Editorial Board of major Brazilian news outlet O Globo calls for reforms to stop illegal logging in response to EIA investigations
Translated from the original Portuguese by EIA with permission from O Globo. Read the original, published on January 25, 2026: Pará precisa de apoio federal para coibir contrabando de madeira nobre
Pará Needs Federal Support to Curb Hardwood Smuggling
The illegal logging operations in Pará have worsened, according to information released earlier this year by the British NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which specializes in exposing environmental crimes. Surveillance of this illegal industry needs to be reinforced and followed by strict penalties.
Between 2019 and 2024, the EIA identified, through the analysis of databases and satellite images, 53,000 cubic meters of high-quality timber from Pará with strong indications of illegal extraction, as revealed in a GLOBO report last year.
Subsequent analysis results published this month confirmed that another 25,000 cubic meters of timber were sold with suspected illegalities. Thus, the illicit dealings involved a total of 78,000 cubic meters of precious timber.
The chain of illegal activities included 19 sawmills, 16 exporters, and, at the final end of the crime, 30 importers in the United States and the European Union (EU). One of the export routes for the illegal product connected farms in Pará to the Global Forest Lumber Company, a U.S. importer of exclusive high-quality timber brands, such as Brazilian ipê and cumaru. Maximo, one of these brands, sold ipê wood to hotels in the Marriott and Hyatt chains in Florida and to a VIP space at the 2023 Formula 1 Grand Prix in Miami.
In light of some of these findings, the government of the Netherlands fined an importer who violated the European Timber Regulation, a set of rules that requires due diligence into the origin of the product. Another European law prohibits the import of timber from areas with illegal deforestation. The United States also has similar legislation. In 2008, the 1900 Wildlife Protection Act, known as the Lacey Act, was amended to ban the import of plants and timber obtained illegally.
Laws of this kind are the necessary instrument for countermeasures – and no one will be able to complain about protectionism. Brazil may pay a high price in foreign trade due to lax enforcement. The traceability state system in Pará has not proven effective in curbing illegal extraction. It must be connected to the Ibama platform to prevent selective degradation of the Amazon Forest in the state.
A proposal made at a meeting in September of last year between the Pará Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ibama, and the State Department of Environment is to implement a real-time digital tracking system for the timber trade in Pará, integrated with the federal Ibama platform. The idea must be advanced promptly. Only with federal support does this issue stand a chance of being resolved.