Brazil Sets Record Fine for Illegal Amazon Logging
10/4/99
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil sets record fine for illegal Amazon logging
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 4, 1999
Byline: Joelle Diderich
BRASILIA, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Brazil has slapped a record-high $360,000
fine on a logging firm for illegally felling endangered trees in the
Amazon rain forest, the government's Environment Agency (Ibama) said
on Monday.
An agency official said it was the first significant sentence imposed
since the government in September released the small print of an
environmental law calling for fines of up to $50 million and jail
terms.
Environmentalists had been clamoring for the details since the law
was unveiled in February 1998. Without this step, regulatory bodies
such as Ibama are powerless to act.
Brazilian-owned Cilla Industria e Comercio will have to pay out
700,000 reais ($360,000) for illegally felling, storing and
transporting protected tree species including mahogany in the
northern Amazon state of Para, the government said.
The company had permission from Ibama to log in a limited area but
ignored the terms of the authorization, said Rodolfo Lobo, nationwide
head of Ibama's inspection department.
``Inspectors apprehended 1,300 cubic metres of wood, of which 300
cubic metres were mahogany and 1,000 cubic metres cedar,'' he said.
Lobo said the fine included 600,000 reais ($310,000) for illegally
felling the trees. The previous maximum fine was 5,000 reais
($2,500).
Lobo said Ibama needed more monitors to survey the vast and scarcely
populated area.
``Our belief is that fines and rigorous sentences are not sufficient.
What is important is not the amount of the fine but whether the
perpetrator will be caught,'' he said.
Citing the case of Para, he said Ibama had 70 inspectors to survey an
area of 772,260 square miles, a territory the size of Mexico.
Ideally, the agency would have 200 monitors to cover a region of that
size, he said.