Police have stormed a dozen sawmills in Brazil's Amazon rainforest in a dawn raid, arresting about 30 people accused of involvement in an illegal logging ring. A criminal group behind those arrested spans a web of loggers, sawmill workers, furniture makers and drivers as well as public officials taking bribes, state police said in a statement. The sawmills were located near Manaus, the state capital of Amazonas, Brazil's largest rainforest state. Armed police confiscated industrial saws and truckloads of lumber, totalling more than a thousand cubic metres of wood. The criminal ring linked to Tuesday's raids has cut down some 9,000 trees that were each over 100 years old in the span of 10 months, according to police. Deforestation in the Amazon hit an 11-year high in 2019 and has continued to climb in 2020, rising 55 per cent between January and April as compared to a year ago. About 99 per cent of deforestation in Brazil last year was illegal, according to mapping initiative Mapbiomas. Environmental advocates blame the policies of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office last year, for emboldening illegal loggers, miners and land speculators to destroy the forest. Bolsonaro has called for the development of the Amazon to lift its people out of poverty and says he is being unfairly demonised. Australian Associated Press
