Government removes Ipê from the international list for the protection of endangered species | Nature

Due to the increasing exploitation and illegal sale, Ipê was on a list of endangered species in the convention on international trade in species of wild fauna and flora.

But in August last year, the Brazilian government itself asked the convention to remove the species from the list, despite warnings from technicians to preserve the Ipê.

The information was brought by the newspaper “O Estado de S. Paulo” and confirmed by TV Globo. With that, the Ipê can be sold as a common species, without restrictions.

The convention is an international agreement signed by Brazil in 1973 that brings together 183 countries with the aim of monitoring the trade in wild animals and plants in the world so that it does not endanger the survival of the species. Brazilian trees like Mogno and Pau-Brasil are already on that list.

Wanted, the Ministry of the Environment said that, as there was no consultation with the national productive sector, more studies were requested on the exploitation of Ipê, which are currently being evaluated by the Jardim Botânico Research Institute, in Rio de Janeiro. There is no deadline to complete.

For Professor Edson Vidal, from the University of São Paulo (USP), the species is today one of the favorites of illegal exploitation.

“Ipê is now considered a new mahogany, it is one of the most valuable species that we have today in the Amazon rainforest. So, mainly because of this, it is being explored widely,” he said.

“It is opening a path for this, I have no doubt, for deforestation,” he added.

In addition to Ipê, other native species sold outside the country are at risk. The documents reveal that the president of Ibama met with loggers before relaxing the rules for timber exports.

The information was published by the newspaper “O Globo”. The meeting between the president of Ibama, Eduardo Bim, and the loggers took place at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Environment, on February 6 of this year. Until then, native wood could only be exported with an authorization issued by Ibama, a measure to combat illegal logging.

But the businessmen wanted to sell wood abroad by presenting only the Forest Origin Document (DOF), completed by the loggers themselves and which originally only served to allow the transport of logs to the port.

Nineteen days after the conversation with the loggers, Eduardo Bim complied with the request and allowed the export of wood without formal authorization from Ibama.

In the order in which he eliminated the authorization requirement for the export of native wood, in force since 2011, Eduardo Bim said that: “The authorization provided for in the normative instruction has become unnecessary and obsolete, naturally falling into disuse.”

Wanted, the Ministry of the Environment confirmed the participation of Eduardo Bim in the meeting and the decision.

Faced with the change, non-governmental organizations and entities linked to the environment went to court to annul Ibama’s decision.

They affirm that the export authorization was a document that allowed the inspection of the wood to be carried out more efficiently, before its export. As the only mandatory document is now completed by the registrar himself, this leaves room for fraud.

The spokesperson for the Greenpeace Amazon Campaign, Rômulo Batista says: “Upon receiving these documents, the inspectors could check the container to see if the wood that is declared is really the wood that is exported, if the documentation used to export is valid documentation So, it is a loss, precisely because of this, which is one of the products sold that, unfortunately, has a high degree of illegality.

In a note, Ibama stated that there was no flexibility in the certificate for the export of wood and that now, with the forest export document, the inspection procedures will be more efficient.