Aumento (Lowland South America)

The following scenario regarding timber and logging operations illustrates how the use of ‘aumento’ is used as euphemism for corruption. Lowland South Americans provide logging companies with illegal wood as ‘an aumento’, a top up to their current provisions (often tied to sustainability regulations). In turn, Amazonians receive their own ‘aumento’ for providing this service through the form of a cash payment (for wood that often does not go through formal regulatory channels). While the payment they receive for this is less than the open market rate, they consider this favourable as they have been able to sidestep the cumbersome and discriminatory bureaucracies and legalities of providing such wood. In turn the logging companies are able to purchase cheaper wood and avoid the extra costs associated with sustainable logging without jeopardising their eco-status.