Some Movement Towards Eco-Friendly Forestry in Brazil
10/13/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
Demand exceeds supply for environmentally friendly, certified timber
from Brazil, and many other areas. As corporations start to take
responsibility for the methods used to extract the timbers they buy,
forestry companies that manage their harvests based upon attempts to
be as ecologically sustainable as possible (which is way more
demanding than sustained yields) should have real opportunities. Let
us all be vigilante that certified forestry doesn't become a
meaningless buzzword that really means "industrial forestry as usual,
in virtually all remaining wildlands, while tinkering around the
edges with management standards".
While any management of forests changes the ecology of the forests,
certified forestry must strive to be as benign (indeed regenerative)
as possible. Attention must be given to when certified production is
acceptable in old-growth, primary forests, and when it is not. In my
opinion, all ancient old-growth forests should be preserved unless
the people living in them want to themselves practice small scale
certified eco-forestry on their lands. Otherwise, certified
harvesting should be limited to regenerating secondary growth and
plantations. With 80% of the world's ancient forests already lost or
diminished, as little harvest as possible should be done in the
remaining old-growth forests--and only when local social needs
require it, NOT to enrich fat cat timber tycoons.
Following is a hopeful informational piece that indicates there is
real potential for existing loggers and others to produce certified
eco-timber. Shortly, this may be the only option open to them, as
poorly harvested and stolen timbers become a thing of the past.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil Amazon edges toward eco-friendly forestry
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 8, 1999
Byline: Mary Milliken
MANAUS - A 100-foot (30-metre) massaranduba tree slowly falls toward
the Amazon floor, cutting a thick gash through the dense tropical
jungle and landing with a deafening roar.
The massaranduba tree, which has wood that is rose coloured when
first cut but later turns a plum red, was carefully selected and cut
in such a way that it would fall in an area where it would hurt few
other trees
or seedlings.
This is environmentally friendly logging by Brazil's Mil Madeireira
forestry company, a model held up by conservationists this week in
their fight to stop the devastation of the world's largest tropical
rain forest.
But as hardwood buyers and sellers gathered in Brazil's steamy Amazon
capital Manaus to seek ways to preserve the nation's vast rain
forests, it was clear that demand for wood from environmentally
friendly sources far exceeded supply.
Conservationists at the event said they were joining the timber
traders in their fight to stop mass devastation of the
Amazon and hoped to encourage better use of wood from certified
"well-managed" forests.
Delegates said supply of the wood was falling far short of the demand
from Europe and the United States. There is also a growing Brazilian
market for tropical hardwood products.
"I am getting calls from people from Brazil and abroad asking where
they can buy certified wood," said Garo Batmanian, Brazilian branch
director of the World Wide Fund for Nature, a leading environment
group and one of the event's sponsors.
One of the aims of "The First Workshop of Sustainable Forest
Production in the Amazon," partially sponsored by the World
Bank, is to show loggers in the region how to map, select, cut, and
transport their tropical hardwood with the least possible damage to
the forest.
These logging practices used by Mil Madeireira cost some 30 percent
more than the traditional methods - but the company says the final
bill can be cut by wasting less wood and stresses that the result is
a healthier surrounding of trees.
"Forty trees I cut, 40 trees I carry out. It is all in the planning,"
Joao Cruz, Mil's forestry director told fellow Amazon loggers as his
teams linked up felled trunks to be dragged down a small path.
Mil operates in its own forest of the same name, the only native one
in the Brazilian Amazon to have certification from the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading forestry certifying group that
has put its seal of approval on 42.5 million acres (17 million
hectares) worldwide to promote sustainable forestry.
But other delegates said the fact that Brazil only has one certified
native forest, whose size is just 200,000 acres (80,000 hectares), is
taking the wind out of companies' sails.
Tramontina, a large Brazilian tools and furniture company, is feeling
pressure from European buyers to get FSC certification for the wood
used in its garden furniture. But director Luiz Ongaratto says he
cannot find enough certified wood.
"All the Europeans are requiring certification," Ongaratto said. "I
have competitors around the world that are plastering certification
all over their catalogues."
Major furniture retailers Tok & Stok face similar problems and see
the lack of FSC approval as an obstacle to their plans to sell
certified furniture to young upwardly-mobile customers in wealthy
Brazilian cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
"Our customers want more but our reaction is very slow," said Tok &
Stok President Regis Dubrule, adding that he had already pledged to
give preference to certified suppliers.
Conservationists say the large local retailers must be co-opted in
the battle to preserve the Amazon as it is Brazil - particularly its
prosperous southeast and south - which buys 86 percent of the
nation's tropical hardwood.
For every five trees cut in the Amazon, which produces 935 million
cubic feet (28 million cubic meters) of hardwood per year, one ends
up in Sao Paulo state, whose population is 34 million.