Shock COP Dirty Secret: At Least Half the Balsa Wood in Wind Turbine Blades is Illegally Logged in Amazonian Rainforests

How clean is clean when the rainforest pays the price?

Protecting the Amazon rainforest is one of the main goals of COP30, with the location in the Brazilian city of Belém chosen to emphasise what is described as the crucial role that such forests play in global climate regulation, biodiversity and “carbon” storage. It is bad enough that 100,000 mature rainforest trees had to be cut down to build a ‘Highway of Shame’ to speed COP delegates around town this week and next. But a far greater scandal, which today the Daily Sceptic brings to wider public attention, is the illegal logging of balsa wood in the Ecuadorian rainforest to supply rocketing demand from mostly Chinese wind turbine manufacturers. Such is the need for the strong but extraordinarily lightweight wood, it is estimated that at least 50% of the world’s balsa demand is currently being supplied by illegal logging in virgin rainforest.

The wood’s unique qualities make it ideal as a core for the giant blades attached to wind turbines. Ecuador produces over 90% of balsa due to unique climatic conditions in this particular area of the Americas. Much of it was previously obtained from plantations, but a ‘balsa boom’ over the last five years has depleted these resources and shortages have been made good by plundering the rainforest. And plunder is hardly an exaggeration, with trees apparently being removed from some of the most protected areas of the Ecuadorian forest.