Historic Range and Current Status of Big-leaf Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) in South America

A Research Report prepared for:

Center for Applied Biodiversity Science – Conservation International

2008

Editors:

Martha Martinez Arthur G. Blundell Raymond E. Gullison James Grogan

Scientific Advisory Committee:

Alfonso Argüelles, Trópica Rural Latinoamericana, Chetumal, QR, Mexico Kamaljit Bawa, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, USA Ximena Buitrón, TRAFFIC-South America, Quitos, Ecuador Julio Calvo, Tropical Science Center, San José, Costa Rica James Grogan, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA James Hamrick, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA Tim Killeen, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science–CI, Washington DC, USA Susan Minnemeyer, Global Forest Watch, Washington DC, USA Patricia Negreros-Castillo, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA Adrian Newton, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK Roberto Smeraldi, Friends of the Earth – Amazonia, Brasília, DF, Brazil Gemma Smith, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK Laura Snook, Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia John Terborgh, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA Adalberto Veríssimo, Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia, Belém, PA, Brazil

National Consultants:

Silvino Elcoro Mendieta, Venezuela José Vicente Rodríguez, Colombia José Antonio Gómez, Colombia Margaret Stern, Ecuador Roberto Kómetter Mogrovejo, Peru and Bolivia Ricardo Mancilla Terrazas, Bolivia Anadilza Baima, Brazil Rogério Gribel, Brazil Maristerra Lemes, Brazil

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF MAPS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. INTRODUCTION 2. MAHOGANY: USES AND ECOLOGY 3. METHODS 3.1. Structured surveys of experts in range countries 3.2. Revised historic range maps with estimated anthropogenic forest loss 3.3. Mahogany in protected areas and Indigenous Lands 3.4. Methodological strengths, weaknesses, and the special case of Brazil BOX 1 Definition of terms used in this study 4. RESULTS 4.1. Historic distribution in South America 4.2. Changes in forest cover within mahogany’s revised historic range, and estimated current

range 4.3. Mahogany in protected areas and Indigenous Lands 4.4. Country-level summaries 5. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 6. CONCLUSION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS REFERENCES MAPS APPENDIX Questionnaire

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES Table 1 Study units and number of surveys conducted in each range country. Table 2 Historic range of mahogany in South America, Lamb (1966) and revised, with the

percent of revised range in each country. Table 3 Extent of deforestation within mahogany’s South American range as of 2001. Table 4 Estimated current range of commercial mahogany populations in South America. Table 5 Range of mahogany within legally protected areas (IUCN categories I and II) in

South America as of 2001. Table 6 Range of mahogany within Indigenous Lands in South America as of 2001. FIGURES Figure 1 Mahogany sawn wood production in Venezuela from 1969 – 1999. Figure 2 Annual mahogany production of mahogany in Peru from 1920s to 2000, and

number of sawmills in the Peruvian Amazon for selected years. Figure 3 Mahogany sawn wood production in Bolivia from 1970 to 2000, and number of

sawmills for selected years. Figure 4 Mahogany exports and domestic Brazilian consumption of sawn wood (1992 –

2000), and total mahogany exports based on CITES export permits (1997 – 1999).

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LIST OF MAPS Map 1 Historic distribution of mahogany from Mexico to southeastern Amazonia

according to Lamb (1966). Map 2 Historic (A) and current (B) distribution of mahogany populations in

Mesoamerica according to PROARCA/CAPAS (Calvo 2000). Map 3 Revised historic distribution of mahogany in South America based on expert

surveys. Map 4 Forest cover within revised historic distribution of mahogany as of 2001 (GLFC

2003, JRC 2003). Map 5 Estimated current distribution of mahogany populations in South America. Map 6 Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in

Venezuela. Map 7 Estimated current distribution of mahogany populations in Colombia. Map 8 Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in

Ecuador. Map 9 Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in Peru. Map 10 Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in

Bolivia. Map 11 Estimated current distribution of mahogany populations in Brazil.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Over-exploitation, illegal logging, and deforestation threaten big-leaf mahogany, the premier timber species of South America. We briefly review the history of mahogany’s exploitation across this region. Logging has followed a pattern of local commercial extirpation causing regional shifts in supply. Through analyses of expert surveys and forest cover data, we revise mahogany’s historic range in South America and report on how predatory logging and habitat destruction have affected its commercial and conservation status.

Results • As of 2001, forest cover had been lost from an estimated 21% of mahogany’s revised

historic range in South America (278 million hectares). • Forest cover loss varied widely among countries, from 74% in Venezuela to 4% in Peru. • Logging has had a much greater impact on mahogany than deforestation: as of 2001, we

estimate that commercial stands are left in only 94 million hectares, or approximately one-third (34%) of the revised historic range.

• Range reductions due to logging also varied widely among countries, from 89% in Venezuela to 51% in Peru.

• Approximately 7% and 15% of mahogany’s revised range occurs within protected areas and Indigenous Lands, respectively.

• Although many protected areas and Indigenous Lands have been and continue to be logged for mahogany, these areas nevertheless contain some of the most extensive remaining populations.

• Unless steps are taken to strengthen protection for these areas, consumer demand for mahogany will continue to provoke conflict between indigenous peoples and loggers.

Solutions

• Mahogany is regulated by CITES Appendix II, which requires that all volumes traded

internationally are both legally sourced and harvested in a manner non-detrimental to mahogany’s role in the ecosystem.

• The international community – and the USA in particular, which consumes 90% of all internationally traded volumes – must insist that all shipments comply with CITES, and demand chain-of-custody tracking to ensure that mahogany does not originate in protected areas or Indigenous Lands.

• Protected areas could serve as a source of seeds, seedlings and other germplasm, as well as provide a safeguard against the chronic lack of sustainable management in logging areas.

• The international community must help fortify and expand the current network of protected areas to ensure the conservation of mahogany throughout its range.

• Providing incentives for forest-based communities to protect mahogany rather than allow its exploitation could serve conservation goals and minimize conflict.

• Without such policies, continued conflict is inevitable, as is the eventual commercial extirpation of what has long been Latin America’s premier timber species.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Big-leaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King, Meliaceae) is the premier timber species of the American tropics. Occurring from Mexico to the southeastern Amazon Basin, S. macrophylla is the only true or New World mahogany with substantial populations surviving in natural forests. Two closely related timber species, Caribbean mahogany (S. mahagoni) and Pacific coast mahogany (S. humilis), have been logged so intensively since the European conquest in the 1500s that commercially viable populations of these two species were extirpated by the early to mid-1900s (Swabey 1939, Lamb 1966).

Big-leaf mahogany is rapidly approaching the same fate. In Mexico and Central America, 64% of ts historic range had lost forest cover by the mid-1990s, with remaining forest populations severely depleted by logging (Calvo 2000). In South America, industrial logging rapidly depletes commercial stocks in previously inaccessible regions as overland transportation networks expand (Veríssimo et al. 1995). Current logging practices are unsustainable because natural mahogany seedling densities are generally low before harvesting, while silvicultural practices necessary to ensure future production are rarely implemented (Snook 1996, Gullison et al. 1996, Grogan et al. 2003, Grogan & Galvão 2006). Shrinking supply and a steady strong demand for old-growth tropical timber, particularly from the United States, combine to drive mahogany’s value up to US$ 1,900 per cubic meter of sawn timber (ITTO 2006a). High value in turn drives continued exploitation, both legal and illegal (Blundell 2004). Meanwhile the area dedicated to plantation production totals only 200,000 hectares worldwide, virtually all of this outside mahogany’s natural range (Mayhew & Newton 1998).

Mahogany’s exploitation in South America during the last century can be divided into two phases: the extensive early phase when riverine populations were targeted because trees could be felled into or near rivers for easy transport by water to sawmills; and the intensive recent phase exploiting terra firme populations using industrial logging equipment, with overland transport of logs by truck. The early river phase occurred from the first decade of the 1900s through the 1960s in Venezuela and Colombia and within major watersheds of western Amazonia. The terra firme phase began in the 1950s in Venezuela and Peru, in the late 1960s in Bolivia, and the 1970s in Brazil. The boom-and-bust exploitation model for mahogany means that local resource depletions coalesce into regional depletions, forcing the logging industry to migrate ever further into previously inaccessible regions in search of new commercial stands (Lamb 1966, Grogan et al. 2002).

A major obstacle to reversing current trends in mahogany’s exploitation is the difficulty of assessing the status of remaining natural populations. Typically such an assessment of a timber species’ distribution and density patterns would require inventories across its natural range. However, mahogany’s vast historic range – Lamb’s 1966 estimate stretched from Mexico to Bolivia (Map 1) – renders a systematic field-based inventory prohibitively expensive. In the absence of empirical information about mahogany’s historic and current ranges, divergent and contradictory claims about its commercial and conservation status have prevented scientific consensus essential for formulation of appropriate public policies to ensure sustainable production from surviving natural populations (e.g., Barros et al. 1992, Figueroa Colón 1994, Snook 1996, Lugo 1999).

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The purpose of this study by The Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) at Conservation International (CI) is to assess big-leaf mahogany’s current commercial and conservation status throughout its range in South America. We revise Lamb’s 1966 historic range estimation for mahogany based on expert surveys in each South American range country. We then evaluate land use changes and logging impacts in each country to estimate current commercial range and, where possible, abundance. Finally, we consider opportunities for management of remaining commercial stocks and for conservation of surviving protected populations. While developed independently, information presented here complements the recent assessment of mahogany’s conservation status in Mexico and Central America by PROARCA/CAPAS and the Tropical Science Center in Costa Rica (Calvo 2000; Map 2). 2. MAHOGANY: USES AND ECOLOGY

Why is mahogany so valuable and, by extension, so threatened by over-exploitation? To begin to answer this question we must consider how mahogany’s anatomy and ecology are intertwined with post-Colombian colonial history in the Neotropics.

No other timber in the world combines the remarkable properties of Swietenia with its

extraordinary durability, strength, and beauty. The Spanish discovered mahogany’s versatility within decades of their arrival in the New World, using it in heavy construction and decoratively in homes and churches. Mahogany’s “ease of working, good bending qualities, buoyancy, resistance to dry rot, and slowness to ignite” revolutionized 16th Century ship-building (Lamb 1966); its structural stability – minimal shrinkage, swelling, or warping as ships sailed between tropical and temperate climates – and its ability to absorb cannon balls without splintering combined to influence the balance of colonial power. The Spanish Armada, defeated by the English in 1588, was built largely out of mahogany, which constituted that victory’sprincipal material spoils. England acquired its own supply of Caribbean mahogany when Jamaica was wrested from the Spanish in 1655. British Honduras (Belize) was carved out of Spanish Central America in the mid-18th Century largely to secure a steady supply of Honduran (big-leaf) mahogany. The golden age of English furniture design, spanning the 18th and early 19th Centuries – most famously, the Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton styles – was inspired and enabled by mahogany’s unique combination of working and aesthetic properties (Lamb 1966). Today, nothing has changed, neither the wood, nor its versatility, nor consumer desire for more.

Across its Central and South American range, big-leaf mahogany tends to occur in

seasonally dry tropical forests – regions characterized by wet and dry seasons alternating within years – at densities generally fewer than one commercial-sized tree per hectare (Lamb 1966). On average, South American populations occur at much lower densities than those in Central America and Mexico (Lamb 1966, Brown et al. 2003, Kometter et al. 2004, Grogan et al. 2008). Mahogany grows best in rich alluvial soils along riverbanks and in river valleys, but occurs as well along seasonal streams and in mountain foothill (piedmont) forests up to 1400 m elevation.

Although mahogany is a fast-growing tree capable of attaining 70 m height and 2.5 m

diameter, several aspects of its life history make it particularly vulnerable to commercial extirpation by selective logging. It is a light-demanding species that requires some kind of

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natural disturbance – increased light availability created by treefall gaps – for survival and growth to maturity (Lamb 1966). Its seeds are wind-dispersed but relatively large, meaning they do not travel far from the parent tree. Seeds germinate quickly following the first rains to fall after dispersal, but seedlings grow poorly in the forest understory where most establish, and rarely survive longer than one or two years (Gullison et al. 1996, Morris et al. 2000); those that survive longer lose their ability to respond to gap formation after one to two years (Grogan et al. 2005). This means that background densities of seedlings and juvenile trees are generally very low at the time of logging, which typically removes 95% of trees larger than some minimum cutting diameter (the legal limit is 45 – 80 cm in South America depending on the country, but smaller trees are often cut illegally; Snook 1996, Zimmerman et al. 2001, Grogan et al. 2008). Because logging typically occurs during the dry season before the current year’s seed crop can disperse, and regardless of whether population-level seed production rates are high or low, post-logging seedling regeneration failure is the norm except at rare sites where population densities are exceptionally high (Lamb 1966, Veríssimo et al. 1995, Gullison et al. 1996, Snook 1996, Brown et al. 2003, Grogan et al. 2003, Grogan & Galvão 2006). Thus commercial logging to date, while rarely completely eliminating mahogany from a given landscape, represents a one-time financial bonanza that cannot be repeated during future harvests for lack of sufficient natural regeneration to replace harvested volumes through growth (Gullison et al. 1996, Grogan et al. 2002). 3. METHODS This study of mahogany’s historic and current status in South America has three components. 3.1. Structured surveys of experts in range countries

We designed a structured questionnaire focused on the status of mahogany, land use history, and anthropogenic activities within country-level forest units described below. A steering committee, which included scientists specializing in mahogany’s ecology and management, provided input on survey design (see full questionnaire in the Appendix). The project team included in-country researchers who conducted the survey and gathered additional relevant information such as past and present production statistics and legal status.

Using Lamb’s 1966 historic distribution map for mahogany as a starting point (Map 1), in-country researchers compiled information from literature sources, herbarium specimens, government documents, vegetation and elevation maps, and personal knowledge to produce a revised historic distribution map for each country. After dividing this improved range map into forest units with coherent political and or geographical boundaries, researchers used the questionnaire to interview experts regarding mahogany’s current commercial and conservation status within each designated forest unit. Experts included foresters, loggers, ecologists, community representatives, leaders of indigenous communities, and representatives of non-governmental organizations. The common criteria for respondent selection was that s/he should be knowledgeable about the status of mahogany within a given forest unit (Table 1).

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Table 1. Study units and number of surveys conducted in each range country.

Country No. of Forest Units

No. of Respondents

No. of Questionnaires

No. of Question- naires per

Forest Unit Venezuela 49 52 93 1.9

Colombia 15 15 30 2.0

Ecuador 12 25 32 2.7

Peru 68 124 301 4.4

Bolivia 40 59 134 3.4

Brazil* 12 31 100 8.3

Total 196 306 690 3.5

*Surveys restricted to forest units within the state of Pará.

3.2. Revised historic range maps with estimated anthropogenic forest loss

Lamb’s 1966 historic range map was revised according to information obtained through structured surveys and additional sources as described above.

We used satellite images to examine the revised historic range of mahogany for existing forest cover, based on: 1) percent tree cover from MODIS satellite images collected from October 2000 and December 2001 at 500 m resolution (GLFC 2003); and 2) a global land cover grid of 1000 m resolution, with data from 2000 produced by the Joint Research Centre (JRC 2003), the European Union’s scientific and technical research laboratory. From MODIS data we obtained tree cover data for South America. We then used the JRC grid to differentiate between natural non-forest vs. deforested areas without tree cover. The resulting dataset was a 500 m resolution grid with forest defined as more than 65% tree cover. Non-forested areas such as natural grasslands, savannas, water bodies, and other areas without original forest vegetation were excluded from historic range estimates and estimates of forest loss. 3.3. Mahogany in protected areas and Indigenous Lands

We determined the area within mahogany’s revised historic range under protected status, that is, where all types of logging are restricted (IUCN categories I and II1), and inside Indigenous Lands. We also quantified deforestation within these areas.

1 Protected areas that are strictly managed for science, wilderness protection, ecosystem protection, and recreation (e.g., national parks and ecological, biological, and biosphere reserves). See: http://www.iucn.org/themes/wcpa/wcpa/protectedareas.htm.

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3.4. Methodological strengths, weaknesses, and the special case of Brazil

The survey method was not equally effective in all range countries, and results reported here reflect limitations inherent to country-level geographic, historic, and socio-political realities. Across the northern half of mahogany’s South American range, it has either long since been logged out (Venezuela), prolonged political conflict renders access to parts of its natural range impossible (Colombia), or it has not been commercially exploited on a large scale (Ecuador) – and thus little expertise exists. For these countries, surveys were simplified and we report mahogany’s general status only.

In two major exporting countries, Peru and Bolivia, a wide range of expert knowledge was available regarding most designated forest units, and the survey method yielded detailed empirical information about mahogany’s past and current status (see full report in Kometter et al. 2004).

Mahogany’s status in Brazil, representing over 50% of its natural range in South America, proved especially difficult to assess due to a ban on mahogany’s commercialization imposed in 2001 by the federal government in response to widespread illegal logging. We found that the politics of mahogany in Brazil deterred many experts from participating in this study, and our assessment of mahogany’s status derives from partial implementation of the survey method combined with an indirect approach predicting the impact of logging on commercial populations based on the network of timber processing centers located across mahogany’s natural range.

We assumed that commercial populations have been eliminated within the maximum

logging distance reported in 1998 by sawmill operators from non-estuarine logging centers across Brazilian Amazonia (Nepstad et al. 1999, Lentini et al. 2003). These distances, ranging from 34 to 300 km (125 ± 64 km SD, N = 77), represent financially acceptable transportation costs given the high value of mahogany. Given that Veríssimo et al. (1995) reported mean mahogany transport distances of 245 km (± 130 km SD) in southeast Pará in the early 1990s, we consider these single-year distance reports of generally less than 200 km to represent conservative estimates of the total area exploited for mahogany. This analysis does not account for logging during the three-year period after 1998 until the 2001 moratorium, nor does it account for logging in western Amazonia (Acre, Amazonas) during the 1930s and 1940s (see section 4.4.6) that eliminated riverine populations.

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BOX 1 Definition of terms used in this study Forest units: We divided each country’s historic range into relatively homogenous units, also referred to as ‘mahogany conservation units’ or MCUs. Units were divided based on administrative and land use boundaries as well as forest cover. Where possible, experts were surveyed for each forest unit. Mahogany density: Unless otherwise stated, ‘density’ refers to the average density of commercial mahogany trees within an MCU, recognizing that there may be areas with higher and lower densities within the unit. Commercial tree size: Refers to trees equal to or larger than 60 cm diameter at breast height (dbh). Although the legal minimum commercial size varies by country (e.g., 75 cm dbh in Peru, 70 cm dbh in Bolivia, and 45 cm dbh in Brazil before 2003), for the purpose of this study we used 60 cm dbh as the smallest commercial-sized tree. Reproductive tree size: Refers to trees larger than 30 cm dbh, based on data from Gullison (1996) and Grogan & Galvão (2006). Commercially viable population: Commercial viability depends on a number of factors: 1) the density of commercial-sized trees, 2) the value of mahogany, and 3) the cost of harvest and transport. For the purpose of this study we focused on the first factor: experts considered a forest unit to be commercially viable if it contained stands of commercial-sized mahogany trees. Price and site accessibility were not considered in the ‘viability’ definition because both may change rapidly given the nature of logging infrastructure and technology. Commercially depleted population: Logged areas, because typically more than 90% of commercial-sized trees are extracted during logging. The term terra firme is applied to all forests which are not seasonally flooded by rivers, thus differentiating it from flooded várzea and igapó forests. Terra firme forests are also differentiated from open formations such as campinas, savannas, cerrados, and caatingas. 4. RESULTS 4.1. Historic distribution in South America Lamb’s 1966 estimate of mahogany’s historic range in South America was based on anecdotal reports and his wide travels during the first half of the 20th Century rather than on structured inventories. Expert respondents revised Lamb’s estimate downward by 19% to 277.7 million hectares (Table 2), roughly equivalent to the total land area of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru combined. Reductions were most pronounced in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil, where Lamb’s range overlapped extensive areas of savanna, cerrado, and scrub woodland that are unsuitable for mahogany. Brazil alone accounts for 57% of the revised historic range in South America, most of this occurring along the seasonally dry southern rim of closed Amazon forests.

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Table 2. Historic range of mahogany in South America, Lamb (1966) and revised, with the percent of revised range in each country.

Country Lamb

Historic Range(million ha)

Revised Historic Range

(million ha)

% Total Revised Range

Venezuela 16.3 9.3 3.4

Colombia 11.4 18.1 6.5

Ecuador 3.5 6.8 2.4

Peru 38.5 54.8 19.7

Bolivia 78.1 29.9 10.8

Brazil 194.2 158.8 57.2

Total 342.0 277.7 100.0

4.2. Changes in forest cover within mahogany’s revised historic range, and estimated current range

Overlaying mahogany’s revised historic range with recent forest cover estimates demonstrates that approximately 58 million hectares of the 277.7 million hectares range had been deforested by 2001 (Table 3), with the most dramatic reductions occurring in Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil (Map 4). Mahogany has been widely exploited in regions with remaining forest (Veríssimo et al. 1995, Gullison et al. 1996, Grogan et al. 2002). Expert surveys and, in Brazil, timber processing centers allowed estimation of the current distribution and relative abundance of mahogany in areas where forest cover appeared relatively intact (Table 4, Maps 5 – 11). Although an estimated 21% of mahogany’s historic range in South America had lost forest cover by 2001, we found that the estimated decrease in the range of commercial mahogany was much more extensive, with two-thirds (66%) of historic range lost.

By comparison, the PROARCA/CAPAS survey (Calvo 2000) estimated a 64% reduction

in mahogany’s historic range in Mexico and Central America, primarily due to deforestation. However, their results do not indicate how much of this remaining range likely retains commercial populations.

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Table 3. Extent of deforestation within mahogany’s South American range as of 2001.

Country Revised Range

(million ha)

Remaining Forest Cover (million ha)

% Loss of Forest Cover

Venezuela 9.3 2.4 74.2

Colombia 18.1 9.1 49.7

Ecuador 6.8 6.3 7.4

Peru 54.8 52.7 3.8

Bolivia 29.9 27.5 8.0

Brazil 158.8 121.4 23.6

Total 277.7 219.4 21.0 Table 4. Estimated current range of commercial mahogany populations in South America, where current range is the revised range less deforestation and areas where mahogany has been commercially extirpated.

Country Revised Range

(million ha)

Estimated Current Range

(million ha)

Current Range as % of Revised

Range Source

Venezuela 9.3 1.0 10.8 Surveys, forest cover

Colombia 18.1 2.0 11.0 Forest cover

Ecuador 6.8 1.8 26.5 Surveys, forest cover

Peru 54.8 27.0 49.3 Surveys, forest cover

Bolivia 29.9 7.0 23.4 Surveys, forest cover

Brazil 158.8 55.3 34.8 Sawmill centers

Total 277.7 94.1 33.9 4.3. Mahogany in protected areas and Indigenous Lands

Nearly 7% of mahogany’s revised historic range in South America is under legal protection (Table 5), and an additional 15% lies within legally recognized Indigenous Lands (Table 6). Because of overlap in protected status between these two categories in Brazil, that is, Indigenous Lands in Brazil cannot be legally be commercially logged, the combined total likely represents closer to 20% of the revised range in protection.

Forest cover maps confirm that deforestation affects much lower percentages of protected

areas compared to the overall range (4.8% vs. 21%; cf Bruner et al. 2001), while Indigenous Lands are also highly effective at curbing deforestation (10% vs. 21%; Schwartzman & Zimmerman 2005). In Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, 14 – 16% of mahogany’s historic range remains protected and forested. In Brazil, an estimated 22% of mahogany’s historic range lies

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within Indigenous Lands and remains forested. However, in reality, throughout mahogany’s range, its high value ensures that neither category of protected status affords real protection against illegal logging, and commercial populations cannot be assumed to survive where forests persist under protected status or within Indigenous Lands. (See country reports, especially Brazil, for further discussion of this issue.) Table 5. Range of mahogany within legally protected areas (IUCN categories I and II) in South America as of 2001.

Country Revised Range

(million ha)

Range in Protected Areas

(million ha)

Forest Cover Loss in

Protected Areas(million ha)

% Range in Protected Areas

Deforested

% Revised Range

Protected & Forested

Venezuela 9.3 0.1 0.06 64.0 0.4

Colombia 18.1 2.1 0.13 6.3 10.9

Ecuador 6.8 1.1 0.004 0.4 16.1

Peru 54.8 7.8 0.16 2.1 13.9

Bolivia 29.9 4.2 0.37 8.9 12.8

Brazil 158.8 3.1 0.07 2.4 1.9

Total 277.7 18.4 0.80 4.3 6.3

Table 6. Range of mahogany within Indigenous Lands* in South America as of 2001.

Country Revised Range

(million ha)

Range in Indigenous

Lands (million ha)

Forest Cover Loss in

Protected Areas(million ha)

% Range in Indigenous

Lands Deforested

% Revised Range in

Indigenous Lands & Forested

Venezuela 9.3 0 ⎯ ⎯ 0

Colombia 18.1 0.2 0.07 35.7 0.7

Ecuador** 6.8 ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯

Peru 54.8 1.0 0.05 5.1 1.7

Bolivia 29.9 2.1 0.08 3.7 6.8

Brazil 158.8 38.6 4.0 10.4 21.7

Total 277.7 41.9 4.2 10.0 13.6

* There is some overlap with protected areas in cases where Indigenous Lands are also designated as protected and fall within IUCN category I or II. ** In Ecuador there is no official record of Indigenous Land boundaries. Legal demarcation of these lands was in process as this report was being written.

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4.4. Country-level summaries

In this section we briefly describe country-level patterns of mahogany’s distribution and abundance; exploitation and trade, providing production statistics where available; and current commercial and conservation status. It should be noted that trade information varies widely in quality from country to country because tracking systems for timber extraction and commerce have been slow to develop and be implemented across the region. Obtaining reliable trade data is further complicated by the fact that range countries estimate that illegal logging comprises 30 – 80% of all mahogany harvested (Blundell 2004). 4.4.1. VENEZUELA

Distribution and abundance. In Venezuela (Map 6), mahogany’s historic range was split by coastal mountains that connect with the Andean Cordillera in the southwest. Mahogany occurred north of these mountains in the region surrounding the Maracaibo Lake depression, and on the south side in the plains region stretching across the western states of Barinas, Portuguesa, and Cojedes. The revised natural range in Venezuela covers an estimated 9.3 million hectares (Table 3). According to experts, mahogany was most abundant in rich alluvial soils in lowland riparian forests, but was also widely distributed in semi-evergreen upland (piedmont) forests and in foothill gallery forests up to 900 m above sea level. Though inventory data are scarce, what sources are available indicate that mahogany occurred, on average, at densities well below one commercial tree per hectare.

History of exploitation. Little is known about early exploitation patterns. Lamb (1966) noted exports to the United States as early as 1908. Exports to France and Germany began before World War I (Pittier 1921). With Spanish cedar (Cedrela odorata, also Meliaceae), mahogany was logged beginning in the 1920s from Cojedes and Portuguesa near the cities of Valencea and Cardeas, and from Barinas further southwest beginning in 1939 (Kammesheidt et al. 2001). The 1955 Forestry Law of Soils and Water established four permanent Forest Reserves within mahogany’s range with the objective of building a national wood-processing industry based on sustainable timber production. However, the concession system implemented in Forest Reserves began as simple annual logging permits, and has been poorly regulated; logging practices essentially high-graded high-value species, and future harvests will yield mostly low-value low-density timber (Centeno 1995, Kammesheidt et al. 2001). Experts report that commercial mahogany stocks today occur in only two of the original four Forest Reserves (Ticoporo & Caparo; Map 6).

Sawn timber production of mahogany from Venezuela peaked in 1971 at 23,764 cubic meters, falling to 1,919 cubic meters by 1999 (Venezuela 2001; Figure 1). This decline was due to reduced supply. Production statistics are unavailable for the period before 1969.

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Figure 1. Mahogany sawn wood production in Venezuela from 1969 – 1999.

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

1969

1971

1973

1975

1984

1986

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

Year

Vol

ume

(cub

ic m

eter

s)

Current commercial and conservation status. As of 2001, 74% of mahogany’s original estimated range of 9.3 million hectares had been deforested in Venezuela, while decades of selective logging had eliminated commercial stands from 89% of mahogany’s range. Experts believe that densities are very low (fewer than 0.01 trees/ha) in approximately 87% of areas where mahogany can still be found, low (0.01 – 0.1 trees/ha) in 13%, and medium (0.1 – 1.0 trees/ha) in less than 1%. A little over half (51%) of the area where mahogany reportedly occurs is private property, with the remainder in National Parks (21%) and Forest Reserves (28%) under concession management. In general, experts reported that it is difficult at present to locate unlogged natural mahogany populations in Venezuela. 4.4.2. COLOMBIA

Distribution and abundance. Mahogany’s historic range covered an estimated 18.1 million hectares in Colombia (Map 7) and included three or more disjunct regions corresponding roughly with seasonally dry lowland or piedmont forests flanking the lower slopes of Andean and northern mountain ranges. These include: 1) the Pacific-side, northwest Darién region adjacent to Panama (Chocó Department), extending to the lower dry zones of the Mulatos and San Juan River watersheds; 2) the northern Caribbean-side lowland plains and foothills of the Cordillera Oriental that continues into Venezuela, extending south into mountain valleys drained by the Cauca and Magdalena Rivers; and 3) seasonal foothill forests flanking the eastern Andean slopes above the Amazonian lowlands draining towards Brazil. Commercial logging has also been reported from the southwestern corner of Colombia in the Puré and Purite River watersheds. Given the on-going political instability in Colombia, no information is available regarding abundance patterns, but Colombia’s minor historic role as a mahogany exporter (see below) indicates that natural population densities were, on average, low to very low.

History of exploitation. Along with Peru, Venezuela, and Central American colonies, Colombia supplied Spain with mahogany during colonial times (Record & Hess 1943). Records of sales from Colombia date from 1786 through the 1800s. From 1900 until the beginning of World War II, colonization of the agricultural frontier led to extensive deforestation of piedmont and central mountain forests. Forest products such as rubber, balata (a natural gum), quinine,

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and mahogany were in high demand during this period. From 1940 – 1952, industrial logging centered on the Pacific region and the central Cauca and Magdalena River valleys. Mahogany was exported from Colombia to the United States from 1953 through the late 1960s (Lamb 1966). The start of mechanized logging in terra firme forests coincided with federal laws issued in 1959 establishing forest reserves for the management and economic development of forest resources. Widespread deforestation associated with selective logging and the expanding agricultural frontier continued into the 1980s. No production statistics are available for Colombia aside from minor export volumes to the United States beginning in 1954 cited in Lamb (1966).

Current commercial and conservation status. Roughly 50% of mahogany’s historic range in Colombia has lost forest cover (Table 3). Despite the lack of detailed inventories, substantial deforestation and the absence of any significant trade contribute to the belief that mahogany is commercially depleted throughout the country (Colombia 2001). Based on expert reports, we estimate that mahogany’s historic range has been reduced to 2 million hectares or less. The most significant remaining natural populations of mahogany probably occur in the northern Pacific region of the Department of Chocó on the Panamanian border (MINAMBIENTE 1997), encompassing the municipalities of Bahía Solano and Juradó; and in Indigenous Reserves located along the Domingodó, Opogado-Guaguando, Napipi, Alto Río Cuta, Uva and Pogue Rivers, particularly in the upper watershed areas which serve as buffer zones for Ensenada de Utria Natural National Park. Outside these areas, commercial stocks probably no longer exist, though mahogany may be present in logged forests or surviving forest fragments at extremely low densities. 4.4.3. ECUADOR

Distribution and abundance. Mahogany’s historic range in Ecuador (Map 8) covered approximately 6.8 million hectares of Amazonian forests east of the Andes mountains. Mahogany most commonly occurred on alluvial terraces in nutrient-rich, deep, well-drained soils adjacent to major rivers draining the Napo, Pastaza, and Sucumbíos Provinces, and within tributary watersheds in Andean foothills up to 500 m elevation. Possibly due to the relative aseasonality of Ecuador’s Amazon region, natural populations occurred at low or very low densities (fewer than 0.1/ha). One indication of this is the fact that no forest inventory in the Amazon region during the period 1942 – 1980 registered mahogany’s presence; it was not until 1985 that mahogany was first recorded in Ecuador (P. Stern, pers. comm.). Mahogany’s frequent association with rich alluvial soils means that gradual conversion of riverine forests to agriculture by Amerindian communities during the past century has likely reduced natural population densities through habitat loss.

History of exploitation. Mahogany’s late ‘appearance’ may be attributable to a number of related factors. Industrial logging was slow to develop in Ecuador’s Amazon region due to the challenge of moving timber over the Andes to processing centers and ports on the Pacific coast. For this reason, forestry authorities were unfamiliar with the species, and the common Quichua name for mahogany, ahuano, apparently failed to register as high-value mahogany. In fact, the Spanish-language name for mahogany, caoba, refers in Ecuador to other commercial timber

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species, including Platymiscium spp. (Fabaceae), Caryodaphnopsis theobromifolium (Lauraceae), and Guarea cartaguenya (Meliaceae).

A commercial boom occurred during the decade after mahogany was first recorded. Ecuadorean mahogany was illegally harvested and exported through the northern Sucumbíos Province into Colombia via the San Miguel River (Palacios & Zuleta 1995), ending up, among other uses, as ornate doors at luxury hotels (for example, at the Hotel Dann Carlton in Cali; F. Guttierez, pers. comm.). No production data are available for Ecuador.

Current commercial and conservation status. There are presently no forestry concessions for mahogany in Ecuador and all harvest is illegal. Expert surveys indicate that approximately 73% of the historic range lacks commercial populations as a result of over-exploitation. The most important remaining populations are probably located in the headwater region of medium-sized tributaries of the Napo River, that is, in adjacent watersheds of the Cusano, Nushiño, and Sotano Rivers. The lower slopes of the Sumaco volcano adjacent to the Sumaco-Galeras National Park may also harbor natural populations. 4.4.4. PERU

Distribution and abundance. Mahogany’s historic range in Peru (Map 9) covered an estimated 55 million hectares across most of the country’s eastern Amazon region. Mahogany occurs along riverbanks and in terra firme lowlands including mixed bamboo forests, as well as in terraced foothills at the base of the Andes mountains. Little is known about abundance patterns of riverine populations that had largely vanished by the early 1970s (White 1978), but United States import volumes from 1908 – 1960 reported by Lamb (1966) suggest that these occurred at relatively low densities. Based on the densities of surviving populations and trade statistics, it is probable that terra firme populations seldom exceeded one commercial tree per hectare at landscape (meso) scales.

History of exploitation. Commercial exploitation of mahogany along Peruvian tributaries of the Amazon River began during the first decade of the 20th Century and accelerated after construction of sawmills in Iquitos during the 1920s, following the collapse of the rubber industry (Figure 2). This earliest exploitation targeted trees growing along riverbanks or within manual hauling distance of flowing water for ease of transport to sawmills downriver. As annual production gradually increased, the mahogany frontier retreated from Iquitos as loggers had to travel ever further afield to obtain sawlogs. An estimated 50,000 hectares of riverine forests were logged annually from the 1920s through the 1940s from watersheds surrounding Iquitos and along principal tributaries of the region such as the Ucayali River.

The first trans-Andean road from Lima reached Pucallpa during the 1950s, allowing overland log transport and export via the Pacific coast. This spurred expansion of the logging frontier to adjacent watersheds and the upper Ucayali region, including the Tamaya River and Alexander von Humboldt Forest, with an estimated 150,000 hectares exploited annually during this period. A road reached San Martin Department in the 1970s, opening a new logging front for mahogany and again expanding exploitation to an estimated 250,000 hectares annually within the Biabo, Saposoa, Sisa, and Huallabamba River watersheds. During this period, loggers

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expanded their search area into terra firme forests as riverine populations were extirpated (White 1978).

The export market expanded dramatically during the early 1980s as mechanized logging made it profitable to log mahogany from increasingly remote areas. This encouraged illegal activities. Loggers exploited mahogany in protected areas using banned techniques such as cuartoneo (quartering sawlogs with chainsaws to facilitate overland transport). In the mid- 1990s, with supply declining from Bolivia and Brazil, logging pressure on remaining stocks further intensified. A spike in exports during the second half of the 1990s led Peru to ban logging from some watersheds suffering severe over-exploitation, including the Tamaya River watershed.

In 1999 a US-financed sawmill was charged with illegal logging and construction of

approximately 100 km of illegal logging roads (Supreme Decree 047-99-A). This joint venture between Newman Lumber of Mississippi and IMT of Peru processed approximately 59,000 cubic meters of mahogany between 1998 and 1999, worth approximately $44 million (Blundell & Gullison 2003) – more than the entire volume that Peru exported legally during this period (i.e., 55,000 cubic meters based on CITES data).

Since the CITES Appendix II listing for mahogany went into effect in November 2003,

national export quotas set by the National Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA) have decreased from 30,785 m3 in 2004 to 23,240 m3 in 2006. Controversy over the scientific basis for these quotas, necessary to fulfill the non-detriment requirement for export under Appendix II, led in 2006 to recommendations by the CITES Secretariat (subsequently withdrawn on technical grounds) that Peruvian supply be subject to Significant Trade Review, as well as to legal action by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) seeking to halt US imports of Peruvian mahogany under provisions of the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). According to the NRDC lawsuit, at least 39% of the Peruvian exports of mahogany to the USA in 2005 were from concessions that INRENA later cancelled because of illegal activity – this despite the fact that INRENA had issued CITES certificates for these shipments assuring legal acquisition and non-detriment.

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Figure 2. Annual production of mahogany in Peru from the 1920s to 2000, and number of sawmills in the Peruvian Amazon for selected years. Volume data before 1980 are presented as annual averages per decade. Sources: David 1971; David & Cornejo 1980; Chirif 1983; UNALM 1985; INRENA 1997, 1997-2001.

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Current commercial and conservation status. Although forest cover remains relatively intact across mahogany’s historic range in Peru, expert surveys indicate that decades of selective logging, especially intensive terra firme logging carried out since the early 1990s, have eliminated commercially viable populations from 50% of this area. Survey respondents further indicated that 14% of the historic range under strict protection – within National Parks and Reserved Zones – is currently being logged illegally, while an additional 7% has been logged in the past. Where logging is occurring, survey respondents indicated that commercial depletion is likely within five years (Kometter et al. 2004).

Remaining mahogany populations are located mainly in the least accessible or most remote areas of the Peruvian Amazon, which correspond in large degree to protected areas and Indigenous Lands. The most important stands, those with the highest reported densities (0.1 – 1 trees/ha), occur near the border with Brazil’s western state of Acre within the Alto Purús Reserved Zone, a naturally isolated, roadless area located in the upper watershed of the Purús River; and in the northwestern section of Manu National Park.

In 2002, violence broke out between loggers and Amerindians near Rio Piedras in the

Department of Madre de Dios. Meanwhile the logging industry staged violent demonstrations against the National Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA) and the environmental group ProNaturaleza in Puerto Maldonado to protest stricter terms for logging concessions. Continued access to and control over mahogany was the central issue in both confrontations (Powers 2002a, b). Since 2003 loggers have penetrated large portions of the remote Alto Purús National Park and adjacent Indigenous Lands along the Brazilian border, exploiting protected mahogany populations and laundering timber through ‘legal’ forest management concessions (Fagan & Shoobridge 2005, 2007). If regulations against such incursions by loggers are not enforced, then

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continued conflict appears inevitable as long as unlogged mahogany populations persist on Indigenous Lands. 4.4.5. BOLIVIA

Distribution and abundance. Mahogany’s historic range in Bolivia (Map 10) covered an estimated 30 million hectares of tropical and subtropical wet and seasonally dry forests in the Departments of El Beni, Cochabamba, La Paz, Pando, and Santa Cruz (Bolivia 2001). Known in Bolivia as mara, mahogany occurred at highest densities along the margins of perennial rivers draining the Andean foothills (Gullison et al. 1996). Like Peruvian populations, mahogany occurs or occurred at lower densities in terra firme forests, often associated with seasonal streams as reported from Brazil (next section, 4.4.6). Though expert respondents reported isolated regions where mahogany populations may persist at high densities (1 – 10 per hectare), most surviving populations are expected to occur at densities well under one commercial tree per hectare.

History of exploitation. A United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) mission arrived in eastern Bolivia in 1966 and recommended the extraction of forest products for the international market. As a result, industrial exploitation began in 1967 when Brazilian logging equipment arrived in the Chore, Guarayos and Bajo Paragua Reserves in the Department of Santa Cruz. The first species logged was high-value mahogany.

The mahogany frontier in Bolivia has been retreating ever since. As the most accessible regions were commercially exhausted, the logging industry opened new frontiers. Logging companies entered the Ixiamas zone during the mid-1970s, the Chimanes zone of the Department of Beni during the 1980s, and the Riberalta and Cobija zones of the Pando in northern Bolivia during the mid-1990s. A drastic decline in national mahogany production occurred from the late 1980s to 2000 in spite of a sharp increase in the number of sawmills (Figure 3). Lack of supply was the primary cause of reduced production.

Forest exploitation in Bolivia followed a chaotic pattern with little government control before 1996, when Forestry Law No. 1700 was introduced. The new law mandated improved management standards and increased legal enforcement of the forestry sector. Management plans for sustainable forestry were required for new logging concessions. However, in spite of improved government regulations, illegal harvest and trade in mahogany persisted, especially clandestine cross-border trade with neighboring countries (TRAFFIC 2001). Production statistics from the Bolivian Forest Chamber and the Forest Superintendency do not include estimates of illegally harvested timber. As one example, Bolivia exported 11,000 cubic meters of mahogany in 2000, more than twice the official export quota for this species. This was facilitated by a Presidential Decree (Decreto Supremo 25561) authorizing exports of mahogany obtained from Indigenous Territories (Blundell & Gullison 2003).

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Figure 3. Mahogany sawn wood production in Bolivia from 1970 to 2000, and number of sawmills for selected years. Source: Bolivian Forest Chamber & Forest Superintendency 1969-2000).

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Current commercial and conservation status. Expert surveys indicated that decades of selective logging have resulted in elimination of commercial populations of mahogany from 79% of its historic range. Approximately 14% of the range is protected, but densities within these areas are low. Survey respondents, including park managers and staff from the Forest Superintendency, reported that illegal logging has occurred and continues to varying degrees in all legally protected areas within mahogany’s historic range in Bolivia (Kometter et al. 2004). The most significant surviving populations occur in areas of difficult access in the northern Amazon region along the borders with Brazil and Peru, and within protected areas. High-density populations (more than one commercial tree per hectare) reportedly survive in the Isiboro-Secure National Park, while medium-density populations remain in other protected areas such as Amboró, Carrasco, and Madidi National Parks, and the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory. 4.4.6. BRAZIL

Distribution and abundance. In Brazil, mahogany occurs across a vast area of approximately 159 million hectares from Acre and southern Amazonas states in the far west through Rondônia, northern Mato Grosso, and southern Pará to as far east as Tocantins (Map 11). This area is equivalent to mahogany’s historic range in all other South and Central American countries combined, including Mexico.

Just as forest types grade continuously in structure and composition across this broad

swathe of Brazil’s southern Amazon, mahogany occurs in a wide range of habitats and at highly variable densities. Before industrial logging, high-density populations occasionally exceeding one tree per hectare at landscape scales occurred along perennial rivers and seasonal streams in the southeastern corner of the state of Pará (Baima 2001, Grogan 2001). Mahogany is reputed

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to have occurred at similar densities in parts of the mid-western state of Rondônia, but those populations were logged before they could be rigorously inventoried. Moving west and north from these high-density zones, population densities decline to near zero at the geographical limits of mahogany’s range in Brazil. Western populations in Acre and Amazonas occur at low densities compared to southeastern populations, in both terra firme and riverine forests (Grogan et al. 2008).

History of exploitation. The first documented sales of mahogany from Brazil, known there as mogno except in Acre where the common name is aguano, were recorded during the 1920s, with small volumes extracted from the state of Mato Grosso and exported through the port of Santos (Browder 1986). In the western state of Acre, the earliest exploitation occurred during the 1930s and 1940s along the margins of principal western rivers such as the Juruá, Tarauacá, Envira, and Purús. A second phase of exploitation began in the late 1970s in the eastern portion of Acre as overland access improved through completion of the Porto Velho (Rondônia) – Brasília highway (BR-364; Grogan et al. 2002).

Limited exploitation began in the 1940s along the eastern limits of mahogany’s range in Brazil, particularly in the state of Tocantins. In Pará, difficult access impeded exploitation until the mid-1960s, when the opening of the Belém – Brasília highway (BR-010) facilitated logging along the margins of the Araguaia River and its tributaries (Barros et al. 1992, ITTO/Funatura 1993). These stocks were quickly exhausted, forcing loggers to shift west into southeastern Pará in the early 1970s to mahogany-rich forests along the newly opened state highway PA-150. These stocks were in turn depleted by the mid 1980s and the logging frontier pushed farther west from the major processing center of Xinguara along state highway PA-279 towards São Félix do Xingu on the Xingu River (Schmink & Wood 1992, Veríssimo et al. 1995). Throughout this vast region loggers invaded untitled federal land (terra devoluta) and Indigenous Lands through a variety of access arrangements, both legal and illegal, in search of mahogany; commercial stands were often located by spotters in small planes.

Meanwhile another logging frontier spread north across Mato Grosso and into southwestern Pará via the Cuiabá – Santarém highway (BR-163). From the early 1990s loggers entered the region between the Xingu and Iriri Rivers from São Felix do Xingu in the east, from entry points along the Transamazon highway across the northern limits of mahogany’s range in Pará, and from the new logging center of Novo Progresso in southwestern Pará (Veríssimo et al. 1995, Greenpeace 2001, Grogan et al. 2002).

A separate logging front opened in the state of Rondônia during the early 1980s as the southern Transamazon highway (BR-364) provided access to vast tracts of previously inaccessible forests. A federal export subsidy program sparked a ‘mahogany rush’ on terra devoluta and in protected areas and Indigenous Lands, essentially liquidating Rondônia’s mahogany stocks by 1985 (Browder 1987, CEDI 1992).

The logging industry’s extraordinarily rapid advance across mahogany’s range in Brazil has been fueled by expansion of regional transportation infrastructure, technological advances in logging equipment, an enormous expanse of unexploited timber, insufficient public funds for land management and regulation by state and federal authorities, government subsidies, and

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rising market prices due to declining supply from Central America. Production statistics vary widely according to source. Grogan et al. (2002) estimated that approximately 4 million cubic meters of sawn mahogany were exported from Brazil from 1971 – 2001; the majority (75%) went to the United States and England, while ~1.7 million cubic meters were consumed domestically during this period. This corresponds to approximately 10 million cubic meters in logs or more than 2 million mahogany trees felled (Veríssimo et al. 1995). By comparison, IBAMA, the Brazilian ministry responsible for regulating forest management, reported 2.1 million cubic meters of sawn mahogany produced between 1992 – 2000 (Brazil 2001), with 1.3 million cubic meters consumed domestically. Meanwhile TRAFFIC (2001) estimated 224,000 cubic meters of exports (logs, sawn wood, plywood) between 1997 – 1999 alone (Figure 4).

In spite of a series of logging moratoria for mahogany from 1996 to 2003, Brazil exported more than 100,000 cubic meters of mahogany between 1999 and 2001 (according to CITES reports; Blundell & Rodan 2003). Brazilian officials estimated in 1998 that 80% or more of mahogany production originated from illegal sources (Ellison 1999). Given widespread illegal logging, in 2001 Brazil suspended all forest management plans for mahogany approved by IBAMA in the states of Pará, Mato Grosso, and Acre (IBAMA 2001). In 2003 the Brazilian federal government revised forest legislation targeting mahogany production from natural forests, implementing stringent harvest regulations in an effort to protect remaining populations from unsustainable logging practices.

Figure 4. Mahogany exports and domestic Brazilian consumption of sawn wood (1992 – 2000, based on IBAMA reports), and total mahogany exports based on CITES export permits (1997 – 1999).

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Current commercial and conservation status. Because expert respondents could not be

found or did not exist for large portions of mahogany’s vast range in Brazil, we estimated the area exploited for commercial mahogany populations by using the maximum hauling distances from logging sites that sawmill owners and operators reported in 1998. Even where experts did exist, the political climate following the 2001 moratorium on mahogany logging made many potential respondents reluctant to fill out questionnaires. Given the mahogany logging sector’s

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well-documented methods (Veríssimo et al. 1995, Grogan et al. 2002) and the rapid pace at which commercial stocks have been exhausted at regional scales since the early 1970s, we believe that this approach broadly describes the current commercial status of mahogany in Brazil.

We estimate that commercial mahogany populations may survive across only 35% of the

revised range in Brazil, or in 55 million hectares of natural forest (Map 11). Most remaining populations are located in remote regions where transportation infrastructures remain incipient, or where terrain is steep, or where seasonal rains impede access. These populations occur mostly along the northern and western limits of mahogany’s range, at low or very low densities compared to high-density populations once common in Rondônia and southeast Pará.

Our methodology likely underestimates the true extent of logging impacts in Brazil for

the following reasons: 1) Sawmill center data for a single year (1998) may under-report long-term maximum logging distances; Veríssimo et al. (1995) documented loggers harvesting mahogany from previously inaccessible primary forests up to 600 km from sawmill centers in southeast Pará in 1992. 2) The logging industry continued harvesting mahogany for at least three years after these distances were reported, which undoubtedly included additional areas to the 1998 survey. 3) Western riverine populations in Acre and Amazonas were logged during the 1930s and 1940s. 4) Extensive terra firme forests that are located beyond the sawmill ‘zones’ of Rio Branco and Sena Madureira in Acre were logged during the 1980s and 1990s and, since 2001, Indigenous Lands along the far western international border have been logged sporadically from Peru.

While protected areas and Indigenous Lands have been shown to slow deforestation rates

across southern Amazonia (Bruner et al. 2001, Schwartzman & Zimmerman 2005), neither have afforded effective protection to mahogany populations within their borders (CEDI 1992, Veríssimo et al. 1995, Hering & Tanner 1998, Zimmerman et al. 2001). Even though approximately 30% (16.4 million hectares) of mahogany’s estimated remaining commercial range in Brazil falls within protected areas and Indigenous Lands, only the current stringent regulatory environment can enforce the conservation status of these and other unprotected surviving populations. 5. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Mahogany’s extraordinarily rapid disappearance as a commercial timber resource across an estimated two-thirds of its natural range in South America during the past century can be explained by a confluence of circumstances resembling the ‘perfect storm’. Its working properties and beauty guarantee unflagging consumer demand and, unfortunately, continued indifference to the fate of mahogany, fueling steady price increases as supplies dwindle. Government regulatory and enforcement capacity in remote regions where mahogany occurs is typically minimal at best, rendering natural populations vulnerable to predatory logging even when nominally protected. This problem extends to implementation of CITES Appendix II regulations. Seasonal forests where mahogany occurs are more desirable for conversion to agriculture than aseasonal wet tropical forests, and the low-lying river- and streamside areas

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where mahogany characteristically clusters are also repositories of the best agricultural soils. Several aspects of mahogany’s life history – low population density, limited seed production and dispersal distance, scarce natural regeneration, and widespread natural predators – conspire against post-logging population recovery even where logged forests are not converted to other uses. Within this context, it is little wonder that natural populations of ‘ouro verde’ – green gold as mahogany is known in Brazil – tend to vanish on contact with loggers.

Surviving commercial stocks are disproportionately low- or extremely low-density

populations found in remote, primarily Amazonian regions that will inevitably be subject to intense logging pressure as transportation infrastructures and regional markets expand. To ensure protection of representative natural populations for germplasm (seed production) and genetic conservation, the existing network of protected areas and Indigenous Lands must receive genuine protection against illegal logging. Alternative means for income generation must be found for indigenous groups for whom mahogany stumpage otherwise represents the most immediate return on forest resources. Outside protected areas, forest legislation mandating sustainable management of mahogany and other timber species in all range states must be enforced under both industrial and forest community logging scenarios. The CITES Appendix II listing in 2002, while undoubtedly slowing the advance of illegal and unsustainable practices, cannot stop the long-term decline of natural populations without effective government intervention, including regulation of industry practices and provision of economic alternatives for people who own forest resources but benefit little from mahogany’s commerce.

Here we offer recommendations to fortify legal international trade standards for

mahogany, to improve management practices towards sustainable production, and to encourage conservation of representative intact natural populations.

5.1. CITES: ENSURING LEGAL AND SUSTAINABLE TRADE

The recent listing of mahogany in Appendix II of CITES offers an opportunity to combat illegal logging and to shift production from predatory to sustainable harvest practices. The Appendix II listing requires CITES Management and Scientific Authorities in each range nation to verify that internationally traded volumes of mahogany were obtained legally and harvested in a manner that was non-detrimental to the species’ survival in its role in the ecosystem (Blundell 2004). Range nations should work jointly to develop consistent implementation protocols; consumer nations must provide technical and material support for these efforts and refuse to allow imports that violate CITES.

To verify that mahogany was legally obtained, national Management Authorities must be

able to distinguish legal from illegal timber. Chain-of-custody systems track individual logs as they move through the supply chain, effectively segregating legal from illegal supplies. Most such systems assign a unique number to each log – this may be painted or hammered or bar-coded – and then track its movement from the stump to the sawmill to the point of sale (Dykstra et al. 2002). Such log tracking systems have already been implemented in Fiji (FAO 2005) and Guyana (ITTO 2006b) and need not be prohibitively expensive: chain-of-custody monitoring is offered for US$ 1 – 2/m3 by the inspection firm SGS (Societé Générale du Surveillance, Geneva, Switzerland; Antoine de La Rochfordiere, pers. comm.).

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To provide ecological non-detriment findings (NDF) for mahogany exports, national

Scientific Authorities require baseline information about the distribution and density of surviving commercial stocks, as well as biological parameters such as population structures and growth, mortality, and regeneration rates in natural and logged forests. While range nations may set export quotas to manage international trade of species on Appendix II, this option requires detailed spatial and quantitative knowledge of commercial stocks – knowledge currently lacking for all South American range nations, as this study has demonstrated. A better option is to provide NDF at the level of the managed forest based on management plans demonstrating competent and verifiable implementation of pre-harvest inventory, mapping of commercial trees, adherence to harvest regulations including reduced-impact logging (RIL) techniques, and silvicultural practices designed to foster mahogany regeneration and growth towards future harvests. A scientifically based methodology for determining when harvests comply with the ecological non-detriment requirement should be developed collaboratively among producer nations and applied consistently across mahogany’s remaining range. 5.2. CONSUMERS

Consumer demand drives mahogany prices steadily higher and illegal loggers into increasingly remote and often ‘protected’ primary forests in pursuit of new supplies. As long as consumers remain unaware or indifferent about the origin of the mahogany they buy, there will be little incentive for loggers to begin to manage forests legally and sustainably, protected areas will continue to be exploited, and more conflict with Amerindians on Indigenous Lands will be inevitable. Buyers, especially those in the United States who consume approximately 90% of mahogany exports, must insist that retailers provide verification that supplies were obtained legally and in a sustainable manner. Timber qualifying for independent third-party certification such as by Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) criteria and indicators may satisfy this demand. Even if consumers care little about the fate of mahogany as a species in its natural environment, they should demand legal mahogany in order to protect Amerindians from violent conflict with loggers. 5.3. PROTECTED AREAS AND INDIGENOUS LANDS

Our assessment demonstrates that some of the last remaining large populations of unlogged mahogany occur in protected areas or Indigenous Lands. In countries such as Bolivia and Peru, protected areas still have the potential to maintain intact mahogany populations, provided that long-term support sufficient for effective management is available (Bruner et al. 2001). The situation will become increasingly urgent as new roads expand the frontier, increasing the vulnerability of remote protected areas (Kometter et al. 2004). Ongoing financial commitment from the international conservation community is needed to help secure effective management of protected areas (Gullison et al. 2000), which in addition to providing a safety net for mahogany and thus facilitating a ‘non-detriment’ determination for CITES export permits, also ensures the survival of thousands of other plant and animal species.

Indigenous Lands have been widely exploited for mahogany across its South American

range, even where this has been illegal and contrary to the desires of indigenous peoples.

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Indeed, illegal mahogany harvests have often been the impetus for deadly conflicts, past and ongoing, between invading loggers and indigenous communities. While some indigenous groups have successfully slowed deforestation within their territories, defending timber resources has proven more challenging (Zimmerman et al. 2001, Schwartzman & Zimmerman 2005). These groups require renewed commitment by federal, state, and local governments to respect and protect their territorial boundaries, and increased investment by the international conservation community in technical support, territorial defense, and creation of economic alternatives to high-grading forest resources. With support such as the current partnership between Conservation International and the Kayapó of southeast Pará, Brazil (Zimmerman et al. 2001), Indigenous Lands could play a critical role in the conservation of mahogany habitat and populations. If nothing is done, then increasingly violent conflict between loggers and Amerindians is inevitable.

5.4. ECONOMIC INCENTIVES

An incentive-based conservation agreement provides direct economic compensation to resource owners for conservation management. This type of agreement represents a viable alternative to high-grading timber in areas where indigenous or local communities hold important stocks of mahogany. Agreements offer an opportunity to negotiate fair deals with communities as well as governments and other stakeholders in exchange for habitat preservation and active stewardship, including the prevention of illegal logging. Given the small amount of money that local communities typically gain from the sale – often coerced – of mahogany to loggers (Veríssimo et al. 1995), providing economic alternatives to logging could be a feasible mechanism to protect critically important mahogany populations outside protected areas and in Indigenous Lands (Gullison et al. 2000). The conservation community, which annually spends at least half a billion dollars on conservation projects in the tropics (Hardner & Rice 2002), could offer local and indigenous peoples a better deal for preserving their resources than loggers do for extracting them. 5.5. STATUS ASSESSMENTS

We propose a periodic range-wide assessment of mahogany’s commercial and conservation status similar to the one presented in this study. Expert surveys have the advantages of expediency, economy, and broad coverage. Results can be mapped and thus represent an easy way to assess change over time by overlaying data sets. Such assessments could help monitor the effectiveness of CITES in deterring illegal and unsustainable trade.

6. CONCLUSION Mahogany’s range as a timber species in South America has contracted by two-thirds or more since commercial logging began in the early 20th Century. The most significant losses involving relatively high-density populations have occurred since overland mechanized logging was introduced after the mid-1970s in Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. Most surviving mahogany stocks are low-density populations located in the most remote regions of Amazonia, often within protected areas or Indigenous Lands. In response to widespread illegality and unsustainable

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logging practices, the mahogany trade is currently tightly controlled by most South American range nations through harvest bans (Ecuador) or stringent government oversight (Brazil, Bolivia). However, in Peru, significant volumes of mahogany continue to be illegally extracted from protected areas and Indigenous Lands and laundered through forest concessions. CITES export certificates issued under Appendix II regulations by Peruvian Management and Scientific Authorities thus confer a ‘veneer of legality’ (Blundell & Rodan 2003) to illegal supplies that are indistinguishable from legitimate, sustainably produced supplies from other range nations. Until the international community – and especially the United States, which consumes over 80% of Peruvian mahogany – insists that provisions of the CITES Appendix II listing be respected by all producer and consumer nations, significant portions of remaining natural mahogany populations will continue to be logged illegally, unsustainably, and with impunity.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank expert respondents for their efforts that made this report possible. Crucial to this study was the extensive assistance provided by Mark Denil, Marc Steininger, and the staff of Conservation International’s Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System’s Facility. We thank Marco Lentini and Adalberto Veríssimo at the Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia (IMAZON) for sharing 1998 logging centers data. R. Matthew Landis at Middlebury College (VT, USA) provided the final analysis and maps of the Brazil range based on those data.

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Map 1. Historic distribution of mahogany from Mexico to southeastern Amazonia according to Lamb (1966).

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Map 2. Historic (A) and current (B) distribution of mahogany populations in Mesoamerica according to PROARCA/CAPAS (Calvo 2000). A)

B)

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Map 3. Revised historic distribution of mahogany in South America based on expert surveys.

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Map 4. Forest cover within revised historic distribution of mahogany as of 2001 (GLFC 2003, JRC 2003).

38Map 5. Estimated current distribution of mahogany populations in South America derived from maps to follow.

39Map 6. Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in Venezuela.

40Map 7. Estimated current distribution of mahogany populations in Colombia.

41Map 8. Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in Ecuador.

42Map 9. Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in Peru.

Map 10. Estimated current distribution and abundance of mahogany populations in Bolivia.

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Map 11. Estimated current distribution of mahogany populations in Brazil based on logging centers data (see text).

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APPENDIX Questionnaire for Assessing the Conservation Status of Bigleaf Mahogany Across its Range

Mahogany Conservation Unit (MCU) Identification Number:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Respondent’s name: Respondent’s occupation and employer: Contact details (mailing address, email, telephone number, fax number): Country:

MCU Size: (hectares)

1. What is the legal status of the MCU? (Please check all that apply) Indigenous reserve Timber concession FSC-certified? Yes No Mining or petroleum concession Protected area Not zoned Other (please describe):

2. a) What is the ownership of the MCU? State owned Privately owned Community owned

b) Who are the specific owners and/or managers of the MCU in question?

3. Are property rights stable (i.e., legally defined, respected, and unlikely to change soon) within the MCU?

Yes No Please explain:

4. a) What is the current per-hectare density of commercial-sized mahogany trees in the MCU? Please give the average density for the total MCU. We define commercial sized trees as those with diameters equal to or greater than 60 cm diameter at breast height (dbh). If the density varies widely throughout the MCU for reasons other than natural clustering (for example, one half of the MCU has been logged and the other half is untouched), please provide separate answers for each region and indicate the location of these regions on the map.

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Please check one density. Absent (0 trees per hectare) Very Low (fewer than 0.01 trees per hectare) Low (0.01 to 0.1 trees per hectare) Medium (0.1 to 1.0 trees per hectare) High (1.0 to 10 trees per hectare) Very High (more than 10 trees per hectare)

b) Is this information based on plot data? Yes No c) At the observed density, is mahogany considered to be commercially extinct? Yes No d) How does the current density of mahogany compare to the density 20 years ago? (Please check one) Higher Same Lower Much lower

5. Who logged the MCU? (Please check all that apply)

Legally Illegally Individuals or small groups National companies Multinationals Unknown Other:

6. Has the MCU been logged for other timber species? Yes No 7. How many major points of access are there to the MCU?

None Few Many (0) (1-2) (3+) Roads accessible by logging trucks

Navigable rivers large enough to transport logs

8. How far is the nearest sawmill? km

(Response should be “0” if a sawmill is located within the MCU)

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9. Are any of the following activities likely to take place within or impact 25% or more of the MCU? (Check all that apply). How soon?

Currently

occurs

1-5 years

5-10 years

10+ years Conversion to agriculture

Conversion to grazing Commercial logging Illegal logging Fire Dam building Road building Other:

Please explain:

10. Please provide descriptive information about the area surrounding the MCU (up to about 10 km from the border of the MCU).

a) What percentage of the surrounding area is free from development? (Please check one)

0 - 25% 25 - 50% 50 - 75% 75 - 100%

b) In the area under development, what is the dominant land use?

Subsistence farming Large-scale farming (e.g., plantations) Ranching Logging Other:

c) Are property rights stable in the surrounding area? Yes No

11. Can you suggest other sources that might provide relevant information on mahogany in this MCU (for example, forest owners, loggers, NGOs, indigenous representatives)?

12. In your personal opinion, if mahogany still exists in the MCU, is the species likely to become extirpated (i.e.,

the density of reproductive trees (greater than 30 cm diameter at breast height) is fewer than 1 per 100 hectares)? How soon?

0 - 5 years In 6 - 10 years In >10 years Extirpation unlikely

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48

Please explain:

13. How effective are current efforts at conserving mahogany in your country as a whole?

Not effective Somewhat effective Very effective Protected areas Sustainable forest management Other:

14. What is your opinion of the level of support within your country for new efforts to protect some mahogany

populations in order to safeguard the future of the species? (Please check one for each group)

Opposition Some support Strong support i. Among public

ii. NGOs iii. Industry iv. Gobierno v. Comunidades indígenas

Please explain:

15. What is your source of information about the MCU? (Please mark all that apply)

a) Personal site visit. Yes No

i. How long ago? Please specify weeks/months/years ii. For how long? Please specify weeks/months/years

iii. How much of the MCU did you visit? (Check one) 0 - 5% 6 - 25% > 25%

b) Information relayed from others that are familiar with the area. Please explain:

c) Written documents, for example, timber inventory or scientific report. Please provide names of documents:

Thank you!

Does the respondent wish to remain anonymous? Yes No Would the respondent like to receive a copy of the study when finished? Yes No Please send study via email / or mail to the contact address above.