From the forest to the consumer - GVces - Fundação Getulio Vargas

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Chain reaction
Opportunities, obstacles and power of
new attitude towards legal timber, from
logging to consumption
delaide Fátima, owner of the Canaã timber company in Rio Branco
– capital of the state of Acre, in the Amazon region – caused a stir
when over a decade ago she decided to no longer use the products
of illegal deforestation in her business. Fátima received economic incentives
from the state’s government and opted instead for wood harvested according
to sustainable forest management techniques, which lower the impact of logging
on ecosystems and allow trees to regrow for future use. She faced relentless
reaction. “I was even expelled from the loggers’ union,” says Fátima.
Nowadays she is the president of the state’s association of industries that use
timber from forest management (Asimmanejo). The entity was founded by a
small but ambitious group of entrepreneurs who envisioned a new era for the
logging business. “Aware of the commercial success of competitors who chose
timber from forest management and facing market requirements, skeptical entrepreneurs
joined soon after,” she says.
The sustainable use of native forests has been a recurring issue in Acre’s
history since the assassination of community leader Chico Mendes in the town
of Xapuri in 1988. His death exhibited to the world the struggle of Amazon’s
rubber tappers against powerful lobbies that backed the forest’s destruction.
More than two decades on, the state of Acre adopted the forest’s economy as
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