Tag: Peru

Huge 2025 Rise in Ecuadorian Balsa Exports to Feed Wind Turbine Demand Raises Fears of Increased Illegal Logging

The rape of the Amazon rainforest to feed an exploding global demand for wind turbine balsa wood cores could be getting worse.

Along with the global slaughter of millions of bats and the decimation of local raptor populations, the looting of the Amazon for balsa is one of the dirty secrets of the ‘green’ power revolution.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Chris Morrison

The rape of the Amazon rainforest to feed an exploding global demand for wind turbine balsa wood cores could be getting worse. According to local reports, the main balsa-producing country Ecuador has seen a huge 2025 rise in exports of the vital turbine core wood from US$218 million in 2024 to US$301 million. Last March, the Daily Sceptic reported exclusively on figures that suggested half a million mature balsa trees were being illegally logged every year in Ecuador and Peru to make up for shortfalls from sustainable plantations. The massive export rise over just one year hardly suggests the illegal deforestation is easing – if anything, it is a possible sign that the situation is getting worse.

Along with the global slaughter of millions of bats and the decimation of local raptor populations, the looting of the Amazon for balsa is one of the dirty secrets of the ‘green’ power revolution. For obvious political reasons, it cannot be mentioned in Net Zero-supporting mainstream media. Balsa is a tropical hardwood that is both lightweight and strong, and despite chemical foam alternatives, it is the material of choice for large 15 MW offshore turbine blades. According to a recent Mordor Intelligence report, foams can lose rigidity under extreme marine conditions – especially near the blade roots where stresses peak in structures that are almost as high as the Eiffel Tower.

Ecuador provides at least 70% of world balsa and China takes over half this supply as it attempts to dominate the global manufacture of wind turbines. It is thought that about 50% of global balsa production is used in turbine blades. Each blade is composed of 7% balsa, and it is estimated that each set of three can use up to 40 trees. Given what is known about annual balsa production, the scale of illegal logging and the requirements of turbine manufacturers, it is not difficult to arrive at a possible Amazon natural forest yearly loss of around half a million trees. The detailed figures can be found in our March article.

Balsa is a fast-growing wood that reaches the maturity needed for wind turbine use in about seven years. Until the soaring demand from turbines kicked in, it was harvested in sustainable plantations. But since the turn of the decade, this sustainable harvest cannot keep up with demand. In a damning 2024 survey, the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) found that Ecuadorian exports were boosted by up to 50% following illegal logging in virgin rainforest.

The EIA report was damning. Investigators toured many of the illegal logging sites and charged that most, if not all, exporters turned to natural forests as a “convenient and immediate replacement” when plantations were quickly depleted of older trees. The areas under attack were noted to be some of the last intact forest landscapes in the country. They were said to be unique protected areas and emblematic indigenous territories.

One can only imagine the worldwide outcry if oil companies needed the wood for their own operations. But when alleged ‘green’ companies loot the forest, the blind eye turned is positively Nelsonian.

A continued lack of enough sustainable wood in Ecuador allied to a massive 37% increase in 2025 manufactured balsa exports hardly suggests a fall in illegal logging. Given that over 40 trees are required for a giant turbine, perhaps an educational plaque should be attached noting that at least 20 were illegally taken from the Amazon so this unreliable power machine can help us stop the Earth catching fire. (Other pseudoscience climate scares are of course available.)

Within days of the Daily Sceptic illegal logging article going viral on social media, a ‘fact check’ was published blowing smoke around similar claims. Green blob-funded Science Feedback didn’t mention the Daily Sceptic by name – it seems to have learnt we bite back – but it noted: “A common strategy that misinformers use against renewable energy is to claim that wind turbines or solar panels aren’t as green as they seem.” It is accepted that illegal balsa wood logging occurs, “but the main cause of deforestation in the Amazon is agriculture, not wind turbines or logging in general”.

So that’s all right then – if it were the main cause, we would have to get rather more upset about the matter. We should not minimise the illegal logging harms, continues the ever-reliable smoke blower. But is the entire wind industry now dependent on illegal Amazon wood? “Probably not” is the reply. A more relevant question would ask whether a significant portion of the wind industry was dependent on illegally obtained wood – and the answer would be: definitely yes.

“It is quite misleading to blame wind turbines for deforestation in the Amazon without crucial context,” Science Feedback observes. At this point, your correspondent started to lose the will to continue reading this tripe. One can only wonder how Science Feedback would spin our story that large areas of the Indonesian rainforest are being turned into open-cast mining pits to supply nickel and increase the range of high-end electric vehicles.

“Necessary thinning of overgrown vegetation designed to improve the overall health of the local ecosystem – and of course help stop the Earth going up in flames” would be our helpful suggestion.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.

If This Lawsuit Succeeds, Global Business Changes Overnight

The case is part of a larger global trend of environmental and climate-related litigation. Nearly 3,000 climate-related cases have been filed worldwide, and courts are increasingly being asked to address questions of corporate responsibility, environmental damage, and cross-border accountability.

From Watts Up With That?

By Gerard Scimeca

How far should U.S. law reach beyond U.S. borders? In June, a federal courtroom in St. Louis will confront that question in a case with implications that extend far beyond one Missouri company or one Peruvian town.

The case is Reid v. Doe Run Resources Corporation, brought by roughly 2,800 Peruvian plaintiffs alleging injuries from emissions tied to the La Oroya metallurgical complex in Peru. The plaintiffs seek to hold liable Doe Run Resources Corporation, a Missouri-based parent company, even though the facility at heart of the lawsuit was owned and operated by subsidiary Doe Run Peru, all operations were in Peru, and the facility was operating for 75 years before Doe Run Peru purchased it in 1997.

At stake is not merely a dispute over pollution claims from a century-old industrial facility. The case could reshape the boundaries of U.S. tort law, weaken confidence in international trade agreements and paralyze U.S. investment in developing nations.

First, the facts. La Oroya was not a pristine operation spoiled by careless new owners. It had operated continuously since 1922 and, when Doe Run’s Peruvian subsidiary acquired the facility in 1997, it inherited an aging industrial site that had spent decades operating with virtually no environmental controls.

According to testimony already in the record, the new owners invested approximately $300 million attempting to modernize and improve conditions at what one expert described under oath as an “awful, rundown, polluting facility.” And, notably, the parent company back in Missouri simply wasn’t the decision maker. Even the plaintiffs’ own environmental expert—after reportedly spending 1,000 hours reviewing the evidence—could not identify a single operational decision made by the Missouri parent company. That matters because the plaintiffs’ jurisdictional theory depends precisely on the idea that the U.S. parent directed operations abroad.

If courts begin allowing American parent corporations to be hauled into domestic court for overseas operations absent evidence of direct control, every multinational enterprise—from manufacturing and energy to pharmaceuticals and technology—will face pressure to defend foreign disputes under an unpredictable patchwork of state tort law.

And it’s not just U.S. companies concerned by the precedent that could be set by this case—Peru itself has objected! The Peruvian government has twice formally protested the litigation to the U.S. State Department, arguing the case infringes on Peru’s sovereignty and conflicts with obligations under the U.S.–Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.

Trade agreements depend on mutual confidence that each nation’s legal system will respect agreed jurisdictional boundaries. If American courts effectively become global tribunals for disputes arising entirely overseas, foreign governments may reasonably conclude that the U.S. no longer honors the limits embedded in its own trade architecture.

There is also a profound investment question. Developing nations depend on foreign direct investment to rehabilitate outdated infrastructure. Investors willing to assume environmental and operational risk are often the only path toward modernization. But investors also study legal exposure. If a company that acquires a deteriorating foreign facility, spends hundreds of millions improving it, and operates through a locally incorporated subsidiary can still face decades of litigation in American courts, rational investors will think twice before taking similar risks.

The U.S. benefits enormously from an open global economy and from the rule of law. Both depend on predictability. If courts blur the distinction between parent corporations and foreign subsidiaries, disregard sovereign objections from allied governments, and create liability untethered from direct operational control, the result will not be greater justice. It will be greater uncertainty. And uncertainty is the enemy of investment, development and international cooperation alike.

Gerard Scimeca is chairman and general counsel for CASE, Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, a free-market oriented consumer organization he co-founded. 

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

Wrong, Al Jazeera, Climate Change Not Causing Tribal Woe’s in Peru

While Al Jazeera’s article detailing the plight of the San Miguel Centro Marankiari is a great human-interest story, it is not one about the dangers of climate change. The problems they face aren’t caused by global carbon dioxide emissions, but rather something much more local and manageable.

From ClimateRealism


By H. Sterling Burnett

An article by Al Jazeera claims climate change is wreaking havoc in the lives of the San Miguel Centro Marankiari indigenous peoples of the Ashaninka village in the mountains of central Peru. This is false. Climate change is a red herring. Data and historical evidence show that neither temperatures or rainfall/drought conditions in the region are outside its historical norm. Also, the story itself makes it clear that incursions from farmers outside of the Marankiari community, who are deforesting the mountain slopes. are disrupting the traditional lives of Marankiari, neither of which are being driven by climate change, though they both can affect the local climate.

Based on the headline, “‘Nothing left’: How climate change uprooted an Indigenous village,” Al Jazeera’s story is misleading from the beginning – although it does detail some serious issues facing the native Marankiari people.

First, the story spends almost no time at all detailing the problems “climate change” is supposedly causing for the lives of the Marankiari, rather it vaguely references drought as a problem, but doesn’t provide evidence of a long-term trend. Perhaps, because there is none. Second, the story’s headline indicates that that Ashaninka has been “uprooted,” but, in fact, as the story reveals, current conditions are causing the tribe’s leader, Tsitsiri Samaniego, to consider whether “Migration, . . . might be his community’s best option.

“But leaving his homeland is a last resort — a complicated decision born of circumstances beyond his control,” writes Al Jazeera.

To be clear, belying Al Jazeera’s headline, because the village is still located where it has existed for generations, it has not, in fact, been “uprooted.” It may move at some point in the future, but it also may not.

Concerning climate change, the story references the World Bank’s claiming that climate change is one factor among many facing indigenous people around the world.

“In Latin America today, nearly half of all Indigenous peoples have migrated to urban areas due to land degradation, territorial dispossession, climate change, and conflict, according to the World Bank,” says Al Jazeera, playing up climate change in the headline, while ignoring the other factors, two of which, in particular, the actual story discusses as length.

Looking at the climate factors in Peru, one finds there is no trend in worsening drought or heat there. According to World Data, the hottest summer from December to February, in Peru below 2,540 meters altitude, was recorded in 1998, 26 years of global warming ago. The coldest winter in Peru in 75 years was recorded in 1974, but the coldest single day at the Tacna weather station was in July 2010, well withing the recent period of purported dangerous global warming.

Drought has been common throughout Peru’s history. The highly complex Wari empire, which had developed an extensive water system to mitigate the naturally arid conditions in parts of Peru, eventually succumbed to a long-term severe drought more than 1,000 years ago. Many of the historical droughts are tied to El Nino events. Other serious drought events occurred during the late-18th and early 19th century, and again in the early 1930s. Some regions of Peru experience drought with regularity, with “two meteorological stations in Puno hav[ing] registered an annual drought frequency of 18 percent in one and 35 percent in the other.”

In fact, “[w]ith a total of 5.20 rainy days, it rained more often in December 2023 than it has in the same month for 12 years (5.90 days in 2011) [and] [w]ith 3.92 liters of precipitation in 2023, April was the wettest in 40 years (6.27 l/m² in 1983),” reports World Data.

The point being, swings in climate extremes of drought and heavy rainfall have been common throughout Peru’s history. Current conditions are not unusual.

Of course, the mountain peaks where Ashaninka is located may be experiencing less rainfall than other parts of the country, but climate change isn’t picky, causing rain on this mountain and village, not the next one, it is global phenomenon with regionwide affects.

Even with recent good rains Ashaninika might still be seeing less rainfall than other locations in the Peruvian Andes, but if so, the reason is not climate change but rather other more direct and immediate causes that Al Jazeera itself spends time writing about: massive deforestation, which reduces local humidity, with said deforestation being driven by, “settlers from the high Andes escaping poverty, who are steadily absorbing territory occupied by the Ashaninka for generations.”

“The incoming farmers have razed much of the humid rainforest near the village to plant groves of citrus, avocado, and coffee. That, in turn, has altered the local rain cycles, bringing extreme heat and drought to San Miguel Centro Marankiari,” Al Jazeera states. “The result has been the desiccation of his community’s cassava and plantain crops, Samaniego explains. Food and clean water have become scarce. And tensions with the neighbouring landowners have soared.”

So, deforestation and invasive farmers are causing the Marankiari’s woes, not climate change.

While Al Jazeera’s article detailing the plight of the San Miguel Centro Marankiari is a great human-interest story, it is not one about the dangers of climate change. The problems they face aren’t caused by global carbon dioxide emissions, but rather something much more local and manageable. With this being the case, why did Al Jazeera feel the need to tie the plight of the Marankiai and their Ashaninika village to climate change? Perhaps to garner eyes on the story and clicks online, but it certainly does not reflect the truth or serve as an example of honest journalism.