: 2002-03-30 17:31:04 PST


Environment News Service

Europe Rejects Brazilian Mahogany Imports

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, March 29, 2002 (ENS) - The long battle Greenpeace
has waged against the illegal logging and trade of Brazilian mahogany is
bearing fruit.

The international environmental pressure group received documentation today
confirming that the European Commission is now warning all European Union
countries to reject Brazilian mahogany.

The March 26 Note to the Management Authorities of the 15 EU Member States
from Christoph Bail, head of global and international affairs in the
environment directorate, "advises Member States not to accept export permits
for specimens of Swietenia macrophylla [mahogany] from Brazil until further
notice, without first obtaining from the Brazilian authorities a statement
that those specimens were legally acquired.==

Big-leafed mahogany, also known as American mahogany, grows from the south of
Mexico throughout Central and South America to Bolivia and Brazil, including
large portions of the Amazon Basin. It is one of the hardest of neotropical
woods, and one of the most important and valuable on the international
market.

Worldwide consumer demand for quality mahogany furniture drives the trade.
Wholesale stripping of Amazon forests has resulted in an estimated 70 percent
depletion of the world's supply.

Last October, the Brazilian environmental agency IBAMA suspended indefinitely
the trading of mahogany following evidence of widespread illegal logging on
public and Indian lands. IBAMA maintains that "all the stocks of mahogany
awaiting internal and external marketing are illegal.==

The banning of mahogany logging in three Amazon states, Para, Mato Grosso and
Acre, was imposed by decree on December 5, 2001.

Several powerful mahogany exporters took legal action and were allowed by a
court decision to continue to traffic illegally acquired mahogany. Since then
at least eight companies ave exported over 15,000 cubic meters of mahogany
with an export value of approximately US$11 million, according to Greenpeace.

The Commission's move follows announcements made by the German and Belgian
governments to stop mahogany being imported into their countries and from
entering the trade.

Following a Greenpeace protest action on a shipment in Germany last month, 300
cubic meters of mahogany, imported by DLH, the world's largest international
trader of mahogany, have been confiscated by the German authorities.

In Belgium, following evidence provided by Greenpeace, the government
requested the Dutch authorities to stop a consignment for the Belgian trader
Bomoco entering Belgium. Today, another consignment in Belgium destined for
the Italian importer Laster Spa, was seized.

In the UK, Greenpeace has received approval from the Appeal Courts of Justice
to take the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to Judicial
Review over imports of Brazilian mahogany. Last month, the government refused
to seize a shipment of over 800 cubic meters of mahogany and allowed the
importer to sell it into the timber trade. The UK is the largest European
market for mahogany.

Greenpeace Amazon campaign coordinator Paulo Adario says this is a strong
signal that European governments must take immediate steps to end the trade in
illegal mahogany. "International action and cooperation is essential if we are
to stop destruction in the Amazon and other ancient forests around the world,"
he said.

Now Greenpeace is urging the United States, the world's largest importer of
Amazon wood, to also suspend the mahogany trade until it can be proven that
the wood comes from legitimate legal sources.

TRAFFIC, the joint wildlife trade monitoring program of the World Wide Fund
For Nature and the World Conservation Union, says there are indications of a
decrease in exports of mahogany from Brazil and Bolivia. "This is partly due
to increase of control measures but also because of exhaustion of the
resource."

In June 1997, a proposal by Bolivia and the United States to include this
species in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) for strict monitoring of its trade was narrowly rejected.
Similar proposals were rejected at previous CITES meetings in 1992 and 1994.

After the 1997 meeting the exporting countries of Brazil and Bolivia and the
biggest importer, the USA, formed a working group to examine the status,
management and trade in this species throughout its range. That group was
reconveneded in 2000.

The market is growing constantly, TRAFFIC says, and the demand continues to be
supplied by wild mahogany, especially at the time when the mahogany
plantations in the region are still in their early days.