Due to the current over-exploitation of Peru\’s natural resources, the Director of the National Institute of Natural Resources (INRENA) wrote the following op-ed in Peru\’s national paper-El Comercio-to bring attention to the situation and call for better controls.
Urgent Need to Empower the Ecological Police Force
Illegal logging of mahogany and cedar has created a national outcry to urgently mobilize the Ecological Police. The logging gangs are organized into groups of between 20-30 men, are equipped with the latest technologies and arms, and are supported by legally operating businesses. The Ecological Police is a 30-member team, of which only five people are assigned to the vigilance and control over three-fourths of the country.
Incredible, but true. There are simply not enough police to defend our natural resources. Illegal extractors use poverty-stricken peons to log timber from any place, whether it is from within a reserve, community territory, or any of the Peruvian forests, without paying for the right to do so.
Reacting to this dismal scene, INRENA solicited the Ministry of the Interior for more support against illegal logging. Despite the long response time, they remain optimistic. INRENA completed a report on the Problems of Forestry Control and Vigilance in which they emphasized the need to strengthen the Ecological Police by integrating members of the Forest and Wildlife Service and the Ecological Police into an Executive Committee of Forestry Control and Vigilance.
As is, the Ecological Police force has no operation capacity. Strengthening this police force includes not only providing training for the staff, but also materials, equipment, and financing so that they can complete their mission. They are up against a well-organized illegal logging network, one that has the capacity to devise strategies that enables them to operate with communities living near forests. Working to break this network requires strong human and financial resources.
INRENA\’s financial limitations keep it from developing operations that are large enough and quick enough to combat the illegal logging. Collaboration with other sectors, such as the National Police, is urgently needed to stop further decimation of the forests. In addition, controlling illegal logging should become one of the Ecological Police\’s permanent functions. For this to happen, the Ecological Police Force needs to reach higher status and needs to be empowered to complete the following activities: enforce the legal measures aimed at conservation and rational use of forestry resources; prevent, investigate and denounce infractions of the Forestry and Wildlife Law; to perform the functions of the Tourism Police in other conservation areas, including national forests, and protected forests, among others.
Every day 725 hectares of forest are deforested. As of the year 2000, a total of 9.5 million hectares of Peruvian forest had been deforested, averaging 261,158 hectares per year. The Ecological Police is urgently needed, so that INRENA can count on a specialized, organized police force with resources at their disposal in order to address this grave problem.
CÉSAR ÁLVAREZ FALCÓN
Director of INRENA
Source: El Comercio June, 30 2003