Environmental Investigation Agency reports on illegally cut timber imported to Canada funding paramilitary violence in Colombia
The Guardian reports: “While international funding is funnelled into protecting [the forests of Colombia’s Chocó region], timber is still being illegally cut and exported to the US, Canada and Europe, according to a new report by the [London, UK-based] charity Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).”
That article highlights: “In the supply chain uncovered by investigators, trees felled in Colombia’s remote jungles end up as garden patios and roofs on homes in North America and Europe, where consumers unknowingly support the decades-long armed conflict, as well as poor working conditions.”
And this news report further explains: “The trade is dominated by armed groups that sprang up in the 1960s to protect landowners from guerrilla insurgencies and are now financed by cocaine trafficking, illegal mining and, as the report details, blood timber. …In undercover interviews with EIA researchers, owners of timber companies confess to regularly paying off groups such as the Urabeños and Águilas Negras, some of Colombia’s most violent paramilitary organisations, for access to the region.
The 42-page report – DECKING THE FOREST: How Colombia’s unlawful timber exports to the U.S. sustain armed groups and illegal logging – makes several references to Canada as well as a Canadian company, including:
-“A new investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has uncovered evidence of widespread illegalities in Colombia’s timber sector with links to illegal armed groups (IAGs), affecting the country’s forests and connected to American, European and Canadian wood importers.” (page 3)
-“Around twenty percent of these uncertified decking and flooring exports went to the United States (U.S.) – to 16 American firms – the European Union (EU) and Canada, each with laws obliging importers to ensure the legal origin of their products.” (page 3)
-“Case 1: Los Cedros Hardwood Flooring and its unauthorized and conflict-linked timber exports. EIA investigations and analysis of official information reveals that almost 93% of a prominent family-owned Colombian timber company’s exports to the U.S., Canada and the EU between 2020 and 2023 lacked the required official certificate validating their legal origin in Colombia and thus breached U.S., Canadian and EU laws that prohibit those markets from importing illegal timber.” (page 18)
Image from report (page 22)
-“One timber exporter, Los Cedros Hardwood Flooring, openly admitted to financing armed groups, perpetuating violence and exploitation in the Pacific region, while Maderas Santa Rita and C.I. Casa en Madera have suspected supply chains variously linked to official investigations, deforestation, community conflict and possible timber laundering in Colombia’s Pacific and Amazon forests.” (page 33)
We continue to follow this.
Further reading: Justice for Jani Silva: Colombian campesina activist Jani Silva threatened in Putumayo (by Lital Khaikin, Rabble.ca, February 7, 2025); On sidelines of UN nature summit in Colombia, Canadian mining companies pillage (by Lital Khaikin, The Breach, December 6, 2024) and Toronto gold miners unfazed by paramilitaries’ brutal reign (by Joshua Collins, The Breach, October 6, 2022)
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