Sustainable logging in the tropics is a commonly cited goal at the international level, but has been difficult to achieve on the ground in all three major tropical forest regions1,2. In particular, illegal logging is widespread throughout the tropics and corruption is a commonly cited cause3,4,5,6,7,8. However, comprehensive and quantitative analyses of precisely how existing legal frameworks facilitate this illegal logging are rare. Here, we focus on the Peruvian Amazon and analyze official information to better understand both the geographic scale and documented legal violations related to illegal logging.

The Peruvian Amazon is an important arena in efforts to promote sustainable commercial logging due to its large forested area, high biodiversity, sizable concentrations of desired hardwoods (such as mahogany and cedar) and widespread problems with illegal logging9,10,11. The cornerstone of Peru's forest policy since 2000 has been the Forest and Wildlife Law No. 27308, whose central objective is to establish a framework for the “sustainable use and conservation of forest resources” (Article 1)12. Subsequently, the US–Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA), which entered into force in February 2009, contained an important annex aimed at strengthening Peru's forest sector governance and sustainable management of forest resources13.

Despite these efforts, it is increasingly clear that sustainable forestry has yet to be attained and illegal logging continues to plague the Peruvian Amazon14,15,16,17. Although the general failings of the Peruvian logging system have been known for years, we present an up to date, comprehensive analysis to identify the geographic scale and legal violations related to the problem. We focus on the technical aspects driving the overall illegal logging crisis and do not address the important associated social issues. For more information on issues related to indigenous communities, indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, labor and human rights violations and corruption, see the following works14,18,19,20.

We present evidence that Peru's legal logging concession system, established in the 2000 Forestry Law and later reinforced by the US–Peru TPA, is enabling widespread illegal logging. Our analysis indicates that logging is not contained to delimited concessions and continues to threaten all forested areas, including protected areas and indigenous territories. Moreover, this illegal timber extraction takes place using the very regulatory documents designed to ensure sustainable logging.

The 2000 Forestry Law introduced a new regime for controlled access to Peru's forest resources via a system of concessions, permits and authorizations16. We focused on the concessions, which are formal contracts valid for up to forty years between the government and the concessionaire for specific tracts of public land between 4,000 and 50,000 ha21. Permits and authorizations are typically for smaller forest units on private and indigenous lands. As of September 2013, the Peruvian government had created 609 logging concessions, all in the Amazon watershed.

The 2000 Forestry Law also introduced a seemingly comprehensive regulatory framework designed to ensure that logged trees come from concessions and not surrounding unauthorized or sensitive areas. This framework features a General Forest Management Plan (hereafter PGMF for the Spanish acronym), whereby the concessionaire projects what trees they expect to extract over the next five years and a more detailed Annual Operating Plan (hereafter POA for the Spanish acronym) for each year of operation14. Each concession is sub-divided into smaller parcels, generally from 400 to 500 ha, only one of which can be logged each year. The POA includes detailed information for each individual tree to be extracted in that year's particular parcel, including species, estimated harvest volume of sawn timber and GPS coordinates14.

Based on the information in the approved POA, a concessionaire may remove timber from a concession. The transported material must be accompanied by a document known as a Forest Transport Permit (hereafter GTF for the Spanish acronym). A GTF includes information regarding the species, volume and place of origin of the transported material. These GTFs are used to create a Balance of Extraction, which works as a type of debit system for monitoring the volume of each species extracted that year from each parcel14.

The 2000 Forestry Law also provided for creation of the supervisory body OSINFOR (Created as “Organismo Supervisor de los Recursos Forestales Maderables” but currently known as “Organismo de Supervisión de los Recursos Forestales y de Fauna Silvestre”). Their central role is to carry out post-harvest field inspections, known as supervisions, to ensure that the concessionaire complied with both the annual operating plan and national regulations14. However, OSINFOR was housed under the forest authority at the time (INRENA - Instituto Nacional de Recursos Naturales) and financed by timber harvest revenues, creating a structure plagued with perverse incentives and contradictory institutional pressures14.

In 2006, under the framework of the US – Peru TPA's Forestry Annex, Peru committed to a number of important actions, including to: deter the falsification of information on key documents (such as PGMF, POA and GTF); deter timber harvesting outside authorized areas; and improve the management of forest concessions13. In addition, Peru committed to implement policies to monitor CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) listed species including big-leaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and cedar (Cedrela fissilis and C. odorata). Should a POA contain one of these species, a forest authority must physically inspect the concession to verify its presence prior to cutting to ensure that the eventually logged trees are indeed from the concession in question. Another key component of the US–Peru TPA called for the establishment of OSINFOR as an independent agency. In 2008, OSINFOR did gain greater independence when it was placed within the Presidency of the Council of Ministers22.

During the supervision, OSINFOR verifies the existence and measurements of a sample of trees at the GPS coordinates specified in the POA. For example, if the concessionaire harvested a tree, the inspector should find evidence, such as a freshly cut stump, at that location. If OSINFOR detects violations, they may initiate an investigation through an administrative procedure known as “PAU” (Procedimiento Administrativo Único)23. If the violations are confirmed, OSINFOR issues a sanction. A sanction may be a monetary fine, and/or if violations are sufficiently serious, cancelation of the concession.

Despite advances with OSINFOR, the widespread reports of continued illegal logging across the Peruvian Amazon suggest that the provisions to promote sustainable logging established in the 2000 Forestry Law and the 2009 US–Peru TPA are not working. To investigate the root of the problem, we used OSINFOR data to 1) document how many of the logging concessions have been cancelled for severe violations and 2) examine, with a focus on the Department of Loreto in the northern Peruvian Amazon, whether the nature of the violations indicate that the legal logging concessions are enabling the illegal logging. Loreto makes an ideal focal area because it is by far the largest department in Peru (~369,000 km2), is home to over 40% (254) of the logging concessions and is the top producer of raw logs24,25,26.