Wood, particularly the Ipê species prized for its durability in luxury outdoor decking, is reportedly being extracted from unauthorized areas in tropical forests and marketed using false references to circumvent official controls.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) condemns European and North American importing companies for failing to perform adequate due diligence to ensure the wood’s legitimate origin, noting that many Brazilian sawmills and exporting firms involved have records of past irregularities.
“They did not conduct sufficient due diligence to eliminate the risk of illegal origin of the wood they imported, in accordance with European Union legislation that prohibits the importation of illegal wood,” accused Christopher Moye, one of the report’s authors, in a statement.
According to the activist, information about the wood’s origin, existing embargoes in certain areas imposed by the Brazilian Institute of Environment, and fines issued to exporters are openly available online.
“Everyone knows that the state of Pará is a high-risk area for illegal logging and wood exportation,” he emphasized.
The EIA’s investigation, conducted in collaboration with the Center for Climate Crime Analysis, focused on the state of Pará in northern Brazil, uncovering criminal practices related to wood from dense, protected tropical forests.
By cross-referencing publicly available data with satellite imagery and on-the-ground industry sources, investigators identified five illegal logging operations that exported wood to the United States, European Union (EU), Canada, and South Africa.
The report highlights how wood is registered as originating from licensed logging areas, yet satellite images reveal no logging activity or insufficient activity to justify the claimed volumes.
In other instances, wood was extracted from embargoed areas, including illegal deforestation for gold extraction, since these are protected regions.
Some Brazilian companies allegedly inflated the quantities of harvested Ipê, a species included in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which restricts the trade of certain species, to ‘launder’ wood cut elsewhere.
Other illegal practices identified include bribing inspectors to expedite certificates and falsify inspections.
The EIA reports that between 2021 and 2024, more than 53,000 cubic meters of wood may have been traded using these schemes, enough to fill 1,828 shipping containers.
The report identifies about 19 sawmills, 16 Brazilian exporters, and 30 North American and European importers involved, including Portuguese firms Lumber Unipessoal and Playmade Comércio de Madeiras.
Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, and the Netherlands are other European countries with allegedly implicated companies.
Gabriel Torres da Costa, manager at Lumber, stated that their “processes are scrutinized by national bodies (ICNF) which are increasingly active in their role of controlling wood imports,” and that the company has “a well-defined wood purchasing policy and a clear code of ethics.”
The official assured the implementation of “increasingly restrictive purchase policies” leading to a reduction in suppliers, reduced intervention areas, and exclusion of certain shipping ports to mitigate the risk of acquiring illegally sourced wood.
Playmade reserved comment for after the report’s publication and review.
While acknowledging that procedures to identify irregularities are not simple, Moye asserts that verifications can be performed in minutes.
The researcher recalled that an EUTR Expert Group, advising EU regulators and industry, released guidelines in 2019 and 2020 for importers of high-risk wood, detailing supplier selection, document verification, and satellite imagery use.
Nonetheless, he admitted that “it’s very easy to lie in the documents” that trace the wood’s origin, stressing that reliability must be controlled in Brazil.
The EIA plans to lodge a protest with “competent authorities in Europe, including Portugal, to investigate the [importing] companies and determine the due diligence done with regards to the involved suppliers.”
The organization urges Brazilian authorities to tighten oversight of the timber industry at the state and federal levels and strengthen measures to prevent laundering, fraud, and corruption.
The organization calls for the U.S. to enhance enforcement of its own regulation, the Lacey Act, and for the EU to implement its deforestation regulation by the end of the year.
The Timber Exploitation Monitoring System (Simex) indicated in October that the area of illegal wood extraction in the Amazon increased by 19% in one year, rising from 106,000 hectares between August 2021 and July 2022 to 126,000 hectares between August 2022 and July 2023.
Most illegal extraction (71%) occurred on private rural properties, but only a small fraction of owners are held accountable.
Alongside illegal logging, cattle ranching and soy cultivation are other primary causes of Amazon deforestation.
Since the election of Brazilian President Lula da Silva, several measures have been announced to tackle the problem, with police and environmental organizations intensifying operations against illegal loggers and illicit wood trade.
