Violence and corruption behind Amazon deforestation

A newly published Human Rights Watch report has detailed the desperate situation in the Brazilian Amazon, highlighting the existence of logging “mafias” which organize to illegally extract wood from virgin forests. The 165-page study, entitled “Rainforest Mafias: How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon,” was the result of two years of work and hundreds of interviews.

With international pressure increasing on Brazil after August’s spike in Amazon fires, this is perhaps the most damning indictment of the current situation in the country’s forests, coming courtesy of the international NGO.

How the mafia works

The “Ipê Mafia” mentioned by HRW refers to organized criminal groups which carry out illegal logging operations in the Amazon rainforest, going first in search of the prized ipê trees, the timber of which sells for a high price (around BRL 4,000 per trunk) and is used for furniture and decking due to its durability.

The criminal scheme goes far beyond ipê trees however, with loggers extracting and selling other less-valuable woods, before torching all remaining plants to make way for cattle pastures.

The HRW explained that these operations are financed and led by criminal networks, which provide equipment, security (which often involves bribing local officials) and infrastructure for felled trees to be discreetly transported to sawmills...