"DYING FOR MAHOGANY"
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GREENPEACE TARGETS TIMBER IMPORTERS TO LAUNCH MAHOGANY BOYCOTT
Newport Beach, California (GP) -- The market for mahogany in
the United States is contributing to the death of Brazilian
Indians and tropical forests, says Greenpeace. Beginning this
week, the environment group is calling for a boycott of mahogany
wood products as part of their international effort to protect
tropical forests.
The "Dying for Mahogany" campaign will be launched at a press
conference and "funeral procession" on Thursday, March 9, 1995 at
9:30 a.m. in the Garden Room I, Hyatt Newporter Resort, 1107
Jamboree Road, Newport Beach, California.
The dramatic funeral procession and press conference will
coincide with the International Wood Products Association's (IHPA)
Annual Convention, also at the Hyatt Newporter. The IHPA is a
consortium of U.S. wood importers, including the largest mahogany
importers. Some of these mahogany importers include Robinson
Lumber, Thompson Mahogany, Dan K. Moore, EAC Timbers Americas, Pat
Brown Lumber and Interforest Corp. Robinson Lumber also has a
Brazilian subsidiary called Robco that exports mahogany
worldwide.
The funeral procession is a memorial to the Brazilian
Indians, including the Tikuna, who have either been murdered by
the mahogany loggers or who have died from introduced diseases
from the loggers. At least nine Indian groups have been
jeopardized, even murdered, in mahogany related incidents.
It is a tragic irony that one of the uses of mahogany in the
U.S. is for making coffins. The coffins used by the Greenpeace
funeral procession have been made with 100 percent post consumer
and post agricultural waste material.
Loggers who cut mahogany on Indian land and other protected
areas do so illegally, according to the Brazilian Constitution.
The American public and wood users who buy mahogany are
unknowingly party to these illegal activities. Some of the U.S.
importers get mahogany from Brazilian companies that have been
charged by Brazilian courts with illegally logging in indigenous
reserves.
Greenpeace's campaign aims to alert the U.S. public to these
criminal activities and forest destruction. The environmental
group, with nearly five million supporters globally, will press
toward a U.S. ban on mahogany imports until the trade is brought
under control.
"The American public can help protect tropical forests and
indigenous people by refusing to buy mahogany furniture, paneling
and even coffins," said Pamela Wellner, Greenpeace forest
campaigner. "Until effective regulations and are put into place
and there is an assessment of the forest damage in the mahogany
exporting countries there is simply no other choice but to boycott
mahogany."
The U.S. is the largest importer of mahogany from Latin
America, the bulk of which comes from Brazil and Bolivia. From
1990-1992 the annual average of mahogany imports was 108,000 cubic
meters, equivalent to 28 football field stacked one yard high.
Mahogany logging causes extreme degradation to the tropical
forests of Latin America, including the Amazon rainforest. For
every one mahogany tree cut at least 25 other trees are destroyed.
Mahogany is sporadically dispersed throughout the forest, causing
a vast network of logging roads.
A coalition of over 80 Brazilian environmental, indigenous
peoples and human rights groups has stated: "Timber exploitation
in general, and particularly the selective logging of mahogany,
represents today the first step in the disorderly and destructive
occupation of the Amazon forest."
Mahogany is considered to be an endangered species by the
national Brazilian environmental agency, IBAMA. Of the three
different species of mahogany, two are already listed on the
Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES). The U.S. supported the listing of the third species,
Swietenia macrophylla, at the 1994 CITES meeting last November.
The proposal was six votes shy of the two thirds majority needed
to list the species to Appendix II. Appendix II is not a ban on
trade but would have helped regulate it. Brazil and Bolivia,
joined by the International Wood Products Association, were the
main opponents to the listing.
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