Wood being transported along the Amazonas River to Iquitos, photo © ParksWatch-Peru
Illegal logging contradicts attempts to preserve protected and/or endangered flora and fauna, especially when it occurs in reserves and national parks. So far this year, the National Institute of Natural Resources (INRENA), with the help of Peru\’s National Police (PNP) and the prosecutor\’s office in the department of Ucayali, has confiscated illegally extracted timber from the Pacaya-Samiria Natural Reserve on various occasions. Confiscated timber, such as Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), Cedar (Cedrela odorata) and Tornillo (Cedrelinga cateniformis), has been stolen back by the loggers in armed confrontations with reserve authorities and PNP officials. Illegal logging occurs in other protected areas and tropical forests. Most registered denouncements have occurred in Alto Mayo Protected Forest, Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, El Sira Communal Reserve, Alto Purus Reserved Zone, and Tambopata National Reserve.
Illegal Extraction Dynamics
Engineer José Dancé Caballero, coordinator of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Project, \”National Forestry Development Strategies,\” and president of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Bosques, Sociedad y Desarrollo (Forests, Society, and Development) describes the timber commercialization process as, \”a dynamic system that operates between international markets, powerful businesses, middlemen, and peons.\” The middlemen are the socioeconomic actors that get the wood to the mills and processing plants and who formally sell the wood. The network these middlemen control is responsible for \”wood laundering\”. That is, through their actions, illegally extracted timber is presented to authorities as timber extracted legally, with permission.
A second timber supply chain model includes not only the middlemen but also people from native communities. In Alto Purus Reserved Zone, loggers contract members of the Sharanahua and Cashinahua communities once they have negotiated logging authorizations in name of the native communities. The indigenous people do not maintain control over the administration of these logging operations; they are merely converted into laborers and receive an insignificant payment for their hard physical work and vast forest knowledge. Their measly pay pales in comparison to the immense earnings these protected tree species actually produce. According to a report in Peru\’s newspaper, El Diario, two thousand cubic meters of mahogany and cedar are valued at $633,000 US dollars on the international market(1). In addition to inadequate compensation, the communities\’ lands suffer alterations and contamination from logging camps.
Concessions Questioned
To stop the vertiginous process of deforestation, loss of endangered species, and to reduce poverty, Peru began a system of forestry concessions in 2001. This new strategy, which is successful in Chile\’s temperate forests, seeks to promote financial gains in a more regulated and reliable system with better institutional management. According to the law, logging companies participating in the concessions must have economic proposals, technical capacity, and experience to carry out sustainable management plans and forest restoration. Those granted concessions are required to present a Forestry Management Plan covering the entire area for 40 years and they must have yearly Operating Plans defining specific work actions.
The first concessions were granted in the 3.5 million hectares of forest in the departments of Madre de Dios and Ucayali. The new forestry policy not only aims to achieve sustainable development, but it is also a tool to fight illegal logging. The Ministry of Defense and Interior appointed INRENA to implement the Tourism and Ecology Agency within the PNP. The intent of this action was to remove unauthorized loggers who were hidden in the Tahuamanu, Las Piedras, and Los Amigos River Basins in communal reserves and natural protected areas of Madre de Dios and Ucayali. Financial support for the Master Plan came from Germany, Netherlands, and Finland.
Nonetheless, three years since the first concessions were granted, things have gotten worse because of supposed poor management of institutional control measures. For example, the previous head of INRENA, César Álvarez Falcón, who was appointed by the government and fired in April 2004 because of allegations of corruption, damaged the strategy that had begun to work. Several companies that had obtained concessions exploited timber outside of their designated area and logged prohibited species. Local authorities denounced their actions, yet the companies got off scotch-free because of their ties to the government. Because of this lack of transparency and poor management, the international community removed its financial support.
The director of WWF\’s Conservation Science Program, Juan Carlos Riveros, recently commented on governmental management. He said, \”If Peru wants to adopt a modern system of concessions management, it also must modernize the institutions, but this is not found in the national development plan.\” WWF also wrote an opinion editorial in which it called on the government to take a series of actions. It said, \”From our point of view, we think that overcoming the serious situation of Peru\’s forestry sector should be a national priority because it not only weakens the forestry concession process, but also weakens good natural resource management in indigenous territories and agricultural properties\”(2). In other words, the policies regulating Peru\’s forestry sector are not decisive and the situation has escalated to the most precarious in Latin America.
Actual Costs
It is impossible to calculate the actual price Peru is paying for the irresponsibility of those involved. Timber extraction is in the hands of organized groups with capital and connections to get heavy forestry equipment needed to build roads to protected zones. The tractors create roads and destroy our natural heritage and leave access routes for others to continue extracting the natural resources. This affects everything: from the microenvironment to the overall forest ecosystem.
Mahogany -one of the fundamental reasons for investing in the forestry sector because of the high prices it reaps on the international market- is endangered. \”In Central America, 70% of Mahogany has been logged and South America is following the same trend\” (3). In Peru, deforestation is affecting innumerable species, like the globally unique giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis). Habitat destruction and indiscriminant hunting all related to illegal logging have put this species onto Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
People also suffer from illegal logging. Local people and members of native communities barely survive on the meager wages paid by middlemen contractors to extract timber. This system keeps the rural poor and indigenous people in poverty.
Illegal logging continues to operate as \”business as usual\” because there are not enough measures in place to confront the problem. In Monte Salvado, in Alto Purus Reserved Zone, there are only two police and one INRENA worker against groups of armed loggers. Budget for surveillance, control and monitoring is scarce.
Recent Developments
As of May 2004, Peru\’s forestry sector has received attention by the National Forestry Committee. The recently created Multisectoral Commission Fighting Illegal Logging, under the Presidential Directors of Ministries, has identified the root causes leading to uncontrolled extraction. In addition, organizations like WWF and Bosques, Sociedad y Desarrollo support the implementation of the National Forestry Strategy. This project was developed under the guidance and technical advice of the Food and Agricultural Organization, International Technical Cooperation in 2001, and the Supervisory Agency of Forestry Investment.
As soon as National Forestry Strategy\’s management strategies and institutional control mechanisms start functioning, a forest certification or \”green seal\” will back forestry companies that in reality work towards sustainable development of the forests. This does not only guarantee that the Peruvian wood products on the international market will be coming from sustainably managed forests, but also it will also help minimize the conflicts in the jungle between illegal loggers and legal loggers, which could be a good beginning.
ParksWatch-Peru, May 2004
By: Inés Vera
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Notes:
1 \”Siguen las Acusaciones contra el Jefe del INRENA\”, Diario PERU.21, Viernes 23 de abril, 2004.
2 Opinion Editorial WWF – OPP, Anne Frederick Prins, Country Representative WWF -Peru (taken from the newspaper El Comercio, Monday March, 15 2004).
3 \”Big Leaf Mahogany, Scientific and Trade Basis for CITES Appendix II Listing\”, document prepared for the CITES Convention in Santiago, Chile in 2002 by The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Defenders of Wildlife.