Amazon Replanting Effort Under Way
8/19/99
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Title: Amazon replanting effort under way
Source: Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 19, 1999
As a 12-mile conveyor belt carries freshly mined bauxite through the
Amazon jungle in Brazil, the rust-colored earth suddenly turns green
with thousands of tiny saplings planted in 1998.
When it reaches an area replanted in 1982, the forest is so tall and
thick it's hard to distinguish it from the original.
The reforestation project, initiated by the Rio do Norte mining
company, is changing the notion that the jungle must be destroyed to
tap its riches - and offers an opportunity to learn how to repair
degraded forests.
"If everything goes as planned, when the bauxite runs out in 2080 you
won't be able to tell any of this was ever here," says Joao Carlos
Henrique, the company's environmental control adviser, waving at the
heavy equipment leveling trees and tearing up the earth nearby - for
decades the only picture of Amazon development.
Although Brazilian law requires mining companies to replace the forest
cover they destroy, many simply plant eucalyptus, a fast-growing
Australian import, and turn the area into a paper and pulp producer
when the ore runs out.
Instead, Rio do Norte - a joint venture whose partners include U.S.
companies Reynolds and Alcoa - reforests with the same species it
cuts down in this region in the heart of the rain forest, 1,736 miles
northwest of Rio de Janeiro.
The company reinvests 10 percent of its dividends - about $2.2
million a year - in reforestation, planting the same mix of fruit and
nut bearing trees as in the original forest, and conducting soil and
other tests. Many birds and animals are returning to the replanted
forest, although experts note a loss of about 5 percent of the
original species.
Environmentalists say it's none too soon. The 1.3 million- square-mile
rain forest loses at least 5,700 square miles a year - a chunk the
size of Connecticut - to deforestation, according to Brazilian
government estimates. Scientists believe the annual destruction is
actually twice that.
In its annual report Tuesday, the environmental group Greenpeace
warned that the Amazon rain forest will be wiped out in 80 years if
multinational logging companies continued deforestation at current
rates.
About 20 percent of the Amazon is already gone, and many scientists
believe the destruction is accelerating global warming.
Still, not everyone is willing to follow Rio do Norte's example.
"For a mining company, where the profit is so great and the area
devastated is relatively small, replanting is viable. But for loggers
and farmers it just doesn't make economic sense yet," said Adalberto
Verissimo, a scientist at Brazil's Institute of Man and the Amazon
Environment, or IMAZON.
So Verissimo and his colleagues are working on the next best thing:
Developing techniques to harvest trees with minimal damage.
Known as reduced-impact or sustainable logging, it requires careful
planning to select, cut and remove valuable hardwoods without damaging
younger trees nearby, then leaving the area untouched for 30 or 40
years to regenerate.
At Paragominas, a major logging center 685 miles southeast of
Trombetas, IMAZON scientists logged a 260-acre plot using reduced-
impact techniques, then logged an adjoining 185 acres using
conventional methods.
"The project dispelled the notion that sustainable logging was
expensive," said Eugenio Arima, a rural economist working at IMAZON.
Arima believes that reduced-impact techniques would allow a fixed area
of the Amazon to be harvested indefinitely to provide the world's wood
supply. The size of that area would depend on future demand.
That idea was supported by a recent study by the Tropical Forest
Foundation and the U.S. Forestry Service in conjunction with local
logging companies, which showed that planned extraction actually is
cheaper than unplanned logging.
"We've always been concerned about preserving the forest, but we were
worried about cost-benefit," said Manoel Pereira Dias, director of the
Cikel logging company. "Our experience with this project shows we can
save money by planning what wood we remove from the forest instead of
just sending in a machine to look for it."
The study showed that reduced-impact techniques raised productivity by
39 percent, while waste declined 78 percent. Total costs fell 12
percent and revenues rose 19 percent.
While some loggers resist the change, the growing demand for
environmentally correct logging and the end of government incentives
to settle the Amazon have boosted interest in sustainable techniques.
Destruction of the Amazon accelerated between the 1960s and the late
1980s, when the government offered tax breaks and even land titles to
settlers who made improvements on their land. The first "improvement"
usually was to clear the land for planting or pasture.
One drawback to the new methods, according to Johan Zweede of the
Tropical Forest Foundation, is the shortage of workers trained in
reduced-impact techniques. His program trains several hundred
technicians every year, but that's hardly enough for an industry that
employs half a million people.
The scientific unknowns also are unsettling.
No sustainable logging experiment has ever run a full 30-40 year
cutting cycle, so no one can say for sure that it works. Studies in
areas logged by reduced-impact techniques found that some types of
trees and about 5 percent of the animal species simply disappeared -
a degree of devastation some ecologists find unacceptable.
Still, they may have to choose the lesser evil.
"The choice isn't between logging and national parks, the choice is
between logging and pasture," said Verissimo of IMAZON. "There's just
no support here for parks that will keep the forest unspoiled."
Copyright 1999, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved