jari at age 19 - Philip M. Fearnside - Inpa

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alanced by inputs. The practice initiatedin 1983 of returning some of the nutrientsremoved, although small in scale,was an important sign of recognition ofthis limitation.Leaf cutter ant (Atta)control is now more effective than itwas under the previous management.Mirex baits are still the most importantcomponent: J ari now uses 50-60 m tonsper year of Mirex (as compared to 100-120 m tons/year before 1983): TheMirex is applied to a larger area thanpreviously, but the area has a lower infestationof the ants. Mirex is appliedto all plantations, whether they are to beharvested that year or not. Baits are alsoplaced in a 100 m swath in the forestaround all of the plantations. Mirex isput out in the dry season, and is mosteffective just after burning when thereis nothing else for the ants to carry awayto feed the fungal gardens in their nests.Leaf cutter ant controlin the rainy season relied on the liquidinsecticide Arbinex. From 1983 to 1986J ari used 10 thousand liters per year ofthe poison; new Brazilian environmentalregulations now prohibit its use. Methylbromide gas, which was pumped into theleaf cutter ant nests as a part of theAtta control program during Ludwig'stenure, has since been discontinued asoverly expensive.Burning, a necessarypart of the site preparation process forplantation establishment, failed over a totalof 3000 ha 1985. Due to the onsetof the rains, burns failed in a 1500 haarea that had been felled in Felipe(Amapa). Native forest wood was removedfrom 1200 ha before the rainsprecluded further work; secondary forestgrowing up on the site will be cut andburned for plantation establishment in1987. Two areas in Para did not burneither. Heavy rains preventing burningin some years severely affects cattleranchers and small farmers throughoutAmaz.Onia (Fearnside, 1986b, and) Jari'sfailure to burn a substantial portion ofits clearing in 1985 will save money inthe short term since the expense of plantingthese areas was deferred but willprolong the period of insufficient plantationarea to meet the mill's wood demands.Improved knowledge ofthe estate's soil and weather, and of therequirements of the species planted, iscontinuing to reduce the risk of majormanagement blunders. The importanceof the high variability of Amaz.Oniansoils has been amply demonstrated atJ ari, from the initial catastrophic mistakeTABLE VCALCULATION OF CONTRIBUTION FROM NATIVE WOOD AT JARIPulpSupplement asproduction percent of Supplementaryin 1984/85 (a) Chips required plantation con- woodSpecies (103 m tons) (103 m tons) (b) tribution (c) (103 m tons)Gmelina arborea 82 355.3 5.263 18.7Pinus caribaea 90 390.0 0 0Eucalyptus deg[upta 42 182.0 25 45.5TOTAL 214 927.3 64.2(a)(b)(c)(d)From Table VIICalculated from ratio of chip demand to pulp production3250 m tons chips : 750 m tons pulp ( = 4.33 : 1)Derived from percentage of mix given in Table III:x p/(1 - p) where:x = supplement as proportion of plantation contributionp = supplement as proportion of mix (total wood)Contribution from capitari (Tabebuia insignis) only; some upland forest trees are also used.of planting large areas of Gmelina onsandy soils (Fearnside and Rankin,1980) to the subsequent adjustments reflectedin the areas abandoned or convertedto other uses. A top priority ofJ ari's current research effort is a detailedsoil survey of the estate. Once this informationis in hand, it is hoped thatthe growth records of plantations on thesites will yield a series of regressions formore accurate prediction of plantationyields on different sites. This is clearlyessential for reliable long-range planning.J ari's increased numberof planted pulp species represents an importantsafeguard against biological problemsin any given species, as well as ameans of making better use of the varietyof soil qualities present in the estate.Planting a still broader range of specieswould be highly advisable.Breeding of improvedsilvicultural varieties continues. The potentialgains from investment in geneticimprovement are very great: because thecost of production is so high relative tothe price received for the estate's pulp,even small increments in the yield perhectare represent large percentage gainsin profits (or cuts in losses).Silvicultural treatmentsare being readied in preparation for possiblelong-range changes in Brazil's laboreconomy. Motorized mowers are nowweeding some stands of Pinus and Eucalyptus(but not Gmelina). The staff areconcerned that the presently very lowwages in Brazil for manual labor couldrise sharply, significantly increasing thecompany's costs. Such changes in manuallabor costs have forced abandonmentof silvicultural plantations in some othercountries (see Fearnside and Rankin,1980). The company rather have a smallernumber of better-qualified and betterpaidmachine operators settled with theirfamilies than a large number of migrantlaborers for manual weed control. Migrantlaborers come with diseases such asmalaria, filling up the hospitals andcreating social problems. Nor will theirchildren ever provide a settled pool ofqualified labor. Antunes backs the effortto create a pool of skilled labor rootedat Jari and has agreed to pay for a secondaryschool in Monte Dourado to giveagronomic and silvicultural training tolocal youth.Rooting staff at J ari isimportant at all levels in the companyhierarchy. Turnover in the technical staffhas been extremely high. Of the 22 personsin a 1982 photograph of the technicalstaff at the pulp mill, only two werestill at Jari by 1986. Technical staffturnover has been due largely to lowsalaries, now-one third to one-half thelevel of Jari's 1980 salaries in real terms.Other firms have been able to tempt J ariemployees away, sometimes taking entiredepartments at once. Although salariesin many Brazilian government institutionshave fallen even further than J ari'ssalaries during the same period, theprivate sector competes successfully byoffering slightly higher pay. In addition,J ari would have to offer higher salariesto hold employees who would rather livenear a large urban center.ll\1fR(Ifl\(lll JAN -FEB 1988, VOL. 13 N9 117
Although the plantationswere begun in 1968, it is misleading toassume that the firm bas the benefit of19 years of silvicultural experience at thesite. The high turnover in personnel basresulted in virtually no living memory ofthe earlier years among those in positionsof technical responsibility. I was frequentlysurprised to find myself called uponas a source of information about whathad been done under the previous management.High turnover can beparticularly detrimental to long-term researchprojects, since silviculture experimentsby nature take years to produceresults. Adequate record-keeping is essentialto insure against the loss of informationfrom past experience in theface of staff turnover. The formal experimentsset up by the research departmentare usually well recorded, but asubstantial body of research informationis generated informally from spur-of-themomentinitiatives in the forest managementdepartment. These research initiativesare a healthy way of quickly obtainingrough information on the responseto variations in fertilizer application,weeding, and other management techniques.When informal trials of this typegive promising results, the research departmentfollows them up by formal controlledexperiments. Examples includefertilizer use in compacted soil in formerlog storage decks and the use of moreeconomically handled tubes for plantingseedlings in the nursery. Much of the informationgained from informal trials islost when the staff leave Jari.The new J ari has hadthe benefit of a stable management at thetop, in sharp contrast to the estate's pasthistory. While Ludwig hired and firedover 30 directors over the course of his14-year tenure, a single director led theenterprise from the time control passedto the present consortium in 1982 untilhe stepped down in July 1986. Theformer director will continue to participatein J ari's management in an advisorycapacity.D) Use of Native ForestFewer species of treesfrom the native forest are used for pulpat J ari than previously. Only 5% of thenative species are for pulping: the listbas been reduced from 80 species usedin 1983 to 40 species in 1986. Only thosespecies with long fibers, which resisttearing, are now used. The heavier nativewoods break the lighter Eucalyptus.Fig. 1 .Location and features of Jari.A significant addition tothe Eucalyptus deglupta pulp has beenwood from "capitari" (Tabebuia insignis),a tree obtained from natural forest inthe floodplain along the lgarape !pitinga,a tributary to the J ari River near itsconfluence with the Amazon. Harvest isfrom December through July, duringwhich time the mill consumes daily 700m tons wet weight of the species. An8000 ha tract of capitari is being cutover the 1985-1987 period, 5000 ba ofwhich bad been cut by April 1986. Anetwork of canals has been constructedto float the logs to a central collectionpoint where they are grouped into rafts,P A R Aof 25,000 logs for the 3-day trip to thepulp mill. The cut areas are not replanted,nor are they converted to water buffaloor rice. Capitarf makes up 40% ofthe mixture in Jari's Eucalyptus degluptapulp. Capitarf has thicker fibers andthinner walls than does Eucalyptus, resultingin better quality pulp than wouldbe obtained from pure Eucalyptus. Theestate's "Jarilyptus" pulp is therefore notconsidered to be Eucalyptus in internationalmarkets, but is classified as a differentproduct with different uses.Some native "mungubeira"(Bombax munguba), another varzeatree, is also used. Its long fiber is used18JAN- FEB 1988, VOL. 13 Nl' 1 ln7fR[IfnWI
Page 1 and 2: INI'ERCIEN::IA 13 (.1) : 12-24 (.19
Page 3 and 4: TABLE IPLANTATION AREAS AT 1ARI lal
Page 5: B) Experimental Plantation SpeciesJ
Page 9 and 10: TABLE VIPROJECTED WOOD AVAILABILITY
Page 11: enough wood to supply its pulp mill

jari at age 19 - Philip M. Fearnside - Inpa

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