Germany seizes Amazonian mahogany shipment
Date: 25-Mar-02
Country: UK
Author: Stefano Ambrogi
A spokesman for German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said the cargo was impounded on March 13 under the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).
Mahogany is listed under the CITES treaty to prevent its unsustainable or illegal exploitation.
"The Brazilian CITES authority has said the timber was logged illegally, but the authority has told us that a provisional court decision (in Brazil) forced it to allow the export of the cargo," the spokesman, speaking from Berlin, told Reuters in London.
"In Brazil there is a court case pending, so at the moment we cannot be sure whether the timber has been cut illegally or not," the spokesman said.
Brazil outlawed the trade and transport of mahogany in October after finding 70 percent of the timber was being logged illegally. In December Brazil extended the ban to logging.
The Brazilian Environment Agency IBAMA is appealing against a Brazilian court decision to allow limited exports by companies that can show they logged the timber before the bans were enforced.
IBAMA estimates there is as little as eight years of mahogany left in the Amazon at current rates of deforestation.
Environmental pressure group Greenpeace is appealing against a British High Court decision that ruled in favour of allowing a similar shipment of mahogany to enter Britain.
A spokesman for Greenpeace said: "The action by Germany highlights the utter hypocrisy of the UK government which is supposedly committed to stopping the illegal timber trade."
The German spokesman said Germany would hold on to the 300-cubic-metre cargo, which arrived at the port of Hamburg, until Brazilian authorities gave it the all clear.
