Between ‘mirror and Coca-Cola’: understand who buys illegal timber from the Amazon

Mencius Melo – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Blaming indigenous people for illegal logging in the Amazon region. This was the argument of President Jair Bolsonaro (without a party), to justify the apprehensions by the Federal Police (PF) of huge shipments of contraband wood, in countless counties in the Amazon region in recent months.

According to the Brazilian representative, “Índio exchanges wood for Coca-Cola” and the speech provoked the ire of hundreds of entities linked to the environment and traditional populations. This time, history repeats itself: A blatant smuggling of wood was seized by the Federal Police (PF) on the border of the States of Amazonas and Pará.

A whole shipment of special woods, destined to high standard furniture, was anchored in the municipality of Parintins (AM), on the border with Pará. The crime still runs in the streaks of justice and apparently indicates a well-organized smuggling network, which acts in the loopholes of the law and the inertia of government surveillance agencies.

The load composed of ‘noble woods’ is not intended for charcoal, on the contrary, it makes up the ‘fine flower’ of the design industry of designed furniture. Sources surveyed by CENARIUM MAGAZINE ensure that the product has the right destination: Europe or the disputed furniture market in the United States.

Minimizing is accurate

For political scientist Marcelo Seráfico, the president’s idea is to naturalize or even simplify the problem. “He wants to minimize the seriousness of the problem of the advance of predatory exploitation in the Amazon, and for this he blames traditional peoples for exploitation,” he observed. “For the government and for sectors that support it, it is necessary to attribute this exploitation to the original peoples”, he pointed out.

“There is a production process that is supported by an internationally articulated production chain. There may even be a legal standard, but they are predatory. Cadres like this, count on the complicity of the President of the Republic and it is these sectors that benefit from predatory exploitation “, he denounced.