Maderera Bozovich SAC (Lima, Peru), parent company to NWFA member Bozovich Timber Products Inc. (Evergreen, Ala.), is at the center of an illegal logging investigation conducted by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
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Maderera Bozovich SAC (Lima, Peru), parent company to NWFA member Bozovich Timber Products Inc. (Evergreen, Ala.), is at the center of an illegal logging investigation conducted by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
EIA detailed its investigation and allegations against Bozovich in the report "The Laundry Machine," which was released last week. Tracking Bozovich's exports made under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) banner-which require a permit-EIA determined 45 percent of those exports "included wood of illegal origin." EIA focused its investigation on cedar (cedrela odorata) and bigleaf mahogany (swietenia macrophylla) since those species are protected under CITES.
"Every step along the way, government agencies and officials review and certify the legality of production," Drago Bozovich, CEO of the company, said in a prepared response. "And as a company, we must rely on this system in our purchasing efforts. If there is fraud or criminal conduct out there, we have been deceived as much as the government officials."
Drago Bozovich reiterated his company's commitment to sustainable forestry. "As a company, we embrace our ethical responsibilities to communities and to natural resources themselves," he said. "We have nothing to hide. That's one reason why we invite FSC to conduct independent audits of our production, purchasing, chain-of custody and export records. But we acknowledge that the world is an imperfect place. When we discover production irregularities with actors two or three steps removed from our company, we act immediately to correct the situation."
If the EIA's allegations prove true, Drago Bozovich said his company will "act immediately to correct any irregularities …"
In its report, the EIA said Peru's Ministry of Agriculture-which monitors production forests-isn't adequately monitoring forests, and that the country's Ministry of Environment-which monitors protected forests-isn't sufficiently preventing illegal logging. What's more, EIA wrote, regional governments "do not yet have the capacity to impede illegal activities in the field nor to follow up on legal cases that do arise."
As a result, EIA labeled all wood from Peru as "high risk" for buyers concerned about compliance with the Lacey Act, which was amended in 2008 to ban commerce in illegally sourced plants and plant products.
