Brazil Cracks Down on Illegal Loggers
Source: Steve Kingstone, BBC News, Brazil.

Brazilian police have issued arrest warrants for 124 people following the discovery of a massive illegal logging operation in the Amazon rain forest.

Over a period of 15 years, the gang is said to have illegally extracted wood worth $370m. The suspects include senior civil servants working for the government's environmental protection agency, IBAMA. They are accused of providing false documents which allowed the timber to be transported.

Illegally Logged Timber in Brazil

This was the biggest police operation in the Amazon. It focused on the state of Mato Grosso, which last year accounted for nearly half of all Amazonian deforestation. What officers appear to have uncovered is a vast criminal network in which illegal loggers worked in partnership with corrupt officials.

Starting in 1990, the loggers extracted nearly two million cubic meters of timber from the rain forest - enough to fill 76,000 freight trucks. The bureaucrats who worked for the state branch of IBAMA are alleged to have supplied false transport permits so the wood could be sold both in Brazil and abroad.

The accused include the executive director of IBAMA in Mato Grosso, Hugo Jose Scheuer Werle, and one of the agency's senior directors in Brasilia . Mr. Werle was among 89 of the suspects who had been arrested, Brazil 's federal police say.

These operations are a bitter-sweet victory for the authorities. On the one hand, they show that illegal activity can be exposed at a time when deforestation rates are at a 10-year high. But they also suggest a shocking level of corruption. In this case, the alleged criminals include people whose job it was to protect the rain forest.

Two men have been convicted of conspiring to evade $1.9 million in excise taxes due on sales of an ozone-depleting chemical called trichlorotrifluoroethane (CFC-113). The two men were supplying the chemical to a U.S. company that resold it for use in illegal methamphetamine labs.

A jury returned the guilty verdicts against Dov Shellef and William Rubenstein on July 28, following a five-week trial before U. S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip , New York . Shellef, of Great Neck, New York , was also convicted of 87 counts of wire fraud, tax evasion, subscribing to false tax returns, and money laundering. Rubenstein, of Colts Neck, New Jersey , was also convicted of wire fraud.

The federal Clean Air Act banned the continued importation and production of CFC’s in the United States in 1996, though manufacturers were permitted to sell and export CFC that had been stockpiled prior to the ban. CFC’s are used primarily as refrigerants and industrial solvents, and when released into the air migrate into the upper atmosphere and destroy ozone, a naturally occurring gaseous compound that protects the earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation. These chemicals are subject to a substantial excise tax - imposed to discourage their use and to promote the transition to more ozone-friendly replacement products. The excise tax applies to domestic sales of stockpiled CFCs, but not sales for export.

Shellef, who owned two businesses involved in the purchase and sale of CFC-113, and Rubenstein - who also controlled two businesses involved in the purchase, packaging, warehousing, shipping, and sale of CFC-113 - purchased large quantities of the chemical. The defendants represented to the manufacturers that they intended to export the product, so the manufacturers did not collect or pay any excise tax on the product. Beginning in July 1997, knowing that they had purchased the CFC-113 tax-free, the defendants illegally diverted the product to domestic customers. To conceal these domestic sales, the defendants removed references to the original manufacturers on drums of the chemical and relabeled the product. They created false shipping documents stating that the product was being sold “For Export Only” and “Reclaimed,” knowing that the new product being sold domestically.

For all of the domestic sales of CFC-113, the unpaid excise taxes totaled approximately $1.9 million.

The investigation began as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Drug Enforcement Administration agents traced the supply of CFC-113 to California meth labs. The investigation revealed that a company called All Discount Lab Supplies was selling CFC-113 to individuals who used the product in meth labs, and the principals of All Discount Labs have since pleaded guilty to selling CFC-113 with reasonable cause to believe it was being used for the illegal manufacture of methamphetamine. Although Shellef and Rubenstein were not indicted on drug charges, the investigation revealed that they were major suppliers of CFC-113 to All Discount Labs. When used in meth labs, the CFC-113 is released directly into the atmosphere where it damages the ozone layer.

The defendants each face maximum sentences of 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines for the conspiracy and wire fraud convictions. In addition, Shellef faces a maximum sentence of 20 years on the money laundering convictions and a fine of $500,000 or twice the property involved in the offenses. The false corporate tax return charges each carry maximum sentences of three years and fines of $250,000, and the personal income tax evasion charge carries a maximum sentence of five years and a fine of $250,000. Shellef also faces forfeiture of over $1 million of funds involved in the money laundering offenses.

$100 Million Settlement Announced for Superfund Site

On August 2, 2005 , the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. EPA announced that Atlantic Richfield Company and NorthWestern Corporation have agreed to clean-up and restore the Milltown Reservoir Superfund site in Montana . The settlement is valued at over $100 million. The negotiations involved the State of Montana and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Justice, and the two corporations. The planned cleanup will restore local drinking water, improve conditions in the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers , and improve local fishing.

The Milltown Reservoir remediation and restoration is expected to take place over the next six to seven years. The settlers have agreed to remove nearly 2.5 million cubic yards of contaminated sediments from the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers and remove the Milltown Dam to prevent recontamination. They will also provide funds for additional activities, including historic preservation and the removal of the nearby Stimson Dam, and will reimburse past and future federal response costs. After remediation is complete, the State of Montana will implement the restoration plan for the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers, including reconfiguring and revegetating the channel and floodplain to return the rivers to their original free-flowing conditions. Once the remediation and restoration are complete, a local community group called the Milltown Redevelopment Working Group will oversee the implementation of the redevelopment plan it created for the area.

The Milltown Reservoir site was added to the National Priorities List in September 1983 after Missoula County health officials identified arsenic contamination in the drinking water supply. Residents were provided with an alternative water supply. A hundred years of mining activities upstream contaminated approximately 6.6 million cubic yards of sediments; the resulting groundwater arsenic plume impacted local drinking water and fishing. Multiple environmental investigations were performed in the Milltown Reservoir between 1982 and 1992 to determine the source and scope of the contamination. EPA and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality issued their cleanup plans for the site in a December 2004 Record of Decision.

For additional information, contact Diana Hammer, EPA Region 8 Community Involvement Coordinator, 1-406-457-5040.

Cambodia Jails Infamous Tiger Poacher
Source: The Independent (London)

The Cambodian forest police have finally caught their prey. It was Yor Ngun, the notorious tiger killer of Koh Kong, no ordinary poacher. He was a stealthy tracker and legendary shot, who is thought to have killed 600 of the beasts since 2000 and countless more in the past three decades.

For years, Ngun, now 58, has headed the Most Wanted Killers list posted by regional conservation groups in South-east Asia , who hailed yesterday's surprise verdict in a court in the coastal town of Koh Kong , which jailed Ngun, 58, for seven years.

The clandestine hunter was found guilty of slaying 40 leopards, 19 tigers, 30 elephants, and 43 bears. In addition, Ngun rustled 500 head of wild cattle called banteng. 'Even though he is too old to be in jail, he deserves it for what he did,' Judge Sim Soung said. Ngun has roamed for decades across 10 provinces, sticking to the remote rainforests and stands of bamboo. He was caught in north-eastern Cambodia a year ago but let go when he signed a promise not to destroy any more protected animals. After that, conservation charities say, Ngun carried a wad of bills stuffed in his pocket, even though he pleaded poverty. But instead of pocketing any bribes, this time the officials charged Ngun with crimes against wildlife.

'His photo was sent across the country, but we lost track until he was arrested early this year,' said Sun Hean, a Phnom Penh conservation activist.

Ngun's primary market is in China , where extravagant sums are paid for body parts of wild animals, used for trophies, amulets, or in traditional medicine and aphrodisiacs. Animal rights supporters say it is consequently premature to celebrate this court verdict. One group, WildAid, says there are at least 700 other known traffickers in Cambodia " the hub of the criminal syndicate trading in endangered species.

After the genocidal regime of the Khmer rouge and decades of civil war, Cambodia had large tracts of virgin forest well-populated with wildlife. Illegal logging, poaching and illegal building are, however, taking a heavy toll. The Cambodian wilderness protection mobile unit, working with the San Francisco-based conservationist group WildAid, keeps a blacklist of wildlife traders, from whom they have rescued more than 28,000 live animals. Few can be prosecuted, however, and when they are the penalty is usually a derisory fine.

'Formerly staunch communist countries like Laos and Cambodia have become the newest links in the supply chain for the animal underworld,' said Ben Davies, a Bangkok-based Briton who researched Asia's clandestine wildlife trade for three years while writing a book entitled Black Market.

Whether the arrest of one hunter will make any difference remains to be seen. Urban middle men and customs officials make far more money from endangered species than the trappers and shooters such as Ngun.