Some Movement Towards Eco-Friendly Forestry in Brazil

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

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

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.

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