TIMBER INSPECTION IN SÃO PAULO TO COMBAT DEFORESTATION IN THE AMAZON

Abstract

The Amazon region is one of the largest tropical forest reserves in the world, with illegal deforestation being one of the main risks to its preservation. The state of São Paulo is one of the main destinations for the timber taken from the region. Aiming to curb this activity, the state monitors the transportation and trade of timber, acting directly on the timber economic chain. This descriptive work, using a hypothetical-deductive method, analyzed the characteristics of this activity in the literature and in the occurrences attended by the Environmental Police of the state of São Paulo, from 2018 to 2022. Identifying 2,470 in flagrante related to the transportation and trade of illegal timber, generating a total of 164,864 M³ of timber seized from 513 different species, of which 80% of the ten most seized have natural incidences in the Amazon region, and half of this timber is from endangered species. The main routes for this timber and the concentration of its trade were mapped, concluding that the inspection carried out by the Environmental Police of São Paulo and its Operational Planning are important and complementary command and control tools for the preservation and protection of the Amazon Rainforest, even though it is in the southeast region of the country.

Keywords:
Amazon; Amazon rainforest; illegal timber trade; environmental inspection; environmental Military Police