Swedish tycoon's firm fined $275million for logging in Amazon

Yahoo News 6 Jun 08;

A firm belonging to a Swedish tycoon close to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been fined 275 million dollars for illegally cutting down Amazon rainforest, officials said Friday.

The Brazilian government's environmental agency Ibama said it levied the 450 million reals (275 million dollars) in punishment on the Gethal company owned by Johan Eliasch for cutting down 230,000 trees and lacking certification for Amazon land it owns.

Ibama's statement follows an announcement last month that Brazil's police and intelligence services were investigating Eliasch's interests in the country.

It also came as the Brazilian government scrambled to reaffirm its ecological credentials in the wake of official statistics showing deforestation of the Amazon was accelerating.

Eliasch, a 46-year-old London-based businessman with an estimated net worth of 790 million dollars, is the boss of the Head sports equipment company and an environmental consultant to Britain's prime minister.

He is also the founder of a British-based organization called Cool Earth whose aim is to find sponsors to buy up Amazon rainforest in order to protect it.

A prosecutor for Brazil's state agricultural reform body Incra, Carlos Alberto de Salles, told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that Eliasch's Gethal holding owns 57 tracts of land in the Amazon totalling 1,212 square kilometers (468 square miles) of forest.

Cool Earth's director, Matthew Owen, told AFP on May 27 he was "bewildered" by Brazil's investigation of Eliasch, and stated: "We do not own any lands in Amazonas, we fund various protection projects through our partners."

A source close to Eliasch claimed at the time the investigation was started to "whip up nationalism for political purposes."

Firm rejects Amazon logging fine: source
Yahoo News 7 Jun 08;

Accusations that the firm Gethal had been illegally logging in the Brazilian rainforest are false and politically motivated, a source close to owner Johan Eliasch told AFP on Saturday.

The company has "no intention" of accepting a fine announced by the Brazilian government Friday, and is prepared to take the matter to court, the source said.

The Brazilian government's environmental agency Ibama fined Gethal 450 million reals (275 million dollars, 175 million euros) for illegally cutting down 230,000 trees and lacking certification for Amazon land it owns.

"Those allegations are false, fabricated and unsubstantiated," said a source close to the Swedish tycoon, saying the logging stopped once Eliasch bought the firm in order "to protect the rainforest."

"Gethal has been fined because the company didn't comply with its management plan, which had been decided by the previous owners, which planned for the logging in the rainforest," the source said.

The Brazilian authorities did not notify Gethal of the fine and the company will fight its punishment "vigorously", said the source. "The company will fight in the courts.

"Ibama's decision is absurd. Gethal has not violated any law, no harm has been caused; on the contrary. The real issue is politically motivated: it's about the foreign ownership of the rainforest."

Eliasch, a 46-year-old London-based businessman with an estimated net worth of 790 million dollars, is the boss of the Head sports equipment company and an environmental consultant to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

He is also the founder of a British-based organisation called Cool Earth whose aim is to find sponsors to buy up Amazon rainforest in order to protect it.