Vanishing Tribes and Mahogany

The Yanomami  people were portrayed as violent by a few anthropologists working in the Amazon. The characterization was used against the tribe by the government and other interests that wanted the resources of their land.  An ethical controversy has erupted over in anthropology.  It has raised wider issues of the ways scientific studies impact individuals.

While preparing for a discussion on the ethics of contacting uncontacted tribes, a study on logging reveals the extent of the deforestation of the Mahogony's forest.

Here is their paragraph on range reduction:

As of 2001, 4% of mahogany's original range of approximately 55 x 10⁶ ha in Peru and 8% of the Bolivian range of 30 x 10⁶ha had been deforested. Although forest cover in these two countries is relatively intact, our expert survey revealed that decades of selective mahogany logging have dramatically reduced the areas with commercially viable populations. In Peru, mahogany is already commercially depleted in 50% of its historic range..... Furthermore, as mahogany populations diminish, loggers often resort to harvesting smaller size classes to maintain
harvest volumes (e.g., Weaver and Sabido 1997). Unless harvest rates are rapidly reduced, experts predict that within 10 yr an additional 28% of the historic range in Peru will lose populations of mahogany.... leaving few stands of reproductive-sized mahogany outside of protected areas. Logging has proceeded to an even greater degree in Bolivia. The experts said that over the past 20 yr mahogany has been reduced across 97% of its historic range and is no longer commercially viable in 79% of its range.

Kometter, R. F., M. Martinez, A. G. Blundell, R. E. Gullison, M. K.
Steininger, and R. E. Rice. 2004. Impacts of unsustainable mahogany
logging in Bolivia and Peru. Ecology and Society 9(1): 12. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art12/


WWF is among many groups working on a sustainable logging practice campaign. Global Trees offers a good summary of the industry and the environmental issues.
This report argues that 60% of the demand is coming from the U.S. This report lists some basic import statistics.

The author of Mahogany Matters, Chris Robbins, is quoted in an ENS article.

"Mahogany is often considered the Rolls Royce of trees, but if we aren't careful, it may become the Edsel - commercially unviable and threatened with extinction," said Chris Robbins, author of "Mahogany Matters: The U.S. Market for Big Leafed Mahogany and its Implications for the Conservation of the Species." "All of the data we analyzed point to a not too distant future in which we could harvest big leafed mahogany out of commercial existence," said Robbins.

The story about the struggles of uncontacted tribes boils down to a battle over exploitation of a commodity. Mahogany is just one.

Steve Scher

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