Wildlife on the Brink: Big Leaf Mahogany

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Swietenia macrophylla

STATUS: Vulnerable

HABITAT: Neotropical forests

LIFE HISTORY: One of only three true mahogany species, and the only one still exploited for trade. (Other two commercially extinct.) Slow-growing; takes 55 to 120 years to reach commercial size.Can grow to 500 feet.

THREATS: Illegal logging

RANGE: Central and South America from southern Mexico to Brazil

CURRENT POPULATION: Unknown

The United States is the world's largest importer of mahogany, one of the most commercially valuable tree species in the world. One subspecies, big leaf mahogany, is native to Central and South America, and the wholesale stripping of Latin American forests has resulted in the loss of about 70 percent of these slow-growing trees.

Big leaf mahogany is already commercially extinct in much of Central America. In 2002, NRDC used the Endangered Species Act to help influence the U.S. government to support increased international protections for the trees under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The CITES listing requires sustainable harvesting of big leaf mahogany, but illegal logging is still rampant, and contraband trees continue to find their way into the United States.

Illegal logging threatens not only the survival of mahogany but that of other endangered species, such as giant otters, which depend on healthy forest habitat.

Photo: big leaf mahogany © Dionicio Cruz, courtesy of Kendra McSweeney