Brazil Arrests At Least 70 In Illegal Amazon Logging Scheme, Including Forestry Officials - BBC

[hatrack]

Police in Brazil have arrested at least 70 people suspected of illegal logging in the Amazon - including officials employed to protect the rainforest.

Several environmental officials in Mato Grosso state are accused of providing false licences for the extraction of timber from protected areas. Loggers, landowners and forest managers have also been charged.

Police estimate that the illegal logging operation has caused damage amounting to about $500m (£345m). The arrests followed a two-year investigation in six Amazon states.

Much of the timber was taken from national parks and protected indigenous territories. Officials in the environmental secretariat of Mato Grosso are accused of providing false documents that helped the loggers avoid controls on illegal deforestation.

EDIT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8698451.stm

[NCarolinawoman]

1. These evil enemies of Mother Earth are like

cockroaches; there are hoards of them. You swat them in one place, and their numbers only multiply, and they
keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back. :banghead: :argh:


Actually, I think I prefer cockroaches to these selfish lowlifes.

[jaksavage]

2. Capitolism

the great motivator.