BRAZIL: A Step Towards Sustainable Amazon Forestry?

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 19 1997 (IPS) - Brazil opens bidding for private timber concessions in public owned forests Tuesday, as part of their plan to develop a sustainable management model for the Amazon forests.

This was also the aim behind a workshop in Rio de Janeiro Monday to design sustainable forest development proposals for the Amazon area, with backing from Brazilian institutions and the United Nations Development Project (UNDP).

And the job must be undertaken with some urgency, given the threat presented by the model which has already devastated the Asian forests, and seems set to move in here, said Israel Klabin, head of the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (FBDS).

At present, the Amazon represents only four percent share of the world timber trade, but it will hold a decisive role in the sector in future as it is home to two thirds of the world’s remaining tropical forests, added Klabin, cohost of the meeting.

With deforestation in Southeast Asia and other difficulties in Africa, the Amazon forests have become the greatest target for the tropical timber industry, a 20 billion dollars per year business which is undergoing explosive growth, said Jag Maini, coordinator of the intergovernmental forests board.

“Brazil is a timber superpower,” and it must therefore play a decisive role in the search for solutions because of increased world demand, added Maini, who mentioned the example of the rapid expansion of Chinese consumption.

Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, the United States and Zaire hold 55 percent of the world’s forests, he said.

The situation and perspectives of the world timber market, forest management, control mechanisms, legal aspects and the Brazilian experience of concessions form part of the nine issues which will be discussed up until Wednesday in the workshop “Forestry Policies and Sustainable Development in the Amazon.”

Eduardo Martins, head of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), the body which carries out the official policy, announced timber exploitation concessions were being offered for tender in five areas, starting with 5,000 hectares of the Tapajos National Forests, in the eastern Amazon.

“This is not a case of privatisation, the national forests will continue to be public property,” said Martins, and the extraction will have to fulfil conditions, like a limit on the number of trees felled and a limit on damage, so that the same area of land will be ready to produce again within 10 to 20 years.

The IBAMA decision to open up the areas under its protection to timber activity caused alarm and misunderstanding in the press and amongst environmentalists, who demanded reiterated clarification from Martins.

Brazilian authorities recognised it is impossible to prevent all illegal extraction of timber in the Amazon region, an area covering five million sq km, and their estimates state 80 percent of production leaves the region illegally.

Concessions for exploitation of part of the public forests should, according to the plans, reduce the dispersal which makes control all the more difficult. Furthermore, a forestry policy cannot be restricted to repression, “as a positive agenda is needed,” said Martins.

This measure would assure the timber industry a long-term offer, imposing conditions and the form of forest management. One aim, for instance, is to reduce the damage done by half. At present, 25 trees are damaged for every one used.

Whoever takes on the Tapajos concession will only be allowed to fell trees of more than 45 cm in diameter already identified by IBAMA, said Jose de Arimatea Silva, the Institute’s forest resources director.

A regular and stable offer would help combat the illegal exploitation which is still the rule in the country’s tmber sector, and therefore, the forestry concessions have to be made extra atractive, argued Martins.

Furthermore, IBAMA wants to extend its capacity for fiscalisation, with greater technical capacity and institutional consolidation. For instance, a one month campaign against smuggling in the Amazon region recently managed to block the movement of double the volume of timber encountered during the whole of last year.

This was the result of the use of new technologies, which “are more efficient than increasing the number of inspectors” and include aeroplanes, satellite tracking and action at “strategic points,” said Martins.

By simply monitoring 10 different points within the extensive Amazon area 80 percent of the timber extracted from the region can be controlled, he said.