An individual big-leaf mahogany can fetch tens of thousands of dollars on the international market, leading loggers to poach the trees on remote protected land and in areas set aside for indigenous groups who have little to no contact with the outside world, such as the Mashco Piro, Matsigenka, and Amahuaca peoples.
NRDC knew it was time to act as far back as 2002, when it designated the Tahuamanú Rainforest as one of its first BioGems, an initiative aimed at protecting the most endangered natural treasures in the Americas by mobilizing online activists. Seeing that the United States was well positioned to tighten controls on mahogany, the organization launched a three-part strategy to root out illegal timber from the supply chain, an effort that eventually resulted in significant protections for endangered forests all around the world.
Peruvian Mahogany
The first step was to upgrade the status of mahogany under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a multilateral treaty that aims to protect wild species from the consequences of international trade. Next, in partnership with the indigenous organization Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River and the Peruvian forest group Racimos de Ungurahui, NRDC took legal action against top U.S. timber importers for violating the Endangered Species Act. Even before the first case reached a courtroom, Peru yielded to pressure in 2007 and stopped the export of all mahogany that had not been legally inspected in the field by a recognized forestry authority.
WASHINGTON (April 14, 2005) -- On the eve of the world's largest furniture show, in High Point, North Carolina, two national conservation groups called on leading U.S. furniture manufacturers to stop using imported Peruvian mahogany in their products. The groups, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and Defenders of Wildlife, say nearly all of Peru's Big Leaf Mahogany exports are logged illegally and that 80 percent of the contraband harvest ends up in the United States.
Top-name companies that have acknowledged using South American mahogany include Stickley, Furniture Brands International (maker of Broyhill, Drexel Heritage, Henredon and Thomasville), Henkel-Harris, and Hekman. Other companies contacted by the groups, including Williams-Sonoma -- owner of Pottery Barn -- said they were unaware of the source of their mahogany.
Peru's inability to control mahogany logging makes it impossible for U.S. companies to know if they are buying illegal lumber, the groups say. The unsustainable logging is having devastating effects on indigenous Amazon communities, wildlife, and survival of the mahogany species itself. The exports violate a major treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
"American furniture makers are buying their mahogany from illegal sources because Peru is simply unable to control the logging. The consequences for the Amazon people and their forests are tragic," said Ari Hershowitz, NRDC Latin America BioGems project director. "We're urging U.S. companies to stop buying until Peru can organize a lawful, sustainable forestry system."
The groups say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to accept invalid export permits for Peruvian mahogany despite clear evidence the Peruvian government is violating CITES treaty rules requiring proof that logs are harvested legally and sustainably. The U.S. agency's lax attitude encourages illegal logging, the groups say.
"This wood is illegal as a matter of both U.S. and international law. It is illegal to trade in it, to import it, and to possess it. Even so, the Bush administration has done nothing to stop Peruvian mahogany from entering the country," said Carroll Muffett, director of Defenders of Wildlife's International Program. "We're asking companies to do what the president won't: Take real action to end illegal logging."
Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus Swietenia, indigenous to the Americas[1] and part of the pantropical chinaberry family, Meliaceae. Mahogany is used commercially for a wide variety of goods, due to its coloring and durable nature. It is naturally found within the Americas, but has also been imported to plantations across Asia and Oceania. The mahogany trade may have begun as early as the 16th century and flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries. In certain countries, mahogany is considered an invasive species.
While only the three Swietenia species are classified officially as "genuine mahogany", other Meliaceae species with timber uses are classified as "true mahogany." Some may or may not have the word mahogany in their trade or common name. Some of these true mahoganies include the African genera Khaya (African mahogany) and Entandrophragma (sapele mahogany);[1] New Zealand mahogany or kohekohe (Dysoxylum spectabile);[5] Chinese mahogany, Toona sinensis;[6] Indonesian mahogany, Toona sureni;[7][8] Indian mahogany, Toona ciliata;[9] Chinaberry, Melia azedarach; Pink Mahogany (or Bosse), Guarea; Chittagong (also known as Indian Mahogany), Chukrasia velutina; and Crabwood Carapa guianensis. Some members of the genus Shorea (Meranti, Balau, or Lauan) of the family Dipterocarpaceae are also sometimes sold as Philippine mahogany,[1] although the name is more properly applied to another species of Toona, Toona calantas.[10]
Mahogany is the national tree of the Dominican Republic[14] and Belize.[15] A mahogany tree with two woodcutters bearing an axe and a paddle also appears on the Belizean national coat of arms, under the national motto, Sub umbra floreo, Latin for "under the shade I flourish."[15]
The natural distribution of these species within the Americas is geographically distinct. S. mahagoni grows on the West Indian islands as far north as the Bahamas, the Florida Keys and parts of Florida; S. humilis grows in the dry regions of the Pacific coast of Central America from south-western Mexico to Costa Rica; S. macrophylla grows in Central America from Yucatan southwards and into South America, extending as far as Peru, Bolivia and extreme western Brazil.[18] In the 20th century various botanists attempted to further define S. macrophylla in South America as a new species, such as S. candollei Pittier and S. tessmannii Harms., but many authorities consider these spurious. According to Record and Hess, all of the mahogany of continental North and South America can be considered as one botanical species, Swietenia macrophylla King.[19]
In addition, the U.S. timber trade also markets various other Federal Trade Commission-defined species as mahoganies under a variety of different commercial names, most notably Philippine mahogany, which is actually from the genus Shorea, a dipterocarp. This wood is also called Lauan or Meranti.
In the 17th century, the buccaneer John Esquemeling recorded the use of mahogany or cedrela on Hispaniola for making canoes: "The Indians make these canoes without the use of any iron instruments, by only burning the trees at the bottom near the root, and afterwards governing the fire with such industry that nothing is burnt more than what they would have..."[24]
The wood first came to the notice of Europeans with the beginning of Spanish colonisation in the Americas. A cross in the Cathedral at Santo Domingo, bearing the date 1514, is said to be mahogany, and Philip II of Spain apparently used the wood for the interior joinery of the palace El Escorial, begun in 1584.[25] However, caoba, as the Spanish called the wood, was principally reserved for shipbuilding, and it was declared a royal monopoly at Havana in 1622. Hence very little of the mahogany growing in Spanish controlled territory found its way to Europe.
After the French established a colony in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), some mahogany from that island probably found its way to France, where joiners in the port cities of Saint-Malo, Nantes, La Rochelle and Bordeaux used the wood to a limited extent from about 1700.[26] On the English-controlled islands, especially Jamaica and the Bahamas, mahogany was abundant but not exported in any quantity before 1700.
While the trade in mahogany from the Spanish and French territories in America remained moribund for most of the 18th century, this was not true for those islands under British control. In 1721 the British Parliament removed all import duties from timber imported into Britain from British possessions in the Americas.[27] This immediately stimulated the trade in West Indian timbers including, most importantly, mahogany. Importations of mahogany into England (and excluding those to Scotland, which were recorded separately) reached 525 tons per annum by 1740, 3,688 tons by 1750, and more than 30,000 tons in 1788, the peak year of the 18th century trade.[28]
At the same time, the 1721 Act had the effect of substantially increasing exports of mahogany from the West Indies to the British colonies in North America. Although initially regarded as a joinery wood, mahogany rapidly became the timber of choice for makers of high quality furniture in both the British Isles and the 13 colonies of North America.
Until the 1760s over 90 per cent of the mahogany imported into Britain came from Jamaica.[29] Some of this was re-exported to continental Europe, but most was used by British furniture makers. Quantities of Jamaican mahogany also went to the North American colonies, but most of the wood used in American furniture came from the Bahamas.[30] This was sometimes called Providence wood, after the main port of the islands, but more often madera or maderah, which was the Bahamian name for mahogany.[31]
In addition to Jamaica and Bahamas, all the British controlled islands exported some mahogany at various times, but the quantities were not large. The most significant third source was Black River and adjacent areas on the Mosquito Coast (now Republic of Honduras), from where quantities of mahogany were shipped from the 1740s onwards. This mahogany was known as 'Rattan mahogany', after the island of Ruatan, which was the main offshore entrepot for the British settlers in the area. 2ff7e9595c
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