Amazon Updates
26 September 200
Illegal logging in Amazon exposed
Greenpeace today released fresh evidence of extensive illegal
logging deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
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Photographs and video images from a recent aerial reconnaissance
by Greenpeace clearly show sophisticated logging operations
in lands belonging to the Amazon's Kayapó Indians,
an area where logging is strictly prohibited.
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Satellite images obtained by Greenpeace also reveal details of
these operations. This information is being delivered today to
the Federal Prosecutor in Brasilia, along with Greenpeace's call
for a full investigation.
The release of these materials further exposes the breakdown
in the Brazilian government's planning system, which is supposed
to protect the greatest of the world's remaining ancient forests
from unauthorised logging.
In a bid to stop the opening of the forest by mahogany loggers,
the Brazilian Government in 1996 enacted a moratorium on new mahogany
logging ventures. But, based on Greenpeace's new information,
several companies appear to be using existing forest management
plans outside of the Indian lands, in an area called the Middle
Land, to cover up their illegal logged operations on adjacent
Kayapó property.
"Despite numerous promises from the world's governments
to protect our ancient forests, illegal and destructive logging
is still the common reality for the Brazilian Amazon," said
Greenpeace Amazon Campaign Coordinator Paulo Adario. "Based
on the evidence we handed over today, we call on the Federal Prosecutor
to undertake a full investigation of both the Middle Land and
the surrounding Indian lands," he said.
The Middle Land is comprised of 8.3 million hectares of pristine
Amazonian rainforest (about the size of Austria), located between
the Xingu and Tapajós Rivers in Para State, Brazil. It
is one of the largest relatively undisturbed pieces of rainforest
in the eastern Amazon, and is home to jaguars, giant alligators,
spider monkeys and anteaters, all species under threat of extinction.
It is on the northern edge of the 'Mahogany Belt' - a stretch
of rainforest along the south side of the Amazon River, which
has been heavily depleted by years of predatory logging.
The largest remaining concentration of commercial stocks of mahogany
in Brazil is in the Middle Land, and in the Indigenous lands that
surround it. Mahogany is becoming increasingly rare, currently
fetching up to US$1,600 per cubic metre (m3) in the international
market. The high price of mahogany makes this species the "open
door" to forest destruction. And the lack of proper control
is encouraging loggers to invade the region, opening roads that
are later used by farmers to clear new forest areas. In the past
30 years, 15 percent of the Amazon forest cover has been lost.
A similar sized area is seriously degraded.
"Greenpeace is calling for an immediate moratorium on all
industrial logging, both legal and illegal, in the Middle Land
until a full assessment of the ecological values of this area
can be completed and a credible land use plan developed and implemented,"
said Adario. "This public land is being invaded - Brazil
needs to regain sovereignty of this region."
In addition, Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium, globally,
on logging and other industrial activities in all large areas
of ancient forests, until measures are adopted to ensure that
timber is produced and traded in a legally and ecologically responsible
way, and for governments to create a global ancient forest fund
of $15 billion annually to fund these measures.
This investigation is part of Greenpeace's campaign to protect
the world's remaining ancient forests. Some 80 percent of these
forests have already been degraded or destroyed. Time is running
out for the last 20 percent unless governments around the world
take swift action to ensure their future.
View the satellite image
of the destruction (pdf file 2.1MB)
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