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

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At Arivaldo’s side is 27 year-old Zenilton Amaral, whose specialty is to pro-
duce species inventories, which means searching the forest to find trees with
commercial value and numbering them. He received training to become a taxonomist,
in local lingo, a ‘mateiro’ – a worker known for his extensive knowledge
of forest species and secrets. Zenilton points to an enormous tree, 85-centimeters
in diameter, and asserts: “it’s a tauari [Courtari tauari], whose wood is excellent to
make mitre for use in buildings”.
The next step after Zenilton has measured the trunks and numbered the
trees for future harvests is to draw maps showing the location of each of these
trees. Such data are crucial to determine the routes that tractors will follow to
get to the fallen trunks and using steel cables, drag them to storage courtyards
by the road. From there trucks will carry the logs to sawmills. “Besides reducing
the impact, these procedures increase machinery productivity and cut costs,” says
André Miranda, nicknamed Dodô, a technical expert with the Tropical Forest Institute
(IFT), an NGO that promotes training and research on forest management.
“Planning is the key to avoid destroying the forest,” adds Dodô. The work
is done judiciously; “Before sending them to the sawmills, we visit the trees in
the field up to six times throughout the management processes”. With the forest
inventory at hand, technicians decide which trees are to be felled and which will
remain standing in order to maintain the forest healthy and ensure its future use.
Non-timber species, the vegetation on riverbanks and mandatory conservation
areas are kept intact, as well as the so-called “matrix trees,” which are preserved
as a source of seeds for future growth. Species that have fewer than three
specimens in an area of 100 hectares cannot be felled. Of those whose trunk’s
diameter is big enough to be harvested, 10% must be conserved.
Usually a management area is divided in parcels for annual exploration.
While only one parcel is explored in one given year, the others – which had trees
harvested in previous years – are allowed to regenerate until the next “harvest
cycle” in 25 or 30 years. The length of the cycle depends on how intense the initial
logging per hectare was. Specialists assure that if these patterns are followed,