The U.S. is the largest unwitting importer of illegally harvested ipé from Brazil, according to an investigation by Greenpeace done in collaboration with Ibama, Brazil’s environmental agency.
The investigation examined more than 500 logging authorizations performed by the state of Para between 2013-2017 and argues that 77 percent of the inventories showed volumes of ipé trees above levels considered scientifically natural. The inflated density reported in these inventories allows loggers to launder ipé trees illegally harvested from other prohibited areas in the Amazon.
From March 2016 through September 2017, 37 U.S. companies imported 10,171 cubic meters of ipé timber with links to potentially fraudulent forest management plans. The next highest importers of the ipé were France, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Greenpeace criticized the government of Brazil for what it called “weaknesses” in its state-level licensing process for forest management plans, in which documents can be easily falsified to show higher volumes or list non-existent species.
The ipé timber, used for flooring, decks and boardwalks, has become a profitable incentive for illegal loggers to trek deep into the forest to harvest, creating illegal roads and furthering the degradation of the environment, the report says. The illegal harvesting has also led to violent clashes between illegal loggers and indigenous peoples, according to Greenpeace.
