[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25161-25162]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1245
                       CONDEMNING ILLEGAL LOGGING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
  The irreplaceable role of healthy forests as havens for biodiversity, 
carbon sinks and renewable resources demands that we reverse a global 
legacy of environmental pillaging. Illegal logging and resource 
extraction is not just about environmental decimation, with watershed 
pollution, biodiversity loss and increased carbon emissions, it's about 
the human loss as well: the local communities left with a culture of 
violence and corruption devastated without resources for survival, and 
beyond, to everybody on the planet.
  We all benefit from the medicines, carbon capture and species 
diversity these forests provide. For years, I've worked to eliminate 
the illegal logging trade. To make sure the United States can lead by 
example and stop our own use of illegally logged lumber, I authored the 
Legal Timber Protection Act whose provisions were signed into law last 
year. The U.S. Government is now empowered to determine where imported 
wood and plants actually come from to promote legal harvest. Yet the 
illegal trade continues.
  Last Thursday, with Chairmen Payne and Faleomavaega, I introduced a 
resolution to condemn the illegal logging and extraction of 
Madagascar's unique and invaluable natural resources. Madagascar hosts 
some of this planet's greatest diversity. Larger than the State of 
California, this island nation broke off from the African mainland 
about 160 million years ago, spawning a biological laboratory with over 
150,000 plants and animals found nowhere else in the world: massive 
moths, towering trees, and a hundred different lemur species. The 
majority of Madagascar's people live on less than $2 a day, and 
protection of these incredible and unique resources, only 10 percent of 
which remain, could be key to a sustainable and economically secure 
future. Yet political turmoil is putting the honest livelihoods of 
many, as well as one of our planet's greatest treasures, in extreme 
peril.
  In March, the democratically elected President was ousted by a 
political rival with the backing of the military, a move which has been 
condemned by the United States, the African Union and others as a 
military coup d'etat. That ushered in a collapse of security for these 
precious treasures as political instability bred further corruption and 
mismanagement. Twenty years of partnership with the United States and 
nongovernmental organizations that has resulted in more effective local 
management and preservation is being undone in a matter of months. The 
de facto government uses the nation's endangered resources to boost its 
regime and has issued sweeping decrees allowing the harvest and export 
of wood from protected forests and World Heritage Sites.
  Reports from Madagascar are dire, detailing rampant illegal logging, 
mining, and resource degradation as detailed in an excellent report in 
last Friday's Washington Post. Traffickers smuggle record numbers of 
one of the world's rarest tortoises to Asian and European collectors; 
poachers kill and roast scores of lemurs for restaurants; and armed 
loggers brazenly plunder protected forests, looting dwindling hardwoods 
for furniture. These activities not only deny locals access to basic 
resources, they also degrade the country's thriving eco-tourism 
industry which brought in almost $400 million last year.
  The United States has condemned this current government and suspended 
all nonhumanitarian aid and terminated assistance through a Millennium 
Development Corporation compact. The World Wildlife Fund, Conservation 
International and the Wildlife Conservation Society have all denounced 
the subsequent wholesale exploitation of some of the world's most 
diverse forests and the decimation of the local people's resources and 
livelihood.
  As the World Forestry Congress convenes this week, we have an 
excellent opportunity to raise awareness to stop rampant illegal 
logging and the harvesting of species. I am pleased that the United 
States Forest Service chief specifically referenced our resolution, H. 
Res. 839, during his address to the Forestry Congress as an example of 
United States commitment. The international community, all of us, must 
engage before it's too late for these protected species and do all we 
can to prevent the irreparable harm caused by illegal logging.
  This resolution condemns the ongoing tragedy and calls for the 
restoration of the rule of law and shows that

[[Page 25162]]

the Federal Government will fight to help the people of Madagascar 
protect these resources.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in cosponsoring House Resolution 
839 so that the House can do its part to stop this outrage.

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