Brazilian environmental authorities this month were scrambling to shore up a federal ban on mahogany exports after timber mills took to the courts to free themselves from the measure’s restrictions. In December and January, a total of nine mills in Pará and Paraná states secured court rulings allowing them to proceed with mahogany shipments on grounds they had acquired their wood before Oct. 19, the day the ban took effect. But Ibama, the environmental-enforcement agency that declared the unusual ban after uncovering evidence of widespread illegal mahogany cutting, is challenging the rulings, which number five in all. And early this month, it succeeded in overturning one of them—a decision affecting the Perrachi mill in Pará state. Meanwhile, Ibama President Hamilton Casara has conferred... [Log in to read more]