In Peru, logging has been and continues to be one of the main direct and, above all, indirect causes of deforestation and degradation. This is despite the fact that logging in the Peruvian amazon tends to be selective, focuses only on the most valuable species, and leaves 50% or more of the forest cover standing, unlike in south-east Asia. In Peru, the tendency is to extract one tree per hectare or less, meaning that deforestation as a direct result of logging is limited to road building, the spaces left by the felled trees, and the areas cleared to store them. In recent years, Peru has become synonymous with illegal mahogany logging. This is partly due to the decrease in mahogany production in Brazil and Bolivia in the late 1990s and the ban on Brazilian exports in 2001, all of which led to a spectacular increase in exports from Peru where weak governance could not stop a flood of illegally-sourced wood, mainly from Madre de Dios and Ucayali.
In Ucayali, illegal loggers have established roads to support their operations in the Murunahua Reserve. The loggers have been repeatedly denounced by indigenous organizations and NGOs, such as the Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC), which has helped journalists fly over the region and proved the existence of logging camps and felled trees in the reserve. According to the UAC, the new road network “also serves as a funnel for further settlement by farmers, drug traffickers, hunters and miners, and allows loggers using tractors to drag the mahogany across a watershed divide to the Ucayali River, where the logs are floated downstream to Pucallpa and eventually trucked to Lima.”
In 2001, in Cusco, the Kugapakori-Nahua Reserve was invaded by 150 loggers who cut more than 300,000 board feet of mahogany and cedar. This led to violent conflict with the Nahua in initial contact. In 2003, the recently-created Madre de Dios Reserve continued to be invaded by illegal loggers. One hundred and seventy-six logging camps were documented along the River Las Piedras and the adjacent Alto Purús National Park, despite repeated denunciations by local indigenous organizations. The loggers declared that, in 2001 and 2002, they had 18 distinct encounters with indigenous peoples in isolation. In May 2005, two loggers died after being shot with arrows along the upper River Las Piedras – the number of indigenous peoples who died isn’t known.
Impact on Indigenous peoples:
The most damaging impact of logging is without a doubt how it violates indigenous peoples’ rights and affects their lives and lands. An extreme example can be found in the most isolated parts of Ucayali and Madre de Dios where, until a few years ago, indigenous peoples were enslaved or forced into labour. Informal loggers used a system of ‘habilitación’ to make indigenous men work for them indefinitely, often without pay or while they became increasingly indebted. This forced them to work for the loggers during the next harvesting season.
Today, an increasing number of logging companies pressure indigenous communities to permit them to extract wood from their territories, with the aim of ‘legalising’ and laundering the timber that they extract from other areas. All across Peru illegal loggers and supposedly ‘legal’ logging companies employ devious and manipulative strategies to obtain access to indigenous communities’ resources, as has been particularly the case in the upper River Purús. The loggers and logging companies often invent informal written agreements, or sign formal agreements with leaders, without the knowledge or consent of the rest of the community. In many communities there are no effective processes for collective decision-making, and the loggers exploit this by negotiating deals with particular individuals or small groups.
(Adapted from "Revealing the Hidden: Indigenous Perspectives on Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon")
Board feet - A unit of measurement for how much timber (wood) has been cut
Cultivation - The act of helping something grow (cultivators - those who help something grow)
Degraded / degradation - To lose heath; to make worse
Export - Products sent and sold to another country
Felled trees - Trees that have been cut down
Indigenous - Native to a place; can refer to plants, animals, people who are originally from a particular location
Laundering - To clean; in the case of "tree laundering" to "clean" money from the purchase of the wood to make it impossible to tell whether money has come from illegal activity
Mahogany - A tree that is prized for its beautiful dark reddish color and very hard wood
NGO - Non-government Organization (generally an organization trying to help solve a global issue)
Primary / virgin forest - Original plant growth in an area
Secondary forest - Plants that have grown up after original forest has been removed somehow
