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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Asian
Timber Firms Threaten the Amazon
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
Asian
Timber Firms Threaten the Amazon
By Glen
Barry, Ecological Enterprises
Copyright,
1997
2/14/97
(822
words)
Asian
industrial loggers are poised to significantly impact the
world's
largest rainforest wilderness: the
Amazon. Within the past
year
several of Southeast Asia's biggest forestry conglomerates--known
for
abysmal environmental records back home--have greatly increased
their
control of Amazonian rainforests... and you guessed it, they are
not
planning on creating a wildlife preserve.
The heart of the Amazon
is
being opened to wholesale industrial logging and increased rates of
deforestation.
Prior
to the recent onslaught of Asian loggers and despite government
initiatives,
annual deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon have
increased
from about 2.8 million acres in 1991 to nearly 3.8 million
acres
in 1994. A small group of Asian
companies are threatening at
least
an additional 15% of the Amazon.
The
Asian timber industry represents a concentrated core of rainforest
destroying
capital and has been characterized by an aggressive
efficiency. Timber companies in the state of Sarawak,
Malaysia have
practiced
highly intensive industrial logging, harvesting much of the
state's
timber resource in only a decade with major environmental
consequences
including silted rivers, eroded soils and declining
forest
diversity and health. Indigenous Dayak
tribes have experienced
severe
social dislocation. After exhausting
much of Asia's timber
supplies,
the multinationals have expanded operations throughout the
tropics.
Malaysia's
biggest logger, Rimbunan Hijau, first moved to Papua New
Guinea
where they control at least 60% of the country's forestry
concessions. Their arrival coincided with a tripling of
log exports
from
1991 to 1994. Industrial logging has
been blamed for social
upheaval
and extensive environmental damage. The
1989 Barnett
Government
Inquiry into the Timber Trade stated "It would be fair to
say, of
some of the companies, that they are now roaming the
countryside
with the self-assurance of robber barons; bribing
politicians
and leaders, creating social disharmony and ignoring laws
in
order to gain access to, rip out, and export the last remnants of
the
province's valuable timber."
Similar allegations of graft and
environmental
mismanagement have been leveled at Asian timber firms
elsewhere.
Historically,
the Amazon rainforest's size, inaccessibility, typically
poor
soils and potent diseases have protected it against large-scale
logging
and development. Things are changing
rapidly as major new
highways
dissect the basin, providing a major artery for timber
companies
to access north-central Amazon. One new
highway runs from
the
city of Manaus, northward to Venezuela; making Manaus a major hub
for new
timber development. The number of
timber mills there has
increased
from 10 to nearly 100 in five years.
Multinational
Asian timber companies have entered the Amazon either
through
long-term harvest leases or by purchasing major interests in
Brazilian
timber firms. The Associated Press
reports major players
include
the Malaysian companies WTK Group, Samling, Rimbunan Hijau and
Mingo;
Fortune Timber of Taiwan, and several companies from China
which
are expressing interest. Brazil's
national environmental
protection
agency, Ibama, estimates Asian multinationals have gained
control
of about 11.1 million acres. The Wall
Street Journal
estimates
Asian firms control about 30 million acres in the wider
South
American tropical forest region, having quadrupled their
interests
in a few months in late 1996. The
figure is expected to
increase
rapidly in the next two years.
"It's
the last great resource grab," says Russell Mittermeier,
president
of Conservation International. Asian
loggers are targeting
countries
with financial problems that are technically and politically
unable
to monitor logging. Brazil has about 80
environmental
inspectors
for an area the size of western Europe.
Though sound
forest
laws and harvest practices may exist in theory, they are
frequently
flaunted. A recent survey of 34 logging
sites in Para
state,
Brazil has revealed that none have met International Tropical
Timber
Organization harvesting requirements that Brazil has agreed to
comply
with by the year 2000. Illegal logging
is common in the
Amazon. A 1996 raid by Ibama found over 30,000 cubic
meters of
illegally-cut
timber floating down the Purus River towards waiting
sawmills.
According
to Ibama's chief, Eduardo Martins, "Multi-million dollar
investments
in the Amazonian logging industry would spell disaster...
We
don't want that kind of investment."
The federal government has
launched
an investigation into the Asian timber purchases which have
surprised
many Brazilian observers. Amazonino
Mendes, the pro-logging
governor
of Amazonas State, has stated that logging will be regulated
to
limit environmental damage. However,
even in the unlikely event
that
the loggers do follow forestry laws, the excessive scale of their
operations
could easily accelerate the pace of Amazonian deforestation
by
greatly increasing forest access to hunters and slash-and-burn
farmers.
Asian
industrial loggers are poised to significantly impact the Amazon
rainforest
wilderness, changing forever the ecological, social,
spiritual,
and economic composition of the planet.
By opening up the
heart
of the Amazon to large-scale logging, the Brazilian government
risks
accelerating rates of deforestation.
Brazil has not
demonstrated
that it can control or regulate timber harvests. The
arrival
of aggressive Asian multinational timber firms will be a
decisive
test of Brazil's forestry policy. The
stakes are high--the
fate of
the world's largest rainforest ecosystem.
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