MEXICAN WOOD EXPORT BUSINESS AT A HISTORIC CROSSROADS

by Kent Paterson, Contributing Reporter

For years the Santa Teresa Port of Entry in southern New Mexico was best known for the many Chihuahua cattle crossing into the U.S. While bovine are still the big commodity, another product-lumber-has recently achieved status as an important Mexican import at Santa Teresa. According to the U.S. Customs Service, about 54 million dollars worth of Mexican wood products passed through Santa Teresa during 1996. With "less mills operating in the United States, more and more moldings are coming from Mexico," explained importer Joe Alcantar Jr., the president of Brown, Alcantar and Brown, Inc., one of the main customs brokers at Santa Teresa.

Twenty firms from Chihuahua, Durango, Michoacan, Guerrero, and Oaxaca states are currently shipping material, ranging from moldings used in construction to home firewood, Alcantar said. Santa Teresa has achieved a niche in the cross-border wood products trade. Trucks can pass through the relatively uncongested station more easily and not be as bogged down as they can be at the crowded bridges in nearby El Paso. The trade volume is so brisk that exporters electronically transmit permit information from the Mexican interior so trucks can pass with the least amount of hassle.

Because of pest infestation concerns stemming from a northern California court case, the U.S. Department of Agriculture began a moratorium in 1997 on issuing new import permits for some types of Mexican wood. The order does not affect business from the state of Chihuahua.

One U.S. Customs Department employee added that with the opening of the new, bigger Santa Teresa facility, the port of entry would likely handle even more lumber shipments. Preliminary 1997 import figures released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-APHIS suggest the lumber passing through Santa Teresa will probably double 1996's figure of 20,460,593 board feet.

The lumber import surge at Santa Teresa comes at a critical time for the Mexican wood products industry. Emerging from a virtual collapse several years ago, a restructured Mexican industry is looking to U.S. markets to recover its standing. In hopes of rebounding, business leaders are banking on the 1997 forestry law, new infusions of foreign investment, and modernization of their industrial plant.

At the same time serious problems confront the forest products sector. Chief among them are unregulated timber harvesting, widespread conflicts over ownership and control of forest lands, and mounting concerns over the environmental sustainability of current logging practices. For example, conflicts abound over the administration of collectively-owned forest ejidos, which account for about three-fourths of all forest land in Mexico. Disputes pitting indigenous landowners against mestizo ejido administrators are rife in Chihuahua. Since Spanish is the commercial common language, indigenous Tarahumara and Tepehuan ejiditarios frequently complain they know very little about logging deals or how business income is spent.

The recent case of the Ejido San Alonso, in the municipality of Urique, Chihuahua, is perhaps illustrative of the bigger picture. In 1996, 13 members of the San Alonso ejido approached the non-governmental Chihuahua Commission in Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights (Cosyddhac), a Roman Catholic Church-supported group.

Cosyddhac helped the ejiditarios file a complaint with Profepa, Mexico's environmental attorney general. It alleged that San Alonso's forestry engineer and administrators were illegally harvesting young pine and prohibited tree species -including tascate- partially to fulfill a new contract with the U.S.-based International Paper Company.

"Pines were being cut outside the harvesting zones and pines without markings were being cut," contended Cosyddhac organizer Maria Teresa Guerrero. "There were instances in which the regulations were being violated. All pines that are cut have to be within a certain area."

According to the human rights activist, International Paper was paying the ejido about $14 per ton for secondary wood slated for paper production. Out of that amount, about 160 ejiditarios were to receive about 75 cents per ton for their profit share-divided up among the group.

While the complaint was pending, ejido leaders struck back by ferrying some of their members into Chihuahua City to protest against Cosyddhac. In a scene reminiscent of logger vs. environmentalist battles in the United States, ejido leaders accused Cosyddhac of taking away jobs from needy workers. Nevertheless, Profepa's investigation later upheld the bulk of the original complaint. In early 1997, the Mexican agency fined the forestry engineer and ejido about $25,000 and ordered a halt to logging on San Alonso. International Paper has since publicly faded from the scene.

Company spokesman Neil Lincoln denied that the San Alonso case had anything to do with his company's decision to pull back. Lincoln blamed the decision on simple economics, claiming that transportation costs toU.S. mills did not justify the business at a time when the price of paper was dropping.

"We originally started that project in an effort to see if it would be financially feasible to provide to some of our mills in the United States, and basically came to the conclusion that while there's a lot of potential there right now, it doesn't make economic sense," said Lincoln.

The corporate spokesman, however, acknowledged his company continues to maintain "experimental plots" in Mexico and will keep an eye on the country for the future.

While the San Alonso case showed some difficulties U.S. paper and wood companies are likely to encounter in Mexico, the conflict also highlighted the internationalization of the Mexican logging issue in other important ways. For the second major time this decade, U.S. environmentalists and other activists lent support to a Mexican-led campaign to curb logging in Chihuahua. Both sides have raised mutual concerns. These include the effects of over logging on the Rio Conchos tributary of the Rio Grande and the possible influence of timber harvesting on droughts, such as the one that recently seared large parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States.

Earlier, in 1990, Cosyddhac and the Texas Center for Policy Studies spearheaded a cross-border movement to halt a proposed $100 million-dollar World Bank loan for stepped-up logging of the northern Sierra Madres. Three years later the bank quietly shelved the loan, though several million dollars were spent improving access roads to the tree-cutting zones.

In the San Alonso battle, Cosyddhac hauled out a new weapon: the Internet. U.S. activists answered appeals for protest letters to the appropriate Mexican authorities.

"We asked for solidarity from U.S., non-governmental organizations and received tremendous support," said Cosyddhac's Maria Teresa Guerrero. "The issue isn't to have (U.S.)environmentalists attain success in passing stricter regulations governing their forests, only then to have the companies come to Mexico where the forest law is being liberalized," she continued. "What we need to do is work together, to internationalize the work of non-governmental groups, and to show the companies that they have a new approach with the respect to the exploitation of forest resources."

International Paper's retreat aside, the wood products trade in the Chihuahua Sierra is likely to remain a significant, regional export business-especially given the streamlined access through the Santa Teresa Port of Entry. One important difference from the past is the emergence of the environmental and indigenous rights questions as new factors in logging contracts. As new plots are cut and cleared, stay tuned for more controversies up the road.