Reforestation & sustainable forestry
While Brazilian authorities struggle to contain the rate of illegal deforestation of the Amazon, a selective logging operation with government backing is being hailed as a model for sustainable forestry and rainforest conservation.
Local paper and pulp manufacturer Orsa runs a private forestry operation on a 1.7 million hectare property beside the Jari River in the northern state of Para. The company owns the land on which the native rainforest stands and conserves the forest within a programme of selective logging.
The international Forest Stewardship Council has given the operation its blessing and certifies the timber produced, inspecting the operation twice a year since harvesting began five years ago.
Trees are only harvested at a similar rate to the natural regeneration rate of the forest and logging is conducted in a way that protects surrounding trees and avoids collateral damage to the forest and its biodiversity.
The timber is inventoried and certified for use in the manufacture of wood products. The company boasts it can tell any overseas customer of end-products like furniture exactly which tree it was made from.
Around 400 local people are employed in the operation, some as forest security guards. Others are allowed access to the forest to collect material for making products including baskets and jewellery, and in so doing also help monitor and protect the forest from illegal loggers. They say the income they receive is meagre but welcome. The company also provides health care as part of the arrangement.
Ana Yang of the FSC says the project protects far more trees than are logged and has called for the government to make it easier for operations like this to get up and running. It’s much easier to get a logging licence than it is to get one to for forestry management, she told Reuters.
The government has announced a tender for the sale in March 2008 of more rainforest to be managed in a similar way. Its forestry agency says the idea is to expand private forest management as a means of protecting the Amazon. But the government will proceed cautiously because the concept remains controversial.
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=996
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