Death by mahogany
‘The Indians cut trunks of wood, placing them on the to link their sawmill (also illegally built) beaches to be loaded onto the boats. In exchange they to the Trans-Amazon highway. This has receive steel machetes, drinks, weavings, mirrors and attracted over 1,500 colonist families, coloured beads.’ with devastating consequences for the 130 surviving Arara people who are This account from Brazil was written approximately seeing their land swallowed up before 500 years ago. Unfortunately, little has changed since their eyes. then. As we approach the millennium, trade in hardwoods is responsible for exploitation, human Logging and colonisation have also led to rights abuses, community breakdown and death. dramatic falls in the levels of the Indians’ food resources, particularly game. A 1994 survey by the In the 1980s, the timber trade in the Brazilian Amazon Institute of Socio-Economic Studies (INESC) found high began to spiral further out of control. The reason: levels of malnutrition among Indians whose land had mahogany. Its high market price has made it the world’s been invaded or disturbed. Logging roads are also most coveted wood and it is found in 311 indigenous corridors of disease. As the President of Brazil’s National territories in Brazil. Indian Foundation (FUNAI) put it: ‘Wherever there is an influx of loggers the areas of contagion grow.’ Diseases The predatory nature of mahogany logging in Brazil has transmitted by outsiders to which Indians have little or led to the destruction of the forest in many indigenous no resistance probably account for more deaths among areas. One of the most devastating consequences is the indigenous peoples than anything else. network of roads built illegally into the reserves. In South Pará it is estimated that 3,000 kms of roads have now penetrated Indian and other protected areas. Apart from the destruction that road-building itself brings, the road acts as a magnet for uncontrolled colonisation. For example, the Bannach timber company illegally built a road which cut right through the Arara Indians’ reserve egalitarian societies by heaping material rewards Venezuela Guyana Mahogany belt on a small number of people. Luxury goods are Suriname French in Brazil promised to the Indians as payment. They bring little Guiana Colombia Boa Vista or no lasting good and usually remain the property of the loggers anyway. In 1993, a Kayapó child died RORAIMA AMAPÁ of a treatable illness because his family could not get Macapá North Atlantic Ocean him to the nearest hospital, yet the same village is equipped with radios, a satellite television and its own plane, controlled by a select few. The loggers Santarém Manaus also set one people upon another and use Indians as AMAZONAS PARÁ cheap labour in an insidious form of debt bondage. Benjamin Constant MARANHÃO Brazil These are just a few of the devastating consequences of logging in Brazil. Environmental NGOs estimate PIAUI that up to 70% of the mahogany is exported. It is Porto Velho ACRE worth noting that public opinion is making some TOCANTINS Rio companies act. B&Q, Sainsbury’s and Great Mills Bianco RONDONLA Background Reading have decided not to sell mahogany products. B&Q CEDI, Green Gold on Indian Land: Logging BAHIA Vilhena has stated clearly that the reason for the boycott is company activities on indigenous land in the
Peru DISTRITO the mahogany trade’s impact on Brazilian Indians. Brazilian Amazon, CEDI, Brazil, 1993. MATO GROSSO Watson, Fiona, A view from the forest floor: Bolivia FEDERAL Survival is calling on others to follow their example Cuiabá the impact of logging on the Indians of Brazil, Brasilia until the logging companies recognise the land rights Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society of indigenous peoples. 122:75-82, 1996. Monbiot, George, Mahogany is murder: Colonisation has also encouraged prostitution, Most at risk are the Indians who have no contact mahogany extraction from Indian Reserves in which was previously unknown in indigenous areas. with Brazilian national society. FUNAI estimates there Brazil, Friends of the Earth, London, 1992. In 1991, it was estimated that almost all the adult are 40 uncontacted groups in the Amazon, most of Suruí population of Rondônia had contracted whom live in areas affected or threatened by logging. Death by mahogany © Survival 1998. sexually transmitted diseases. The consequences of Often, the first contacts with logging teams are For copies of other background sheets or more information about Survival’s work contact: this could be disastrous in a country with one of the sudden and uncontrolled. At the mercy of the gun, the Survival, 6 Charterhouse Buildings, highest AIDS rates in the world. Indians have no means of resisting or denouncing the London, EC1M 7ET, United Kingdom. invasions. But it is not only isolated Indians who Tel: 020 7687 8700, Fax: 020 7687 8701. If this were not enough, indigenous communities in su f f e r . In 1988, a logging magnate hired 20 gunmen logging areas are also under threat from alcohol and to murder a group of Tikuna Indians who had opposed Survival is a worldwide organisation drugs. The Catholic Indigenist Missionary Council his logging on their land. 14 Indians were killed and supporting tribal peoples. It stands (CIMI) reported that loggers distributed cocaine to 23 wounded in an ambush set up when the Indians for their right to decide their own the Suruí and Cinta Larga Indians to make them were due to meet with local military police. To date, future and helps them protect their addicts and so exchange wood for drugs. Alcoholism nobody has been tried for the murders. lives, lands and human rights. is also poisoning community life. Many men, hooked on alcohol and seduced by money and goods, stop Many communities have been seduced into logging hunting, food becomes scarce and families are forced as a quick and easy solution to their problems. Some into a market economy which treats them with were transformed from hunter-gatherer societies or contempt. It does not take long for a vicious circle of subsistence economies in such a short time that they social disintegration, dependency and exploitation to have no chance to adapt to the change. Contracts take root. made by the logging companies are rarely honoured, and they create divisions and jealousies within once-