Illegal Amazon wood destroyed

Shipment seized in Houston was red-flagged in ’15

One of two massive loads of wood illegally harvested from the Amazon rainforest and seized in the Port of Houston in 2015 has now been destroyed as part of a settlement reached with an Oregon importer, federal officials announced this week.

The shipment of 24 pallets of timber that reached Houston in December 2015 was red-flagged after Peruvian officials said it lacked proper paperwork required to ensure legal harvests of Amazon trees. Under Peruvian law, each individual tree must be identified by its latitude and longitude. When permits are questioned government inspectors often journey days by boat and by foot into the forest to determine whether documents correctly specify trees taken from approved areas.

The U.S. Department of Justice officials announced the settlement Wednesday — describing it as the first time ever the United States had seized and destroyed so much allegedly illegally harvested timber under the Lacey Act. The agreement ensures “that timber that the U.S. government maintains was harvested in violation of Peruvian law will not enter the U.S. stream of commerce,” a Justice Department press release says.

The Lacey Act, the oldest wildlife protection law in the U.S., was originally designed to prohibit the illegal trafficking of animals and birds. It was amended in 2008 to protect plants and trees. Such strong action by the U.S. government

will likely discourage other importers to take a chance on potentially stolen wood, said Alexander von Bismarck, executive director of the Environment Investigation Agency, a nonprofit that has probed the impact of timber trafficking in Peru and across the globe. “It’s a sign that governments are beginning to say no to stolen wood and that is urgently needed for the forests of the world to have a chance,” he said.

Doing things right

Though it may seem odd to dispose of rainforest wood, von Bismarck said it’s not easy or cheap for governments to pay to store illegally harvested wood for months or even years while conducting investigations into potentially complex cases. Simply allowing stolen wood to be sold could hurt the price of lumber and harm industry competitors who are doing things right, he said.

Since 2015, officials in Houston from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies have been involved in investigating two different shipments of Peruvian rainforest wood.

The September 2015 shipment was far larger — containing hardwood sawed into boards that weighed 3.8 million pounds and including enough material to cover several football fields. It was valued at more than $1 million, according to a federal search warrant related to the case. It was excluded from entry into Houston by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after Peruvian authorities presented information questioning the validity of permits. That enforcement action was unprecedented and kicked off protests in Peru. It led to the shutdown of a shipping company that had been sending wood from Houston via the port city of Iquitos in Peru for years and the seizure of the vessel by Mexican officials on a subsequent voyage, according to public records and news reports.

Then in December 2015, Homeland Security officials seized a smaller lumber shipment in Houston involving a different exporter. This time, they received a report from the Peruvian government under a Customs Mutual Assistance Agreement that said the timber was not the species authorized for harvest in permits. The Peruvian government’s finding was later corroborated through testing by a U.S. Forest Service laboratory.

Valued at $22,500

The Justice Department confirmed Wednesday that the smaller December shipment was originally destined for a wholesale timber company in Oregon called Popp Forest Products Inc. It has been destroyed with Popp paying all costs. The shipment was equal in volume to about two 20-foot container units and had a value of about $22,500. Photos show the lumber being bulldozed into a landfill.

“We are pleased to have reached a settlement in this case,” said Mark Dawson, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Houston. “HSI will continue to work with our foreign and domestic partners to ensure imports to the U.S. are conducted in accordance with U.S. laws and regulations.”

Steve Popp, the owner of the importing company, declined comment Thursday. As part of its separate settlement agreement, “Popp Forest Products agreed to bear all costs associated with the transportation, destruction, and disposal of the seized timber,” the government said.

In return, the U.S. government agreed to waive further civil enforcement action, fines or penalties. But the civil agreement “does not bind any criminal prosecuting authority, whether federal, state, or local,” the press release said.

“We all have a stake in the sustainability of the world’s forests,” said John C. Cruden, assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division in the settlement announcement. “The interdependence of the world’s ecosystems and natural resources is the foundation of the Lacey Act.”

Federal government officials also recently reached out-of-court agreements that will likely lead to the destruction of the larger load of Peruvian timber excluded from entry in September 2015, said Gregory Palmore, a spokesman for U.S. Customs Enforcement in Houston. “Recently, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), reached agreements with the companies that sought to import the wood,” he said via email. “Under these agreements, the wood will be destroyed. No party has admitted fault.”

No charges announced

Under the Lacey Act, importers of illegal products can face additional penalties or even criminal charges if officials can prove that they had knowledge that the timber they imported was illegally harvested so transnational cooperation is crucial to cases. Other recent Lacey Act cases involving illegally imported wood led to a settlement involving Gibson Guitars and prosecution involving Lumber Liquidators Inc.

No criminal charges or civil penalties have been announced against any of the importers involved in Houston’s two Amazon rainforest cases.