Amazon timber stewards busted for bribes

Video evidence documents IBAMA officials accused of accepting a bribe to log a Brazilian forest area

By Environmental News Network staff

Three forest guardians working for the Brazilian government were suspended from their jobs and face a prison sentence after being filmed taking bribes from an Amazon timber company.

The trio was charged with extortion based on video evidence provided by Avelino de Dea, owner of the timber company Dea Industrias. The perpetrators could be jailed for up to eight years if found guilty.

José Mavan, José Alcy Freitas and Pedro França Dias, who work for The Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Renewable Resources, commonly known in Brazil as Ibama, were on a two-day inspection of Dea Industrias based in Marabá in the Amazon state of Pará.

The trio was secretly filmed by Dea asking for $2,500 to "forget" a $25,000 fine for illegal logging. Dea bargained the bribe down to $1,500, receiving a promise that his fine would be reduced to around $2,500.

"Mr. Dea has been the victim of extortion in the past, and he knew it would happen again when he was told his company was up for inspection," said Orlando Martello, the Brazilian attorney prosecuting the case.

"He filmed the inspectors over the two days every time they came into his office, and then brought the tape to me in August. Following our investigation, the three employees have been charged and removed from their posts."

According to a report by Greenpeace, 80 percent of all logging in the Amazon is illegal. "For the most part, forest management plans are not followed but are used merely to satisfy a legal requirement," the report notes. "Logging is highly wasteful, with two-thirds of all logged timber ending up as unusable fragments or sawdust."

Eighty percent of all logging in the Amazon is illegal, according to figures compiled by Greenpeace

A survey conducted by Friends of the Earth International, cited in Greenpeace's report, reveals a pitifully low collection rate for fines arising from environmental crime in the Amazon region. "In 1996, it is estimated that only 13 percent were collected," the report notes.

This is not the first time Ibama officials have been accused of corruption. In May, one of the Amazon's most prominent defenders, Paulo Castelo Branco, was snared by Brazil's Federal Police for allegedly taking a bribe worth almost $1 million from Japanese timber company Eidai.

In his seven months as head of Ibama's base in Pará's capital, Belem, Branco achieved a state record with seizures of illegal timber totaling 60,000 cubic meters. He had been removed from his post in April pending inquiries into his own corruption claims against colleagues. He is still awaiting trial.

Branco's successor, Selma Bara Melgaço, said a complete review of Ibama's timber inspection procedures is ongoing.

She said she knew of the latest corruption scandal more than a month ago after receiving a transcript of conversations between her employees and Dea. "There was nothing I could do until the investigation was complete," she said. "All our procedures are being reviewed. They make it too easy to demand bribes."

Martello said he could not rule out the possibility of more Ibama workers facing corruption charges. "We've had a lot of denunciations," he said. "Some of them we have not been able to prove, and we're still looking at others."

"It's impossible to find a timber company here that's 100 percent clean," he said. "Such a thing does not exist."

Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

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The Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Renewable Resources
Friends of the Earth
Rainforest Foundation International
Raintree Nutrition, Inc.

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