(Credit: Argentine Federal Police)
(CNN Spanish) -
An investigation by the federal Justice in Argentina advances on the alleged illegal felling of the tree known as palo santo, in a network that includes former government officials who were in charge of protecting the environment.
The
Bulnesia Sarmientoi
, known as palo santo, is a native species of the South American Great Chaco, the second most important forest ecosystem in the region, and the commercialization of its wood has been under the scrutiny of the authorities for years to prevent it from entering the category "Risk of extinction", according to the National Strategic Plan of the Ministry of the Environment for the conservation of this tree.
In addition, it is on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a world authority that monitors the state of natural resources and includes species at risk on its red list.
Palo santo, a native species of the South American Gran Chaco whose commercialization could put it in danger
This tree is known by the same name as the wood used for flavoring, but it is another species that only grows in areas of Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina. It is a wood sought for the manufacture of floors, furniture, handicrafts, the pharmaceutical industry and the use of its essential oils for both the local market and for export, as Juan Pedro Cano, former national director of Forests, explained to CNN.
In July, federal judge Sebastián Casanello prosecuted 14 people for the alleged smuggling of 1,282 tons of palo santo wood sold in 2013 by a company from Salta, one of the three Argentine provinces where this tree grows (it is also found in Chaco and Formosa).
The defendants were also prosecuted for alleged falsification of public documents that would have been used - according to the ruling - to forge the real origin of the palo santo wood.
All the defendants have denied having participated in illegal acts and several of their defenses responded to CNN that they hope that the Federal Chamber of the City of Buenos Aires will revoke the judge's decision after the appeal of the ruling.
The role of officials
Among the defendants, there are four former public officials prosecuted as alleged "primary participants" in the crime of smuggling, three of whom were "on both sides of the counter" at different stages of the denounced maneuver: they worked for the company responsible for the clearing and, at another time, they had positions in the Secretary of the Environment of Salta.
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In Argentina, the provincial governments must authorize clearing in their territories since there are protected areas and others where forestry is possible both for the commercialization of wood and for the change of land use (clearing to plant soybeans or raise livestock) .
Then, if the wood is exported, the National Forest Directorate intervenes to verify whether the origin of the wood is legal before it leaves the country.
“The use and conservation of this species in Argentina is regulated not only by the National Law of Native Forests but also by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES). Despite not being in danger of extinction, it could be if its trade is not strictly controlled ”, explained Juan Pedro Cano, former head of the National Forest Directorate, between 2017 and 2019.
The cause originated when a technician from the National Forest Directorate proceeded in January 2014 to corroborate the information on the official permits granted to companies seeking to export wood.
The official, as he told the court in his statement as a witness, was able to corroborate through a satellite image program that there were no traces of clearing at the Las Colmenas farm, where these 1,282 tons of palo santo supposedly came from.
The complaint
The case has two stages.
In 2007, the company Tierra Vasca SA tried for the first time to obtain permits to cut palo santo on its property.
At the time, Gustavo Erico Paul was the one who handled the formalities as a forestry engineer for the company.
That same year, the attempt failed because the environmental authorities of the Salta province did not authorize logging at the Las Colmenas farm, located in the department of Orán.
The company resubmitted the logging request five years later, in May 2012, during the government of Juan Manuel Urtubey.
But then, the roles between private and civil servants were exchanged.
Paul, who had served as a forestry engineer for Tierra Vasca SA in 2007 was now the Secretary of the Environment for the province of Salta;
Cristian Heraldo Gribaudo, who in 2007 had been a Salta Environment official, had participated in the public hearings held as a preliminary step to analyze the issuance of permits.
Another former Tierra Vasca SA employee, Natalia Rageon, also took on a key position in the provincial state in 2012: she was General Director of Territorial Planning of the Salta Secretariat of the Environment.
The participation of these three former officials, according to judge Casanello, would have been central for the company Tierra Vasca SA to obtain official permits to commercialize the wood of palo santo, supposedly adulterating the real origin of the trees in the documents.
In addition, neither of the two officials excused themselves from participating in the approval of the logging permits of the company for which they had worked five years earlier, the judge said in the ruling.
The official defender Gustavo Kollmann is the lawyer for the then officials Gustavo Erico Paul and Natalia Rangeon.
Before consulting CNN, he confirmed that he is working on the appeal and remarked that his clients deny the accusations.
On May 22, 2013, the Salta Environment area granted permits for Tierra Vasca SA to cut down some 3,000 hectares of forest and use that area for livestock and agriculture.
He then authorized the company to commercialize the wood of palo santo, according to the court ruling, which highlights that the inspection and monitoring of the project was in less than the area headed by the official Paul, a former forestry engineer of the company.
The judicial investigation determined that these logging permits were granted without having
no technical support or documentation that corroborated how many trees could be extracted from that farm;
without inspecting on site the existence of the trees or the location or dates of the felling tasks.
The companies investigated
There are four companies investigated in this case.
The permits to dismantle and obtain the wood were requested between 2012 and 2013 by the company Tierra Vasca SA, which operated the Las Colmenas farm, located in the department of Orán, in the province of Salta, where the felling had to be carried out in order to change the use of the property and apply it to livestock, as reported by the company to the authorities of Salta and stated in the court ruling.
Later, Tierra Vasca SA sold the wood to three other companies that were going to export it: Entrecomex Global SRL, Tropical Bushes SRL and Winner International SRL, which even moved the wood to different Argentine ports to send it abroad.
Those responsible in this case were prosecuted as alleged co-perpetrators of attempted smuggling.
The procedures reached the Ministry of the Environment of the Nation when the three exporting companies presented the documentation on the origin of the wood to remove from the country the 1,282 tons that they had bought from Tierra Vasca SA in Salta. In a first step, the fourth official accused in the case intervened, Eduardo Álvarez, who did not work in the province of Salta but in the national government and endorsed the permits based on the documentation provided by the companies, but the judge reproaches him that it did not corroborate the origin of the forest product, according to the ruling. CNN could not locate the defendant Álvarez, who declared before the judge that he never committed crimes in the exercise of his control function in the export of timber and said that he limited himself to examining the documentation that came from Salta.
In January 2014, the project reached the National Forest Directorate. An official in charge of the control of timber for export sought to verify the information provided by the companies. After corroborating through the analysis of satellite images of the farm, he detected that there were no traces of the authorized clearing. The official traveled to the property with another official inspector to verify the suspicion: the palo santo trees had not been cut down in Las Colmenas, he assured the judge.
National officials concluded that the wood to be exported would come from other forests, over which Tierra Vasca SA did not have official permission to deforest.
Based on this conclusion, the National Forest Directorate stopped the export of the wood and denounced the alleged falsity of the information contained in the official permits.
In 2018, after several raids by the Argentine Federal Police, the judge in the case held that “the Las Colmenas farm was used as a cover to falsely justify the origin of the wood that was intended to be exported” and spoke of “collusion” between the officials investigated audiences and employers.
The police procedures allowed the seizure of documents on the wood that were in the possession of the businessmen and even more quantity of palo santo that was ready for distribution in a farm that would have functioned as a deposit of illegal wood.
According to the magistrate, "what happened here would not have been an isolated case, but would be framed within a broader, highly organized scheme of action", and that "palo santo wood" originated "in the logging activity clandestine ”, he affirmed in the ruling.
Casanello also issued seizures of assets and money of the 14 defendants that, in the case of the investigated companies, reached 430 million pesos, equivalent to about
4.4
million dollars.
The version of the defendants
Lawyer Marcelo José María Perret, who represents Jorge Pocovi, head of Tierra Vasca SA, told CNN that he hopes the ruling will be reviewed by the appeals court.
He denied the allegations against his client and denies that he knows the other defendants.
Before the judge, the businessman Pocovi insisted that he never had a commercial interest in the palo santo, that a "selective logging" had been carried out on the farm he was exploiting, which, given the immensity of the property, was inspected by national officials and " satellite images could not verify it. "
Lawyer Nicolás Durrier, one of the defenders of those responsible for the exporter Winner International SRL, also denied the charges against his clients. He told CNN that he will appeal the ruling because he considers it "null and arbitrary" and that his clients did not know if the real origin of the trees had been falsified in the documents they received from the timber supplier.
One of the points on which some of the appeals are based is to question the judge's decision to prosecute the accused for the alleged crime of smuggling, an unprecedented legal framework on environmental issues, explained several of the defenders consulted. In the ruling, however, the magistrate emphasized that the alleged maneuver had exceeded a possible falsification of public documents, that the wood had been traded and transferred between jurisdictions and prepared for export.
Gastón Chapo, defender of those responsible for the Entrecomex Global company, also appealed the court ruling against his clients. “They bought the wood and used the information and documentation that they provided. This palo santo wood must meet certain requirements: as fine cuts are required, it cannot be felled with bulldozers or chains, as is customary in the region, so it is done with a chainsaw. Satellite images are not conclusive as evidence, "he explained. He maintained that his clients will present more information in writing to the judge to argue their version.
The lawyers of those accused by the Tropical Bushes company, from the Cúneo Libarona study, received the repeated calls and messages from CNN, but did not respond so far.
Like the rest of the defendants, their defendants denied the charges before the judge and declared that they had no participation in the logging or in the permits in which the origin of the wood was allegedly altered.
Neither did lawyer Germán Alfaro, who defends former official Cristian Heraldo Gribaudo, respond.
His defendant argued before the judge the same thing that the owner of Tierra Vasca SA maintained: that logging on the Las Colmenas farm existed but that it had been a “selective logging” that could not be easily detected by satellite images.
CNN could not locate the defendant Álvarez, who declared before the judge that he never committed crimes in the exercise of his control function in the export of timber.
Felling of trees