GEO Brasil - UNEP

monitoring and controlling forest use, the transportation
of wood and forest resources in frontier areas and
commercialisation of tropical timber, as well as technical
and scientific exchanges.
In terms of PP-G7 many actions have been undertaken in
the Amazon and Atlantic Forest, with emphasis on the Pro-
Management programme, which supports the management
of potential areas, community management, management
in extraction reserves and increase of conservation unit
areas. It is important to point out the Demonstrative Projects
(PD-A), the Demonstrative Projects in indigenous lands
(PD-I), Projects for protection and demarcation of
indigenous lands (PPTAL), ecological corridors, natural
resource policies, control and monitoring of deforestation
and forest fires, as well as support to research centres
established in the Amazon.
In the private sector, many companies committed to
sustainable use of forests and the valorisation of its products
have sought to certify its areas. The total certified area in
Brazil reaches 1,152,243 hectares distributed as follows:
Amazon – 353,313 ha; Atlantic Forest – 20,000 ha; planted
forests – 778,930 ha (FSC, 2002, WWF, 2002).
As part of a strategy to complement management of the
protection of tropical forests, Brazil prepared and submitted
a project to undertake an inventory of the area of occurrence
of mahogany (approximately 1.5 million of Km2) to the
International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO). This
project is currently under negotiation with that
organisation.
4.5.3. Forest Challenges
Considering Brazil’s forest characteristics as well as the
types of uses of this resource and the sector policies
proposed and being executed in the country, the following
considerations are in order:
a) Data from the last world report by FAO (FAO 2000;
FAO 2001) reveal that in the end of the 20 th century the
average forest area in the world was 0.6 ha per capita.
Compared to this average, data from Brazil
demonstrate that the forest area per inhabitant is
superior in the North, Central West and Northeast
regions (31.7; 9.0; and 1.5 ha/inhabitant respectively)
and below the average in the South and Southeast
regions, with 0.35 and 0.30 ha/inhabitant respectively.
These numbers indicate that policy actions must
concentrate on recovery of forest cover in the latter
regions, and in the former on actions of command
and control;
b) The average rate of deforestation in the Legal Amazon
region for the period 1997/2000 was of over 1.8 million
hectares a year, representing an estimated volume of
biomass of 774 million m3, of which 54 million m3 are
potentially commercial and 720 million are not
commercial (considering 400m3/ha of not commercial
volume and an extra 30m3 of commercial volume, by
current average standards). The vis a vis with the
volume of 300 million m3 of wood used by the
productive sectors and that are responsible for the
generation of a production value of over US$27 billion
a year, demonstrates the non-existence of policies that
permit the appropriate and adequate economic, social
and environmental response of the volume not utilised
(474 millions of m3). The use of at least 50% of this
volume originated from areas of deforestation (human
action for alternative use of soil) could contribute to
enhancing the economy in the Amazon states while
at the same time enabling a significant reduction in
the costs of control and environmental recovery in
these states;
c) Of the total volume of wood (300 million m3) used by
the productive forest sector, 44% is destined for varied
energy purposes (domestic consumption and grain
drying mainly); the remaining 56% is used by
companies in the production of cellulose and paper,
wood – mechanically processed – and the iron sector.
Special reference must be made to the paper and
cellulose sectors that do not use wood from native
forests in the production process;
d) The volume of wood from qualified forest management
plans (approved by IBAMA) represents around 13% of
the volume produced annually in the Amazon. This
demonstrates, on the one hand, the need to increase
and strengthen policies that promote forest
management activities, and on the other hand, to
improve monitoring and control instruments of
conversion areas, as well as the increase of areas within
conservation units of sustainable use (public forests).
It is important to note, that if the current growth rates
of the productive sector of forest base, around 50 million
hectares of public forests would be needed to maintain
this rate of production;
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