In 2020, China’s push for clean energy sparked a “balsa fever.” This light and flexible wood was frantically extracted from Ecuador, the epicenter of this boom, for the construction of wind turbines.
The “fever” for the logging of this fast-growing tree spread across the country, from Ecuador’s coastal regions into the Amazon. Ecuadorian loggers crossed just over the border into north-eastern Peru to raid the Wampís Indigenous territory. More than 1.5 million cubic feet of balsa, which was growing in their forests, were estimated to have been illegally logged. Around the same time, news of this wood reached Colombia, where coca was exchanged for balsa.
Four years on, producers reflect on the rush to cut and export balsa, a light wood used in wind turbine blades, which swept Ecuador and spread into Peru and Colombia.
This story was produced with support from Internews' Earth Journalism Network. It was first published in Dialogue Earth and in Red Prensa Verde on July 30, 2024. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Banner image: Balsa logging near Sharamentsa, an Achuar community in Ecuador’s Pastaza province. / Credit: Wajai Moisés Peas Senkuan.
Olga Cecilia Guerrero Rodríguez
Sally Jabiel
