Forest Breakthrough News

Victory! Illegal Mahogany Logging Stopped in Brazil Amazon.
Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, announced it would stop all logging, transport, and export of Brazilian mahogany. This “historic announcement brings an end to the illegal mahogany industry in Brazil,” declared Greenpeace, the organization that exposed rampant illegal logging there. A Greenpeace report revealed the existence of a mahogany mafia and its links with the international timber trade.

In a dramatic joint operation with Greenpeace, Ibama seized the largest volume of illegal mahogany logs in Brazil’s history – over one million cubic feet with an estimated value of US$30 million (see photo). The illegal mahogany industry has been driving the destruction of the Amazon. The high value of mahogany for use in yachts, expensive furniture, musical instruments, and coffins has long attracted loggers deep into remote, old growth forests. They build thousands of kilometres of illegal roads opening up virgin forest to development. Once the roads are built, settlers move in. The result is forest destruction and spread of disease to indigenous populations with little if any resistance.

Christopher Hatch, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) called the Brazilian government’s decision “very bold and very courageous. “This is a really large-scale intervention and much bigger than the U.S. has ever tried to protect its forests,” he said.

Brazil has had a moratorium on mahogany logging since the mid-1990s, but it has been loosely enforced. Going forward, logging operations will be permitted only if they are certified as well-managed projects.

Read the story: www.greenpeace.org
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Dutch Banks Agree to Stop Financing Rainforest Destruction
Three top Dutch banks – ABN AMRO Bank, Rabobank and Fortis Bankwill – now have policies against financing palm oil plantations when tropical rainforests have recently been cleared for their planting. Rainforest destruction for palm oil is particularly serious in Indonesia, but is a growing threat elsewhere.

In 1997-98, 10 million hectares of forest burned in Indonesia, largely due to rainforest clearing for palm oil plantations (fire is a fast, cheap method to clear forests). Haze covered the continent for many months and affected the health of 70 million people in Southeast Asia. Permits have already been granted that would completely eliminate rainforests in the Kalimantan and Sumatra regions of Indonesia.

All major Dutch banks have financial ties with plantation companies in Indonesia and are in a position to influence their environmental policies. A four year joint campaign by Sawit Watch Indonesia, Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) and Greenpeace Netherlands convinced the banks to stop financing these environmentally destructive practices.

ABN Amro Bank’s policy is the most far-reaching. It will “no longer finance projects or operations, which will result in resource extraction from, or the clearing of, either primary or High Conservation Value forests”. The bank will consider exceptions only “where extraction is part of a carefully planned, responsible national forest management program or where the company is FSC- certified for operations in that forest.” The policy includes logging, pulp and paper, mining and oil & gas development.

Erik Wakker of AIDEnvironment, a co-author of Greenpeace Netherlands 2000 study of the palm oil industry, believes the banks pulled out because of NGO pressure but also because palm oil was proving less profitable than financiers had hoped. “The economic chaos in Indonesia started a process of cleaning up bank portfolios anyway. The plantation companies are the first to go as they are usually linked to natural resource and human rights issues as well as corruption, collusion and nepotism. All this is bad for business.”

In the U.S., Rainforest Action Network has targeted Citigroup for its Indonesian plantation investments. In fact, Citigroup is financing an industrial gas development project in one of the world’s most biologically diverse rainforests in Peru that is about to begin. Two uncontacted indigenous tribes have legal rights to the land. Researchers found the region to be in “nearly pristine condition” with little evidence of human activity. The project is slated to start in early 2002. Please visit this web site to learn more and send a letter against the project.