The self-described “Guardians of the Forest” defending the land don’t look like fighters, at least when we first meet them. But they are pitting themselves against criminal logging gangs that have infiltrated their protected reserves.
There’s a war going on in the Brazilian rainforest between rubber tappers and poaching loggers. A classic frontier confrontation between those who live sustainably by a renewable resource and those who would plunder it. The plunderers are employing tactics of drug cartels. Paul McNamee bird-dogged this NPR story. Read it here. And weep.
Paul McNamee says
Shook my head when I read this. Always poachers. Always those who would rush to completely consume the resource until it is unsustainable. “Pay me now” mentality, I guess.
Paul McNamee says
Still though – setting for a noir story or even a better fit would be a modern Western. (jots notes in commonplace book)
JimC says
Do it!
Lane Batot says
This crap goes on in the U. S. A., too. Perhaps not as organized, and usually overlooked. I mean, were you driving by a forested area and saw loggers at work, would it even enter your mind that they might be POACHING those trees? How could you tell? They use the same equipment, and look no differently than legal lumberers. This was a problem up where I used to live in very remote sections of Southern Appalachia, where crews of illegal loggers could operate, get in and get out with no one the wiser. Denude entire mountainsides. And since legal crews also worked the area, it was virtually impossible for the unlikely passerby to know the difference. Perhaps we ALL need to learn what forests are protected lands in our areas, and maybe take the bother to check up on some crews if we have any doubts…..Incidentally, in that area where I lived(Cocke County, Tennessee), I read a survey done of the five highest forms of income at that time(and probably has changed little to this day!); 1st–marijuana growing(I believe the song “Copperhead Road” coulda been written about Cocke County!); 2nd–car theft and chopping; 3rd–good-old moonshining; 4th–wildlife poaching(the notorius bear gall bladder poaching was going full tilt at the time); and 5th was lumbering–the only legal form of the top five forms of income–SOMETIMES!
JimC says
There was a major scandal in the Deschutes National Forest just before I moved here in 1993 over mis-marked timber sales and illegal cutting of old-growth pondo.
As far as your top-five crimes, my bet is that John Lee Pettimore and his kin were up to their skinny asses in ALL of it!