Facing uncontrolled logging of mahogany and other tree species, Peruvian lawmakers in 2000 took action. They approved legislation requiring timber concessionaires to file forest-management plans as well as annual operating plans (POAs) specifying the trees to be cut. Five years later, however, illegal timber extraction continues apace—especially in the case of mahogany. On paper, mahogany here is protected by Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) and by Peruvian export quotas that in 2005 set a 23,600-cubic-meter limit on shipments of the wood. But with mahogany becoming ever scarcer elsewhere in Latin America, pressure on Peru’s mahogany stands only has intensified—to the point that some environmentalists fear the species could disappear from the Peruvian Amazon... [Log in to read more]
