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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Brazil Allows Sustainable Logging by Indigenous

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

2/5/98

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

In a potentially positive move, Brazil has approved creation of the

first sustainable logging project on indigenous lands in the Amazon.

The challenge of this potentially positive approach will be to make it

work on the ground, and to actually succeed in coupling conservation

based sustainable management with maintenance of forest ecosystem and

biodiversity values. It is equally important that the promise of

sustainable, even certified logging, not be used as justification to

log all remaining ancient forests. However, there are obviously

situations, including pressing local development needs which preclude

total forest preservation, where sustainable management (in reality

not just rhetoric) is an important tool for forest conservation. What

is needed is the ecological wisdom and social understanding to choose

the proper mix of preservation and conservation based sustainable-use

in order to maintain functional natural forest systems over large

areas.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Brazil allows sustainable logging by Amazon tribe

Source: Reuters

Status: Copyright by source, contact for reprint permissions

Date: February 4, 1998

Byline: By Joelle Diderich

BRASILIA, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Brazil on Wednesday approved the creation

of the first sustainable logging project on indigenous land in the

Amazon in an effort to stem the devastation of its fragile ecosystem

by commercial logging.

The project, partially funded by the World Bank, will eventually

permit the Xikrin tribe to selectively log an area equivalent to nine

percent of their reservation in the northern state of Para over a

period of 40 years.

"This project is of special importance to us because it represents the

first time there will be sustainable management of a forest in an

indigenous area," said World Bank regional director Gobind Nankani.

The Brazilian government hopes to promote sustainable logging as one

of several measures to slow deforestation in the Amazon. Official data

released last week showed an area twice the size of Belgium was

deforested between 1995 and 1997. The government announced on Tuesday

the creation of seven new national forests in the Amazon which it may

now lease to logging companies under strict environmental rules.

"It's not viable nowadays to imagine that something will happen to

stop commercial activity in the Amazon," said Paulo Beninca, director

of renewable natural resources at the government's Environment

Institute (IBAMA).

Previous government policies in the Amazon have failed to prevent

businesses from plundering tribal reservations of their natural

resources.

"In indigenous areas there is predatory exploitation which goes

against the interests of the indigenous population," said Beninca. "We

are going to interrupt this process. It will be reverted to the

benefit of the community."

The World Bank and recently privatized Brazilian mining giant

Companhia Vale do Rio Doce have invested $400,000 in a pilot program

to log and sell a variety of valuable tropical hardwoods from 1,400

hectares (3,460 acres) of the reservation.

If successful, the project will expanded to 40,000 hectares (98,800

acres) of the Xikrins' 439,150-hectare (1.08 million acre)

reservation.

Logging firms damaged swathes of the Xikrin do Catete reservation

under illegal agreements they had with the tribe in the 1980s,

according to the Social-Environmental Institute, which is helping the

tribe sue those companies.

One of the aims of the new program is to market less popular varieties

of timber and take the pressure off the small number of species which

are currently most logged.

"We are trying to sign exclusive contracts with wood sellers for a

certain period of time so that they will be our partners," said the

institute's anthropologist Isabelle Giannini, who has worked on the

project from the start.

"The task of these companies would be to open up the market," she told

Reuters.

But Giannini and other officials were only cautiously optimistic about

the success of the venture, pointing out that it represents virgin

territory for most of the parties involved and that Brazil has little

experience of sustainable logging.

"There is a great will for this to succeed. The implementation is

something else," Giannini said.

Tribal chief Karangre Xikrin said that while the project was a

milestone for the community, he was frustrated at the pace of

discussions since its creation in 1993.

"You know how the white man is, always lots of bureaucracy," e said.

However, he predicted that "if this works, and it will work, we are

going to spread it to other villages."

For IBAMA, the cultural challenge is twofold.

One the one hand, to understand the age-old values and traditions of

the Xikrin and on the other, to introduce a functional model of

sustainable management in an area scarred by years of large-scale

commercial exploration.

"The big question...is to prevent the indigenous population from

taking a mercenary attitude," said IBAMA's Beninca. "Only time will

tell."

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