Question

Illegal Logging and Frontier Conservation
NATHAN WILLIAMSON
The Bolivian government has worked for years with NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) to create plans for sustainable levels of managed logging in the Bolivian lowlands to protect the Amazon rainforestin particular the Chimanes Indian Reservefrom clear cutting by illegal loggers, ranchers, and farmers. Unfortunately, the policies put in place have largely failed, as Williamson details in his article. His research, beginning nearly a decade after the conservation policy was established, shows that illegal logging continues in the lowlands in a variety of ways, fueled by poverty, weak government enforcement, and a worldwide demand for tropical hardwoods. As his research indicates, conservation policy must take into account how those who live in and around the forest are using it, in addition to the goals of those forming policy.
For the Chimanes Indians living in the Bolivian lowlands surrounding the Maniqui River, preserving the most valuable tropical hardwoods means eliminating one of the few ways the men in the tribe can earn money to feed their families.
For economic reasons, local tribes earning a subsistence living, bands of chainsaw gangs called cuartoneros and even small, illegal logging companies continue to selectively and illegally harvest mahogany and other tropical hardwood trees, leaving behind the less valuable species.
Each group involved in illegal harvesting has a slightly different impact on the forest than does the legal, approved logger who is restricted by the conservation policies in place. The Chimanes Indians stay close to the river and only clear paths wide enough for oxcarts to get the timbers to the river. Cuartoneros (chain saw gangs) use machetes, chainsaws, and a backbreaking relay system to get the cuartones (timbers) to the river, where they float them to small sawmills that sell the wood to larger lumber companies. Both the Chimanes Indians and cuartoneros go into the rainforest and reemerge more than a month later with timbers that will earn them three to five times more than the one dollar a day that most can earn working as manual laborers. Though less destructive than the legal methods that have more impact on the forest, they will still eventually strip the forest of its most valuable treesthe one thing that the Bolivian government and NGOs hope to prevent.
Perhaps a viable solution, Williamson suggests, is an international trade agreement that controls the export of tropical hardwood and vilifies the use of illegally harvested woods, similar to the campaigns of the fur industry. Otherwise, the Chimanes and cuartoneros will continue to find ways to support their families, and eventually even approved logging companies may be tempted toward more damaging ways of logging.
According to Williamson, the opportunity for higher than average pay and a patronage system keeps Bolivian men returning to the forest to undertake the risky job of illegally harvesting mahogany hardwood.

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