06/22/00 -- Amazon Being Logged for Plywood, Protests Mount

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Amazon Being Logged for Plywood, Protests Mount

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

06/22/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

The World's rainforests are being dismantled to provide plywood to

build our homes. Following is information regarding how Great

Britain is being compelled to come to terms with its complicity in

rainforest destruction (though BBC misquotes cumulative Amazon

deforestation), how protests are being mounted by Greenpeace against

Malaysian company's export of plywood from the Amazon to Great

Britain, and further information regarding the recent report on

multi-national loggers zeroing in on remaining rainforest

wildernesses (full report at

http://panda.org/news/download/tnc_report.pdf ). It is within our

power to stop this madness and preserve the Earth's essential

ecosystems. We must all mobilize and organize to resist and stop

criminal rainforest obliteration. Our, the Planet's, and many other

species' survival depend upon it.

g.b.

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ITEM #1

Title: Amazon felled for British plywood

A quarter of the Amazon forest has already disappeared

Date: June 20, 2000

By: Robert Pigott, environment correspondent

You might not guess it flying west from Manaus in a small plane but

the mighty Amazon forest is in jeopardy. Thirty years ago only one

percent of the Amazon forest had been cut down. Today a quarter has

disappeared.

Now previously untouched areas in the very heart of the forest are

being felled, and, as elsewhere, most of the logging is illegal.

The logging takes place during the dry season, which has just begun.

Later in the year when the rains come and the floodwater rises the

logs are floated out of the forests and down the rivers to saw mills,

many of them in Amazonia's biggest city, Manaus.

I came across a raft of 120 or so illegally cut logs hidden in a

secluded inlet on the Jurua River.

Milton Casara, head of the Brazilian Environment Agency in Amazonas

state confirmed that they were illegally logged. He says well over

half the wood logged in the state is illegal.

Anonymous middlemen approach the poorest villagers who live along the

region's rivers and offer them pitifully small amounts of money to

pick out the biggest trees.

"The exploitation of local populations is increasing", he says, "and

its leading to a greater degree of poverty here. It's a fundamentally

unjust relationship...I would even describe it as inhuman".

Sergio Lauria, the State Prosecutor for Manuas, says even catching the

dealers who buy the illegal wood will not solve the problem.

"By attacking these middle men there is no way that we are getting to

the crux of the problem," he says.

"You could compare this to drug trafficking for example. Tackling the

dealers will never eradicate the problem of drug trafficking."

This is not just a question of law enforcement, but a political

battle.

The big logging companies are pressing for permission to exploit the

forest here in the previously untouched heart of the Amazon. Ranged

against them are environment groups like Greenpeace, and indigenous

people such as the Deni.

The Deni, who live in a village on the Xerua River, oppose plans by a

large timber company, WTK, to log land it has bought nearby. They rely

utterly on the forest and say their hunter-gatherer way of life would

be destroyed by proximity to the logging.

WTK's subsidiary Amaplac is among the companies in Manaus turning

Amazon timber into plywood, although there's no evidence the company

is involved in any illegal trade. Amaplac exports much of the plywood

going to Britain, which arrives in regular shipments at Tilbury docks.

From here it is delivered to builders' yards, like the one in London

where I bought a sheet of Amaplac plywood for œ15 ($23). It's hard,

waterproof and not too expensive and is used for things like boxing in

pipework and laying concrete. Hardly glamorous end uses for some of

the world's most precious forests.

The destination of the wood increases the pain felt by people like

Paulo Adario, Greenpeace's Amazon campaigner. He points out that the

tropical rain forests are thought to contain more than half of all

species.

"In just one hectare here we have 500 species of trees," says Mr

Adario.

"In Europe you can count maybe five or six. It's incredible, the

biodiversity here is really something, and we are destroying it

without giving ourselves time to learn what we are destroying."

Greenpeace reserves much of its criticism for the richer

industrialised countries, like the UK, which it believes are guilty of

wilful inaction. The G8 group of industrial nations agreed at a summit

in Denver three years ago to support what it called a practical action

plan.

It includes "building capacity for sustainable forest management", and

"eliminating illegal logging". Another summit the following year,

confirmed the plan, but Greenpeace claims nothing has happened.

The government says little of the timber exported to Britain was

illegally logged. Greenpeace questions whether the UK can be getting

only the 40% of timber from Amazonas that was legally felled.

Meanwhile campaigners are appealing to the wood buying public to

consider themselves.

ITEM #2

Title: GREENPEACE VOLUNTEERS BOARD SHIP TO STOP CRIMINAL TIMBER

IMPORTS AND PROTECT THE AMAZON RAINFOREST

Date: June 20, 2000

LONDON -- Six Greenpeace volunteers boarded the MV Enif today to stop

criminal imports of wood from the Amazon rainforest. The volunteers

attached themselves to the bow of the ship in the Thames Estuary,

north of Sheerness, to prevent it from unloading at London's Tilbury

Docks. Greenpeace has asked the ship's captain to return the criminal

timber to Brazil. The MV Enif left the Amazon on May 20th.

The Brazilian Government has said that 80% of all wood logged in the

Amazon is taken illegally. WTK, the Malaysian multinational behind

these timber imports is one of the world's biggest rainforest

destroyers. The company has numerous convictions, along with its third

party log suppliers, for trading in illegal logs from the Amazon. WTK

is also threatening to log on land belonging to Amazon Indians.

One of the volunteers, Eduardo Quartim from Greenpeace Brazil, who is

attached to ship's mast said, "The unique Amazon rainforest is being

destroyed by illegal and destructive logging. A lot of it ends up as

cheap plywood on building sites in the UK. Yet few British people know

this. We must all protect this ancient rainforest and the plants and

animals that live in it before it's too late. We must stop these

criminal timber imports."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised that the UK will tackle

illegal logging domestically and will encourage the other big

industrialised countries to do the same (1). He has so far failed to

act. Every month up to 1400 tonnes of plywood from the Amazon ends up

in the UK.

John Sauven, Greenpeace forest campaign director said, "Tony Blair has

promised action to protect the world's remaining ancient forests. Yet

every month chunks of the Amazon rainforest are still coming up the

Thames into Tilbury. If Tony Blair won't end the UK's role in Amazon

destruction then Greenpeace will."

Nearly 80% of the world's ancient forest has already been destroyed or

degraded. The remainder is disappearing at the rate of 10 million

hectares every year - that's an area the size of a football pitch

every two seconds. One seventh of the Amazon, an area the size of

France, has already been lost.

A Greenpeace investigation in May and June in the area of the Amazon

where WTK get their logs, uncovered several illegal log rafts. These

logs included the increasingly rare Samauma tree, known locally as the

'Queen of the Forest' because it towers above its neighbours, reaching

30 metres in height and 3 metres in diameter".

Notes to Editors

(1) In a letter to Greenpeace dated 26th May 2000, Tony Blair said,

"As you know, a report on the implementation of the G8 Action

Programme on Forests will be considered in July. The UK will continue

its efforts to tackle illegal logging, domestically, bilaterally and

multilaterally and will encourage our G8 partners to do the same."

This letter is available from the Greenpeace Press Office.

- Greenpeace letter to Tony Blair (20/6/2000) calling on him to act on

his promises to stop the trade in illegal and destructive timber

products available from the Greenpeace Press Office

- Greenpeace letter to buyers of WTK (Amaplac) plywood (20/6/2000) in

the UK available from the Greenpeace Press Office.

- Background briefing, 'Protect the Amazon - Stop Criminal Timber

Imports' available from the Greenpeace Press Office.

ITEM #3

Title: ENVIRONMENT: New Forest Report Blasts Asian Companies

Date: June 13, 2000

By: Danielle Knight

WASHINGTON, Jun 13 (IPS) - Increased timber extraction investments by

multinational logging companies based in Asia is an increasing cause

of destruction of tropical forests in Africa, the Caribbean and

Pacific countries, according to a new report released this month.

Compiled by two large environmental organisations, World Wildlife Fund

(WWF) and the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), the

report shows how investment, formerly led by companies from Japan,

Europe and North America, has shifted to Asian firms, mainly from

Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, and Hong Kong. The report was funded by

the European Commission (EC).

This new trend, says the study, has resulted in an expansion of

destructive logging operations, violation of indigenous rights, and

sometimes large-scale corruption.

The authors of the report say they are so disturbed by the findings

that they are recommending a moratorium on all logging in 11 countries

- Cameroon, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, the Central African Republic,

Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo in central

Africa, Belize, Suriname, and Guyana in the Caribbean rim; and Papua

New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific rim.

''As the operations take place in countries with little or no

enforcement of forest management requirements, the logging itself is

often very careless, with high collateral damage to the surrounding

forest,'' says the report.

In addition to criticising logging companies, it also takes aim at the

International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union, the United

States and the United Kingdom.

It urges the World Bank and EC to support only logging activities

certified as coming from ecologically or sustainably managed forests.

''Most of the new investment focuses on short term activities, and the

economic benefits to the exporting country are usually very low,''

says Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, head of WWF's forest programme.

The report was originally supposed to be published in 1997, but WWF

and the EC halted the release because they were concerned that

multinational Asian companies and governments accused of corruption

identified in the report would take legal action against them. WWF,

based in Gland, Switzerland, explained to the press that the

considerable delay was caused by the need to undertake further

research to ensure that the report is as accurate as possible.

The postponed release ''has been necessary in order to bring the

report up to date following the Asian economic crisis and to minimise

the threat of litigation from some of the world's most powerful

transnational companies whose trade practices are examined in this

report,'' says a statement by WWF.

The main difference between the two versions of the report is that the

final draft of the report does not name specific companies, whereas

the original draft - obtained by IPS - did.

Nigel Sizer, one of the main authors of the report, says he stands by

the original draft as completely accurate and has made copies

available to the press.

He told reporters that lack of accuracy was not the reason the report

was withheld. While company names were omitted from the final

published report, it still contains the same key conclusions and

recommendations.

''Groups that are working on such sensitive issues, whether they are

NGOs (non-governmental organisations), funding agencies, or

governments, should fully understand the implications of the work that

they are doing and carefully think through any issues that may

arise,'' Sizer told IPS.

Both versions of the report acknowledge that Malaysian investment

accounts for more than 80 percent of the new investment by Asian

logging firms in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The original draft is largely critical of one particular Malaysian

company, Rimbunan Hijau, which the report says is ''also the one with

the most questionable track record in terms of environmental and

social responsibility.''

Even though new investment from Asia is increasing, both versions of

the report remind readers that European companies continue to play a

dominant role in logging activities in Africa.

But there are some important differences between earlier waves of

investment and the new so-called 'South-South' investments, says the

report.

Investments by Asian firms are ''growing very quickly, many proposals

are very large scale, they are utilising a wider range of species, and

in some cases are cutting smaller diameter trees for the less

discriminating Asian market,'' say both versions of the report.

The new investments have been concentrated in countries with generally

weak or outdated environmental and social laws and little enforcement

capacity, says the report.

''Lack of good governance is a key part of the problem,'' says the

report.

In a majority of the countries studied, decision making is

''controlled by a small groups of powerful people or clans within the

government that look at the primary forests of their country as a

short-term source of personal revenue.''

Forest conservation programmes promoted by donors (including the World

Bank, Japan, the EC, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands,

Canada, and the United States) have not been linked to efforts to

achieve good governance, says the report.

''Many of these initiatives are poorly co-ordinated and often simply

fail due to a lack of real commitment from the recipient countries, as

well as conflicting donor policies and competing political

interests,'' says the report.

One of the main areas of policy discord is in the design and

implementation of structural adjustment programmes promoted by the

World Bank and IMF.

While these programmes seek to increase natural resource extraction

and liberalise laws restricting foreign investment, they do not

equally promote strengthening the capacity to control and plan the

activities to reduce environmental and social impacts, it says.

The report urges all African, Caribbean and Pacific nations to freeze

all new foreign investment for the expansion of logging operations

until land use planning has been completed and the traditional rights

of local people have been defined.

These countries should look for guidance from the Forest Stewardship

Council (FSC), which independently certifies wood that is harvested in

ways that do not harm the forest, it says.

''Governments and investors which commit to sound forest management

and independent certification recognised by the FSC should receive

special assistance from donors to help the shift from non-management

to sustainability,'' says Xavier Ortega with WWF's offices in Belgium.

(END/IPS/EN/dk/da/00)

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