Logging roads scar Brazil's Amazon - Thoroughfares aid in the devastation of largest rain forest

Geroan's chain-saw shop doesn't officially exist. Nor does the motorbike workshop next door, or the rickety wooden shack called a supermarket.

These small business ventures are located along a dirt road known as the Trans-Iriri highway, an illegal highway with five small settlements that cuts through the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon called the Terra do Meio or "Middle Land."

Products of Brazil’s Slavery Find Ways to U.S. Markets

Brazilian Cherry is an inexpensive and popular hardwood flooring choice. Ipe is a popular outdoor decking. However, in addition to the ecological devastation caused by its harvest, much of the Brazilian Cherry and Ipe on the market today is produced with slave labor. Read this great piece of investigative journalism by Kevin G. Hall and Stella Hopkins of Knight Ridder. A version of this article was published in the San Jose Mercury News, September 14, 2004.

Lust for Teak Takes Grim Toll; Illegal logging decimating Indonesia's majestic forests

Teak decking, flooring and garden furniture continues to grow in popularity among U.S. consumers. Many of these products are labeled as “plantation grown” implying that they are sustainable harvested. Most of this teak “plantation grown” teak comes from 300 year old ecosystems in Indonesia where the forests are being devastated by the western world’s desire for teak. Since the writing of this article the rate of the teak harvest in Indonesia has almost doubled, pushing the species to near collapse. Take a look at the real costs behind that garden chair in this well written expose by Edward A. Gargan of Newsday.

Wake Up Weyerhaeuser: Rainforest Action Network takes on one of the world’s biggest timber companies

Check out RAN’s website for some very interesting facts about the timber practices of Weyerhaeuser International, right here in North America. The last ancient temperate rainforests in the western U.S. and Canada are disappearing thanks to this corporate giant. Start with the link to http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/old_growth/wakeup/ and branch out from there. It’s always sobering to remember that careless destruction of our natural resources is still happening here at home.