Protecting the Environment with an Assault Rifle – Brazil’s Battle Against Illegal Logging Every minute an area of rainforest the size of a football pitch is destroyed in the Amazon. Well-organized gangs run the globalized tropical hardwood business with great criminal vigour. The Brazilian environmental organization IBAMA is fighting them with the special task force G.E.F. Its members are pursuing a new, hard line. Loggers working illegally aren’t just arrested and put on trial; all their locations and machines are rendered unusable, with violence if necessary.