Demand for ip, or Brazilian walnut, driving deforestation, study says

Three-quarters of a highly sought-after Brazilian hardwood that entered the supply chain between 2009 and 2019 was probably harvested illegally, researchers in Sweden and Brazil conclude in an analysis published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Ipê — the wood that was studied — is prized for its toughness and appearance. It is used for decks, siding and other purposes in the United States, Canada and Europe. Today, massive demand for the threatened wood, also known as Brazilian walnut, is driving illegal deforestation, the scientists write.

“Legality does not insure sustainability,” they write. But understanding how ipê is illegally logged and “laundered,” they write, could spur policy reforms and consumer awareness.

Ipê — a blanket term for hardwood species in the Handroanthus genus — is native to rainforests in Central and South America, and is known as one of the world’s hardest woods. But the trees grow slowly and are in danger of extinction, and high demand places them at risk of illegal logging.

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Brazil produces nearly all of the ipê on the market, so the researchers mapped logging permits there over time. They found a variety of potentially illegal practices, such as logging with an expired or invalid permit or reporting an inflated harvest in areas unlikely to contain as much of the wood as landowners report. The researchers tracked the wood through the supply chain, exploring how consumer demand spurs forest degradation, which occurs when an unsustainable number of trees are cut down.

“Illegal logging is driving forest degradation, and is linked to organized crime, conflict and the destruction of forest-dependent local communities,” study co-author Caroline S.S. Franca, a doctoral student at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, said in a news release. “Degradation of Amazon forests does not only affect the local environment and the ecological diversity of the rainforest, it is also as large of a contributor to climate change as outright deforestation.”

Consumers can help, the researchers say. They urge consumers to ask questions about wood they purchase, look for Forest Stewardship Council-certified timber and seek documentation of wood’s origins before buying.

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