UN body regulates mahogany trade, Brazil opposed
Date: 15-Nov-02
Country: BRAZIL
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, meeting in Santiago, approved a proposal by Guatemala and Nicaragua to impose stricter controls on mahogany trade from Latin America to shield the species from eventual extinction caused by overharvesting.
Those countries that export the prized hardwood in the form of logs, sawed wood or veneer sheets will have one year to bring their practices into compliance with the new rules, which do not apply to countries like Indonesia and Malaysia where the species has been artificially introduced.
"This is not just a victory for mahogany. It's a victory for the tropical jungles, the indigenous communities of the Amazon and for CITES itself," said Caroll Muffet of the environmentalist group Defenders of Wildlife.
Heavy world demand for mahogany, led by the United States, has shrunk the species' population in Central America and Mexico by 70 percent since the 1950s, conservationists say.
Brazil produces nearly half the world's supply of the wood, which is used to make furniture, musical instruments and coffins. Brazil outlawed the trade and transport of mahogany last year after finding 70 percent of the timber was being logged illegally.
At that time, it warned there would be no mahogany left in the Amazon region within eight years at current levels of deforestation.
But environmentalists, who say illegal harvesting continues unabated, are pressing the Brazilian government to take stronger measures to halt the clandestine trade.
The country's president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, pledged his support for trade restrictions under CITES, but the outgoing government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso opposed the proposal.
"Brazil believes that accepting the proposal is a barrier to free trade because mahogany is not an endangered species in Brazil," said Mitzi Costa, Brazil's delegate to CITES.
Greenpeace argues those who least benefit from the mahogany trade are local communities.
Black market traders in Brazil pay local loggers about $50 dollars for a single mahogany tree and then sell the wood for about $1,200 at the Brazilian port of Belem.
That same tree can make about 15 tables worth a total of $18,000 in the marketplace, the group said.
CITES is considering about 60 proposals to either restrict or relax trade rules for different wildlife and plant species.
