Amazon wood stained with blood
Valdelir João de Souza, who stands accused of ordering the Colniza massacre, is still at large and continues to sell wood from the Amazon
On April 19, 2017, four men arrived at the rural town of Colniza, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, deep in the Amazon rainforest. They were armed with knives, machetes, revolvers and rifles and their goal was clear: to kill and terrorize the local population. The death squad tortured and executed residents along a 10km path, and nine people were brutally killed. Known as the “Colniza massacre”, the authorities believe the crime was ordered by Valdelir João de Souza, the owner of two lumber companies, and is the result of greed for valuable natural resources such as ipê, jatobá and massaranduba: trees found in the region and widely used to make expensive furniture.
However, seven months after the event, Souza remains at large, and his companies continue to operate normally, processing and exporting timber to United States, Canada, France, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Japan. In fact, on the day of the massacre, one of Souza’s companies was loading a ship to send lumber to the United States.
Impunity for such horrendous crimes allows events like the Colniza massacre to become increasingly common, especially in the Amazon, where conflicts with farmers and Indigenous People are frequently linked to illegal logging. There are numerous reports of cruel executions, murder attempts and intimidation, making fear a part of the lives of the people who live in the region and protect the forest. Rondônia — another state in the Brazilian Amazon — is the state with the highest number of murders of people from forest communities and small farmers in the country, with 21 deaths registered only in 2016.
Most of the timber production in the Amazon comes from the states of Pará, Mato Grosso and Rondônia. If there was a national plan to support community management, wood exploration could be a source of income for traditional populations, keeping them safe in the region, protecting the Amazon. But this is not what happens. Studies show that part of the wood that enters the market is harvested from areas where it is not permitted, such as Conservation Units and Indigenous lands. When traditional and Indigenous communities oppose to illegal logging, they are targeted for violence, and find themselves caught between the forest and criminals.
The report “Blood-stained timber” is part of the Greenpeace Brazil report series “Amazon Silent Crisis”, which investigates and exposes cases of fraud in the licensing and control systems for wood in Brazil since 2014.
Rosana Villar is a communication officer at Greenpeace Brazil.
