ACTION
ALERT
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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Malaysian
Loggers in the Amazon
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
2/25/97
OVERVIEW,
SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Following
is Rainforest Action Network's March Action Alert. It was
written
by me, and is a condensed version of recent materials I have
been
supplying which document the recent major increase in Asian
industrial
logging interests in the Amazon. Given
these companies
track
records, there is every reason to expect even greater increases
in
Amazonian deforestation. Please take
the time to write the
Brazilian
Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry which is investigating
the
activities of these companies. Make a
stand for the Amazon.
Glen
Barry
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Date:
Mon, 24 Feb 1997 14:51:01 -0800 (PST)
To:
rags-rap@igc.org
From:
ranmedia@ran.org (Mark Westlund)
Subject:
Action Alert: Malaysian Loggers in the Amazon
RAINFOREST
ACTION NETWORK
ACTION
ALERT 127
MALAYSIAN
LOGGERS IN THE AMAZON
After
laying waste to the rainforests of Asia and the Pacific islands,
giant
Malaysian logging companies are setting their sights on the
Amazon.
This past year, some of Southeast Asia's biggest forestry
conglomerates
moved into Brazil, buying controlling interests in area
logging
companies, and purchasing rights to cut down vast rainforest
territories
for as little as $3 U.S. dollars an acre.
In the last few
months
of 1996 these companies quadrupled their South American
interests,
and now threaten fifteen per cent of the Amazon with
immediate
logging. According to The Wall Street
Journal, up to 30-
million
acres are at stake. Major players
include the WTK Group,
Samling,
Mingo, and Rimbunan Hijau.
Brazilian
indigenous rights organizations and international
environmental
groups are gearing up for a desperate battle. The same
timber
companies in Sarawak, Malaysia, worked with such rapacious
speed
that they devastated the region's forests within a decade,
displacing
traditional peoples and leaving the landscape marred with
silted
rivers and eroded soil. Rimbunan Hijau
tripled the log exports
from
Papua New Guinea after starting operations there in 1991, causing
extensive
environmental damage and social upheaval among the
indigenous
communities. Given Brazil's difficulty
in enforcing forest
laws,
these companies will almost certainly follow a similar course of
action
in the Amazon.
In a
recent survey by Brazil's federal environmental agency (IBAMA),
not one
of the thirty-four logging sites it visited in the lush
rainforest
state of Para met minimum international standards.
Moreover,
since Brazil employs only eighty inspectors for a rainforest
region
the size of Western Europe, illegal logging is common. An
IBAMA
raid last year seized over 60,000 cubic feet of illegally-cut
timber
floating down the Purus River towards waiting sawmills.
IBAMA
chief Eduardo Martins maintains: "Multi-million dollar
investments
in the Amazonian logging industry would spell disaster -
we
don't want that kind of investment."
Even before the onslaught of
Malaysian
logging companies, annual deforestation rates in the
Brazilian
Amazon increased from about 2.8 million acres in 1991 to
nearly
3.8 million acres in 1994. In the commercial center of Manaus
alone,
the number of timber mills increased from ten to nearly one-
hundred
in just five years.
Concerned
about the irreversible harm that Sarawak-style logging will
do to
the country, Brazil's Federal Government convened a
congressional
commission to monitor and investigate the activities of
the
Asian logging companies operating in the Amazon. However, it is
not
enough for Rimbunan Hijau and the others merely to follow forestry
laws. The excessive scale of these operations
could extinguish 30-
million
acres of the ancient Amazon rainforest, along with its vast
array
of plant and animal life - forever.
WHAT
YOU CAN DO
Show
your concern and support by writing to Congressman Gilney Viana,
coordinator
of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. Here's a
sample
letter:
E-mail
to: <cfac@brnet.com.br>
Dear
Representative Gilney Viana,
I am
writing to express my concern about Malaysian logging companies
setting
operations in the Brazilian Amazon.
These companies have a
record
of destructive logging practices in Southeast Asia. Sarawak's
forests
in Malaysia, for instance, were clearcut within only a decade,
displacing
traditional peoples and devastating the environment.
I
applaud your efforts to investigate and monitor the activities of
Asian
logging companies in Brazil. The
Commission has a very
important
mission - not allowing these companies to destroy the
Amazon. Don't let Brazil become another Sarawak.
By Glen
Barry of Ecological Enterprises, more information at
http://forests.org/
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You are
encouraged to utilize this information for personal
educational
and campaign use. All efforts are made
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accurate,
timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying
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Archives at URL=
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Email
(best way to contact)-> gbarry@forests.org