Last month, Greenpeace Forest Crimes Unit investigators in the Amazon covertly planted GPS trackers on trucks shuttling between illegal logging camps and Rainbow Trading as well as Odani, another sawmill that also processes timber for export.
The timber onboard is destined for the Belgian companies Lemahieu and Omniplexby the Belgian timber company Leary Forest Products. This timber may be illegal and violate the European Union law. In the European Union, just like in the United States, there is a ban on the trade of illegal timber.
Activists displayed a banner that reads Amazon Forest Crime and demanded an end to the destruction of the Amazon. Greenpeace is calling on EU authorities to enforce the law against illegal timber in Europe by seizing the timber before it is allowed to enter the market unchecked.
Greenpeaces investigation from this past May, The Silent Crisis, outlined how and why the Brazilian timber sector is fundamentally flawed and facilitates the laundering of illegal timber. In the Amazon state of Para, the largest timber producing state in Brazil, 78% of the logging is carried out illegally.
