997 an as yet unknown number of people were murdered by gunmen
hired by a local landowner in Ourilândia do Norte.
95 Hemmings, J. (1978) — Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians — London.
96 Vidal, L & Giannini, I — in “Povos Indígenas no Brasil 1987–1990” — CEDI 1991.
97 José Ferreira Campos Júnior — cited in Vidal, L & Giannini, I, op cit.
98 Vidal, L and Giannini, I.; Xikrim do Cateté exploram madeira. E são explorados por
madeireira, in CEDI (11992) Povos Indígenas no Brasil 1987/88/89/90.
99 See chapter 15, “Towards Sustainability?”
100 See chapter 14, “Fraud and Dependency”.
101 See Table 1.
102 Personal comm with Johan Zweede, Tropical Forest Foundation, and Adalberto Verissimo,
IMAZON. Dec 1996.
103 Article in O Liberal — June 1993.
104 See “Dispatches”.
105 Video footage taken by DirectTV journalists — June 1995.
106 Video footage taken by DirectTV jounalists — June 1995.
107 Video footage taken by DirectTV jounalists — June 1995.
108 Manifesto of the Coalition against Predatory Logging in the Amazon, Nov 1992.
109 FOEI-AP, 1995 — “Pará Inglês Ver — 1995 Update on Illegal Mahogany Logging and
Trade in the Brazilian Amazon”. FOEI-AP (1996) Forest Management at Loggerheads, Annex
3.2; Testimonies about the recruitment and utilisation of slave or compulsory work and violations of labour legislation.”
110 FOEI-AP, 1995.
111 Research by DirectTV journalists — Autumn 1995.
112 Information from CIMI Altamira pers comm — Jan 1996.
113 Salgado, I., Laboratório Agro-Ecológico da Transamazônica — “Relatório da Pesquisa sobre
Exploração da Madeira feita em Uruará” April 1994, Altamira.
114 Rainforest Action Network web site, Dec 1996.
67
68
69
70
71