Brazil Cracks Down On Illegal Logging

Brazilian officials in late December shut down scams involving hundreds of companies allegedly covering up illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest. Agents claim more than 200 companies and 21 logging companies were involved in various schemes disguising the origin of illegal wood, according to news reports.

In Brazil, forestry officials hand out a limited number of concessions that allow only a proportion of trees to be cut in a specific area, and sets quotas capping the harvest. Quotas are given out as credits that then accompany the wood as it is sold and resold, certifying its legal origins until it is made into a “finished product” like furniture or flooring.

Brazilian agents say companies were selling the credits without the wood. Buyers would then attach the woodless credits to illegally sourced wood with origins such as protected nature reserves or tribal lands.

Officials say the enforcement action is significant since it showed how illegally cut Amazon wood is inserted into legal timber supply chains, using shell companies and faking shipments, and it also revealed many of the people hiding behind or doing business with the shell companies.