Tong Tana - Bruno Manser Fonds

Speaking of wood: Amazon
Ban on timber felling in Brazil
a farce
rg – Brazil’s Minister of the Environment,
Jos‚ Sarney Filho, has partly lifted the ban on
timber felling in Amazon due to pressure from
the logging industry. Clear cutting continues
unhindered. According to the secret service,
eighty per cent of Brazil’s timber exports are
from illegal sources. The remaining 20% are
cut by the 377 registered logging companies
which possess logging concessions for over
16 000 square kilometers. Not all by far adhere
to the guidelines for reforestation and
careful logging techniques, as the “Neue
Zürcher Zeitung” dated April 9, 1999, writes.
The Malaysian timber companies WTK and
Samling and the Chinese enterprise Tianjin reportedly
have already bought several million
hectares of forest for future logging. According
to the “NZZ” all experts agree that the environmental
controls have become more strict
in Brazil. Whether this is sufficient to put a
stop to the “timber sharks’” handiwork remains
to be seen.
The Amazon forest is disappearing
faster than assumed
rg – As reported by “Nature” in April
1999, the rainforest is disappearing faster
than assumed. A study questioned 1, 600
people, especially owners of sawmills and
Lowland tapir
land owners. Additionally, aerial photographs
were taken from aircraft. The researchers
stated that their results were by far
more reliable than the satellite photos used until
now. According to the newest calculations
about 44 000 square kilometers (the area of
Switzerland) of rainforest were destroyed
during the past year. This is almost three times
the official Brazilian estimate.
A split up rainforest becomes
species-poor
rg – Behind the front of the loggers and
slash-and-burn farmers remains a rag rug
landscape of patches of more or less intact
forest with clear-cut and burned areas between
them. Many of these small and isolated
fragments are subsequently bought by environmental
organisations or by the state and
placed under protection. Very small areas,
however, are not able to maintain the original
biological/ species diversity, as the journal
“Biological Conservation” (No. 89/1999)
reports. Scientists investigated the number of
mammals living within two large (each about
20 000 hectares), two medium-sized (about
2000 hectares each) and two small (about
200 hectares each) rainforest fragments on
the Atlantic coast of Brazil. Whereas all 36
expected species of mammals were found in
the large areas, 30–31 species remained in
the medium-sized areas
and only 22–23
species were left in
the smallest areas. Especially
large species
with low population
densities roaming
through large territories
such as jaguars,
pumas and lowland
tapirs were missing in
the small forested
areas. Boundary effects
are also especially
detrimental for
the small areas where
a change in the temperature
and wind
regimes causes the
microclimate inside
the forest fragment to
change and to foster
forest fires.
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