Britain's high court delays mahogany verdict
Date: 31-May-02
Country: UK
Greenpeace said its lawyers argued that Britain's decision not to seize Britain-bound shipments of mahogany from the Amazon rainforest contravened the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), which Britain has signed.
The lawyers also maintained that Britain, by allowing the imports, was flouting European Union law.
The three judges presiding over the case decided to postpone their verdict until next week, the environmental group said after the hearing.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed the judicial review had taken place but could not comment on the case.
In March, the European Commission told EU states not to allow shipments of mahogany from the Amazon into Europe without ensuring the timber was legally felled first.
In a memo addressed to member states, it said shipments "originated in Brazil and have arrived in several member states. They are accompanied by export permits whose legality has become a matter of dispute".
Other European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, have seized shipments in recent months.
"If the government loses...it will have to prevent any more Brazilian mahogany entering the UK unless Brazil confirms that it hasn't been illegally logged. It will also have to stop its re-export to other countries," campaigner Andy Tait 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.
Greenpeace lost a similar legal fight in March, when the government persuaded the courts the export permits on the Amazon shipments were valid.
Greenpeace said the Brazilian Environment Agency IBAMA was forced by local courts to allow limited exports by companies that could show they had logged the timber before the trade ban.
IBAMA estimates mahogany will run out in eight years in the Amazon at current rates of deforestation. Prospectors often bulldoze illegal roads into pristine forests in order to cut down a single mahogany tree, environmentalists say.
