Invisible Ink Used to Curb Illegal Amazon Logging
12/14/99
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Title: Invisible ink used to curb illegal Amazon logging
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 14, 1999
BRASILIA - Environmentalists fighting to curb illegal logging in
Brazil's Amazon have developed an invisible ink to tag timber and are
already notching up early successes, environmental agency Greenpeace
said yesterday.
The ink, which is only detectable with ultraviolet light, was first
used in a joint operation last week between Greenpeace and Brazil's
state environment agency Ibama in the northern state of Para.
The two agencies used the ink to mark 250 cubic feet (seven cubic
metres) of timber being shipped by river from a protected jungle
reserve. After three days it reached a site owned by the Japanese firm
Eidai, which was promptly fined 3,900 reais ($2,050).
"It's the first time that an illegal cargo of wood has been seized
using this ink," said Greenpeace activist Paulo Adario based in
Brazil's Amazon city of Manaus. He added that Eidai had now received a
total of 12 similar fines in recent months.
"Illegal wood is cheaper because if they (logging firms) want to
extract it in a legal way they have to pay for permits and make
operations plans. That's why many companies are only fronts for
trading illegal wood," he told Reuters.
Adario added that Eidai and other logging companies operating in the
Amazon regularly bought timber from local people at cheaper prices.
Greenpeace research showed that 80 percent of Amazon timber is
obtained illegally.
"The problem which Ibama is facing is that the trees cut illegally are
mixed at the yard with the authorised wood, so this ink allows you to
identify which ones were taken without authorisation," he said.
The special ink was being used as a pioneering technique in two of
Brazil's Amazonian states, Para and Amazonas, in an effort to help
Ibama fight against illegal logging in the region.
Adario said Para posed a particularly serious problem as Ibama had
seized 350,000 cubic feet (10,000 cubic metres) of illegally-cut wood
in that state in the last month alone - enough to cover a large
football stadium.