Amazon Updates
Greenpeace is in the Middle Lands right now with the Brazilian
federal environmental agency, IBAMA, and military police uncovering
the illegal mahogany trade. We have worked for several years in
the Amazon collecting data and investigating the illegal mahogany
logging, and now we are offering IBAMA our intelligence and logistical
support to uncover and seize illegal mahogany logs. Here is the
latest update from the jungle.
30 October 2001
City of Uruara, State of Para
I woke up early and met the gang at breakfast. We had to wait
for Ibama to start moving. The journalists that arrived last night
went up in the helicopters so that they could get aerial shots
of the local sawmills.
Around 10 am, with three helicopters and four trucks carrying
Greenpeace people, Ibama agents, police officers and independent
press, we headed to a sawmill just outside the city. According
to information we gathered, the sawmill belongs to a front man
of Osmar Ferreira, the same mahogany king that owns the timber
seized in the previous days.
The helicopters found logs hidden in the forest just behind the
sawmills area. We rode with the trucks as far as we could and
then continued on foot until we found three yards with hundreds
of mahogany logs under cover.
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The scheme adopted by loggers reveals mafia standards,
they hide the mahogany in the bush, and take it little by
little to be processed at a sawmill built specially for
that. Once processed, it is close to impossible to identify
the origin of the timber, therefore, to prove it is illegal.
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"I believe this sawmill was built exclusively to process
the mahogany we found at Humaita, Carajari and Juvelandia,"
Leiland said. The journalists were impressed by the relevance
of the action. We once again measured and counted the logs, and
Ibama filled infraction papers. The last nail on the chain of
illegal logging had been closed.
Happy and thirsty, we left the area. I picked up my bags at the
hotel room, getting ready to fly to the ship in Santarem. At the
airport, I saw the last scene of this surreal week, a handcuffed
man that was arrested at the Juvelandia farm carrying a bag full
of shotguns. The police said he was preparing a trap at the airstrip
we'd been using to land but was caught before he could finish
the job.
Saying goodbye to my new Ibama friends was not easy, as farewells
never are. But I'm sure I'll meet them again in the fight to save
the Amazon. Now Ibama has a real idea of how Greenpeace operates
and who are the people that make Greenpeace what it is.
Now I'm back to ship and it's great to be "home". But
I'll miss these days of discovery, action and adventure.
Rebeca
Related stories
24 October: Brazilian
mahogany mafia exposed and the government suspends all mahogany
logging and transport and the Greenpeace
team arrives in Tucuma to join the federal investigation of
the illegal mahogany trade.
26 October: The Greenpeace
team is in Humaita, revisiting Kayapo Indian lands where illegal
mahohany logging was exposed a month ago.
27 October: Working with
Ibama in Humaita to prepare for further investigations.
28 October: Greenpeace
and Ibama uncover around 1000 mahogany logos near the Iriri river.
29 October: The team
uncovers another 6,000 cubic metres of mahogany on the Juvelandia
farm.
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