P van Rijckevorsel wrote:

: The more durable woods tend to be overexploited and are ever
more rare. For example lignum vitae is now CITES-listed

: Jie-san Laushi schreef
All the more reason to reforest tropical deforested areas. Plant these
rare, durable species on a large enough scale, and this will take pressure
off the wild populations.

: Jie-san Laushi

: + + +

A case in point (forwarded)

===========
Subject: Biosociopathy: Lust for 'green gold' drives Amazon destruction

http://www.greenpeace.org/features/d...tures_id=46845

Lust for 'green gold' drives Amazon destruction
International mahogany trade reeks of power, corruption and blood
Thu 17 October 2002
NETHERLANDS/Amsterdam
The wood oozes glamour and prestige in the gleaming showrooms of the
north. But its plunder drives the destruction of the Amazon
rainforest, corruption and even murder.
The wood is mahogany, but it's also known as "green gold". For good
reason. One log earns an astonishing US$ 130,000 by the time it's
transformed into the solid mahogany dining tables sold at high-class
stores such as Harrods of London.
With stakes so high, it's no surprise current measures to halt the
illegal mahogany trade are failing. Despite Brazil's moratorium on the
harvest and export of mahogany since last year, prospectors still fly
hundreds of kilometres looking for isolated mahogany trees, then
bulldoze illegal access roads through pristine rainforest. The
over-exploited wood continues to flow into elite showrooms.
Mahogany logging is the thin edge of the wedge driving massive forest
destruction throughout the heart of the Amazon.
But there are solutions. The major players in the illegal mahogany
racket are well-known and relatively few. All that's lacking is
international resolve to stop them.

A tale of two kings...
Just two mahogany kingpins control more than 80 percent of mahogany
exports from Pará state, Brazil's largest mahogany producing region.
They are behind the mahogany mafia which organises the illegal
exploitation and trade in "green gold".
The mightiest, Moisés Carvalho Pereira, is said to make an astonishing
US$ 1 million per day during the mahogany logging season. He is said
to be aided by an even more powerful friend; the Brazilian senate's
former president has been linked to the illegal mahogany trade through
Moisés.
When Moisés buys logs from Kayapó Indian lands, which is illegal, the
Indians are paid just US$ 30 per cubic metre. The mahogany is sold on
the international market for more than 45 times that amount. Moisés
uses so-called legal paperwork to cover up and launder the illegal
mahogany. Local corruption and lax controls make this deception
easier.
Kingpin Osmar Alves Ferreira also has a long history of involvement in
illegal mahogany coming from Indian lands. In 2001 Greenpeace exposed
how Ferreira opened up an illegal road into the Terra do Meio (the
Middle Lands), a relatively undisturbed region sheltering jaguars,
alligators, spider monkeys and other animals threatened with
extinction. The road transports mahogany to a sawmill run by a
frontman for Ferreira, where Greenpeace found illegally logged
mahogany.

Five nations...
So where does all this illegal mahogany go? Just five countries - the
US, Dominican Republic, UK, the Netherlands and Germany - import
virtually all the Brazilian mahogany exported from Pará state.
In the US, which is the world's largest mahogany import market, about
half of the mahogany comes though exporters connected to the two
mahogany kings.

And four importers
Buyers should shun suppliers linked to illegal operations. But they
don't. And just four companies - DLH Nordisk, Aljoma Lumber, J Gibson
McIlvain Co Ltd and Intercontinental Hardwoods Inc - account for more
than 85 percent of the mahogany trade linked to the two mahogany
kings.
DLH is particularly notorious. In 2001, it bought mahogany from all
five export companies linked to the two mahogany kings. DLH has also
been linked to other forest crimes in central and west Africa,
including buying from companies linked with arms trafficking in
Liberia. The company controls half the international Brazilian
mahogany market, and supplies the US, UK, the Netherlands and Germany.
And whether they know it or not, retailers are also aiding and
abetting in this high level crime. They include high-class outlets
like the US's Ethan Allen, Ralph Lauren and Harrods in the UK.
Hostages to deception and murder
Logging is illegal on Brazil's Indian lands, home to the nation's
largest remaining mahogany reserves. Yet by 1992 mahogany logging
penetrated all 15 Indian lands in Pará state.
Loggers' modus operandi is to fell the trees, then negotiate a price
with the Indians.
Not surprisingly, a fair and legal contract between Indians and
loggers has never been known. Once drawn into deal making, Indians
like the Kayapó have found themselves in debt bondage to sawmills,
forced to pay their debts with more mahogany logging.
Unknown numbers of Indians have been murdered, a result of often
violent conflicts that flare up as they try to protect their land from
loggers.

A step forward
Although the picture of illegal mahogany logging in the Brazilian
Amazon is bleak, there is good news. Brazil extended the moratorium on
the exploitation, transport and commercialisation of mahogany until
February 2003. But this temporary measure is not enough. Leading
mahogany experts believe that mahogany will be commercially extinct in
the wild within the next two years if current trends continue.
If international trade in mahogany is not going to lead the species to
commercial extinction, a rescue package to manage mahogany in a
sustainable way and effective international measures to control the
market are urgently needed. This kind of protection is possible
through CITES (the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)
Next month, CITES member countries will meet in Santiago, Chile and
mahogany is high on the agenda. Nicaragua has submitted a proposal, on
behalf of all Central America countries, to list mahogany on Appendix
II of the convention. This listing would require guarantees of legal
origin and proper harvest management of the species that does not
threaten its survival. This would be the first step from words and
good intentions towards concrete action to protect mahogany and the
rainforests of Central and South America.
Yet the pressure from the industry on governments is intense. The
mahogany trade is big business. The mahogany kings in Brazil stand to
lose a lot of their illegal and destructive business if the CITES
proposal is approved.
You can help put pressure on the Brazilian government to support the
listing of Mahogany on CITES Appendix II and show the international
community that the exploitation and marketing of "green gold" of the
rainforest can happen without plundering the future of the Amazon or
the millions of people that depend on it.

Take action!
Send a fax to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso asking him to
support the listing of mahogany, but also to take a leading role in
guaranteeing the proposal is approved.

Read More
Greenpeace's Partners in Mahogany Crime report
http://production.greenpeace.org/mul...Mahoganyweb.pd
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