“There are several strategies to invent trees, to increase their size, to use another name, several things that we found in the field to justify taking the timber from other regions”.

Listen to Edson Vidal, forest engineer

Cacalos Garrastazu/Eder Content 

THE BUSINESS BEHIND THE DEVASTATION

There is a very lucrative business behind the Amazon’s Forest deforestation: the illegal logging of precious timber for export. This is a business that has grown at an ever-increasing pace in Brazil over the last decade, and which has led the country to account for more than half of all the raw timber exported from Latin America.

Since the beginning of Bolsonaro administration, the official figures from the Department of Foreign Trade show an exponential increase in the sales of raw timber to foreign countries. Only in 2021, Brazil exported 2.6 million tons of raw timber, an increase of 91% in the exported volume compared to the previous year.

Brazilian raw timber exports have grown 6.356% in the last decade.

(value of the cubic meter/US$)

Trumpet tree (ipé)

244

Jatobá

109

Massaranduba

99

Muiracatiara

99

Red angelim

96

Source: Tropical Timber Market Report (ITTO) – vol. 26 / Fev 2022

Episode in pictures

Cacalos Garrastazu/Eder Content