| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Ms Ruddock: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Clappison: I will not give way to the hon. Lady in the last minute. She was wrong in all that she said about environmental appraisal and the other topics that she raised. She did not do justice to the subject, she did not lift her eyes above the horizon of party political warfare and she did not set a tone for the future of sustainable development.
Brazilian Mahogany
12.30 pm
Mr. Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South): If one asks Members of Parliament which aspect of the political agenda gives them the greatest trouble when they visit schools, the reply will almost certainly be, "the environment." That is a tribute to teachers, to television for reminding us what a small planet we live on, and to campaign groups such as Friends of the Earth, which are putting out a new message: the personal is the political is the environmental.
Schoolchildren are likely to challenge us on subjects such as tuna/dolphin netting, the overfishing of the seas, overcropping the land, the excessive use of pesticides or the destruction of the rain forests. It is hard to come away without feeling that our children know a great deal more than we do about the responsibilities that we carry for the future.
It should come as no surprise, then, that there is continued pressure on the United Kingdom to tackle the serious problem of illegally and unsustainably logged Brazilian mahogany--the species known as Swietenia Macrophylla. That is the subject of Friends of the Earth's campaign launched in 1993 under the title "Mahogany is Murder". The three questions that I shall address in this debate are "Why Britain?", "Why intervene?" and "Why now?"
On the first question, Britain is the second largest importer of Brazilian mahogany in the world. We are exceeded only by the United States. With that exception, Britain imports six times more Brazilian mahogany than any other country. Our share constitutes 30 per cent. of Brazilian mahogany exports. The 18,000 cu m of Brazilian mahogany that we import each year is a sizeable part of that world trade. Given such a role, Britain cannot disconnect itself from the questions of how mahogany is logged and what damage is done both to the sustainable environment in which it grows and to the lives of the Amazonian Indians in whose reserves it is mainly found.
The second question is why is there a case for intervening. The world has long ignored the devastation that has taken place in central and south America through the logging of Brazilian mahogany, much of which lies in the protected Indian reserves. Logging in those reserves is illegal under the Brazilian constitution, which guarantees the rights of Indians to occupy and exclusively use their ancestral lands. Sadly, those rights exist in theory rather than in practice.
The illegal logging of Brazilian mahogany has been accompanied by murder, bribery, intimidation and, albeit unwittingly, disease. In the past 15 years, since coming into contact with loggers from the world outside, the population of the Uru Eu Wau Wau tribe has been halved. Every month 4,000 to 5,000 trucks of illegally logged mahogany come out of the Guayayara area of Brazil. Every mahogany sawmill in Brazil creates a further 500 km of new roads into the reserves and rainforests each year to extract that one species.
In 1993, a furore was caused when the Brazilian Government ordered the main logging companies to remove their equipment from the tribal reserves in Para state and to pay compensation. In addition, the tribes and environmental campaigners in Brazil put out a cry for
4 Dec 1996 : Column 997
In May this year the Channel 4 "Dispatches" programme brought home to us how extensive that is. The programme documented the continuing intrusion into tribal lands, the widespread illegal logging that continues and the well developed network that exports the illegally and unsustainably logged Brazilian mahogany to Britain. We know that 10 out of the 14 Indian reserves in Para state are involved in illegal logging by timber export companies.
The third question, "Why now?", focuses on what action Britain has already taken and what action we must take in the immediate future. It would be wrong to suggest that people in Britain are indifferent to what is happening to the Brazilian rain forests. As a result of considerable campaigning, five of the major DIY stores in Britain--Sainsbury's Homebase, B and Q, Do It All, Great Mills and Texas--have all ceased to sell Brazilian mahogany. They do not want to stop selling it completely; they want a framework in which they can sell it legitimately, in the knowledge that that mahogany has been legally and sustainably produced. They ask that, in addition to the individual and company responses in Britain, there should be a publicly led response from the UK Government.
The Government have a window of opportunity. In July next year there will be a meeting of an international body known as the Conference of Parties. That particular meeting is referred to as COP 10. At the last conference Britain supported a proposal that Brazilian mahogany should be listed on appendix II of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species--CITES. The proposal was narrowly defeated. It would have required the production of a non-detriment document by timber exporting companies and countries, which would show proof of sustainable growth in both the forestry and cutting policies.
The proposal would require clear monitoring policies and international access to open information for verification purposes. The motion was narrowly defeated, but it has a chance of success in the next round. However, there is one big "but" that we must address: will the proposal be on the agenda of the next conference?
The deadline for submitting a proposal is 10 January next year, and the current campaign seeks a commitment from the United Kingdom Government that they will put down such a proposal. They could do so in their own right or in conjunction with other countries. If we do not submit that proposal, we shall allow the illegal and unsustainable trade in Brazilian mahogany to continue. That is all that I and the current campaign ask: we urge the United Kingdom Government to make that commitment.
Mr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham):
We must be grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) for raising this important subject in the House today. I declare my special interest as chairman of the all-party British-Brazilian parliamentary group. We are talking about a significant industry in the Amazon basin, which covers an area of 1.5 million sq km--six times the size of the United Kingdom. It is estimated that 20 million cu m of mahogany are growing in the basin. To put the matter in perspective, 250,000 cu m of mahogany--or one eightieth of the total--were harvested over a two-year period earlier in the decade.
The problem is how to control the unreasonable ripping out of mahogany from the Amazon jungle. The Brazilian institute IBAMA deals with such matters and tries its best, under very difficult circumstances, to enforce strict controls. It is interesting to note that some 70 per cent. of logging operations granted management plan status have had their plans cancelled or suspended following inspection. The IBAMA is making increasing progress in this area, thanks to the rapid development of air-borne sensors and photography which enables it to observe what is occurring in that vast area. It recently confiscated some 48,000 cu m of illegally harvested mahogany and the proceeds of its official sale have released considerable sums for projects promoting the self-sustainability of Amazon basin tribes, such as the Kayapo.
How can we help the Brazilian Government--and particularly their agency, IBAMA--to control mahogany harvesting? We should not kill the trade entirely by controlling exports. Thousands of jobs in the Amazon basin depend on legal hardwood harvesting. It is significant that the United Kingdom provides overseas aid to projects that attempt to sustain the livelihoods of inhabitants of the basin. We should remember that more than 50 per cent. of the mahogany harvested in the Amazon basin is consumed within Brazil, and therefore would not be subject to Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species listing.
That sentiment applies to the Government in this case. It is not enough for us simply to be concerned: we must grasp the opportunity to put the proposal on the agenda of the next COP 10 conference. I recognise that that does not guarantee its success; I understand that the case must be made at the conference and that the arguments must be won. Other countries--particularly those who export mahogany--will have to be convinced that that is the only basis upon which future trade in endangered species will be allowed in a sustainable world economy.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |