Months after a “death squad” tortured and killed people in Mato Grosso, Brazil, deep in the Amazon Rainforest, the person authorities believe ordered the killing, lumber company owner Valdelir Joao de Souza, is still at large and, according to a report from Greenpeace, exporting wood to a number of developing nations.
Months after a “death squad” tortured and killed people in Mato Grosso, Brazil, deep in the Amazon Rainforest, the person authorities believe ordered the killing, lumber company owner Valdelir Joao de Souza, is still at large and, according to a report from Greenpeace, exporting wood to a number of developing nations.
Souza’s companies, seven months after the “Colniza massacre,” are operating normally and have exported wood to the United States, Canada, France, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Japan, the report stated.
The massacre was ordered, Greenpeace believes, as the result of greed for valuable species local to the region, including ipé, jatoba and massaranduba. In Mato Grosso and other states in the Amazon, when local communities oppose illegal logging, they are often treated violently by the logging interests, the report says.
Read or watch Greenpeace’s report online.
