In true real-estate style, the announcement that the federal government stamps on street banners and leaflets did not spare promises to attract investors to its public domain forests: “Business opportunities in the west of Pará; more than 350 thousand hectares available for concession; high lumber potential; outflow by Tapajós River and BR 230 highway (known as the trans-Amazonian highway), guarantee of a sustainable supply; a development and investment vector for the region”. The scenario for this new frontier is the Amana National Forest, on the border of Pará and Amazonas, where 210 thousand hectares of public land are open to exploitation by lumber companies by means of forest management.

Click on the map to do a tour in the region of Floresta Nacional do Amana See Amana on a larger map

Recently released in São Paulo at the Certified Brazil fair, where Brazil’s Forest Service (SFB) shared space with stands of companies of this sector, the concession edict foresees the dividing of that area into 5 parts. The investment varies from R$ 2,8 million to R$ 12 million, with a forecast for returns between five and a half and seven and a half years – a timeframe that can be shortened as lumber companies improve forest resources and add value to their products.

“The concession of public forests ensures access to legal land areas avoiding legal and land insecurities that come in the way of investments in the Amazon today”, states Antonio Carlos Hummel, general director of SFB. For him, it is the beginning of a turning of tides since “traditionally, the region supplies the lumber companies with a high degree of trespassing of public land”. He says that the turning point came with the suspension of the management plans for 2003 and the beginning of repression and a stricter control on the part of the government. The lumber extraction activity backed away. As an indication of this new reality, in 2009, production fell to 14 million cubic meters, while the average in previous years had been 25 million”, says Hummel.

Illegal timber companies

A report expected to be disclosed in May by Brazil’s Man and Environment of the Amazon Institute (Imazon) shows that with the reduction of illegal wood, only 30 of the 260 companies which once existed in the region remained along the BR 163 highway, between Cuiabá (MT) and Santarém (PA), an important deforestation site in the Amazon. “Forest concessions spring up to change the reasoning behind illegality and supply the market, although the numbers that back the potential of such public areas open to exploitation up to this moment, are much below the consumer market’s needs”, explains Hummel. According to him, there’s a long way to go. Lumberers have resisted, distrusting the new model. “Many are medium to small companies and require the capacity to conduct their business under the new rules since only the legally-minded will survive”.

The concession of the Amana National Forest (Flona) is the third to be launched by the federal government after Law #11284 of 2006 that regulated the activity. The first was the Jamari Flona in Rondônia, open to wood harvesting in 2008. The area has its management plans approved and today, the three bid winning companies - Amata, Madeflona and Sakura – conduct an inventory of the species, expecting to begin exploitation in July. Quarters and control posts are being built in the area. Lumber companies can exploit the forest for 40 years, which ensures greater security for the investment. Aside from the cost of the edict and an amount equivalent to the first year of production, the companies pay the government a rent based on volume and market prices of the species of wood exploited. The government expects to rake in R$50 million per year, according to SFB numbers, with a total of six areas granted in the next five years.

“Exploitation will have a low impact”, guarantees researcher José Natalino Macedo, of SFB, keeping in mind that the legislation contains precautionary criteria such as the harvesting limited to 25 cubic meters per hectare and the maintenance of 10% of trees as seed-bearers. Aside from that, only species that exist above 3 of its kind per hectare may be exploited. “Mathematical models developed by Brazil’s Agriculture and Farming Research Company (Embrapa) in Pará are capable of foreseeing the regeneration of the forest throughout 200 years”, informs Macedo.

But sectors connected to scientific research and NGOs caution that a fully safe assessment will only come with time. The criteria for exploitation were devised from long term experiences abroad. In the Brazilian Amazon, the commercial management of the forest for wood began in 1997. Considering that the harvesting cycle lasts 30 years, only after this period will it be possible to achieve a conclusive analysis.

Ten years after

Forest management took off after the report called “Hitting the Target”, divulged in 2000 by environmental organizations demonstrated the source and destination of Amazonian wood, for the first time in History. It showed that 86% is consumed in the domestic market and most of this from illegal activities.

“Ten years later, a great deal has changed”, says Roberto Smeraldi, director of the organization, Friends of the Land of the Brazilian Amazon, that co-authored the report. Among the progress achieved, is the expansion of certification – a seal that sets apart, for buyers, wood obtained under social and environmental criteria. The price of legal wood has more than doubled, which made its exploitation profitable, as long as there’s no unfair competition from clandestine products. Forest concessions, in Smeraldi’s assessment, will encourage social and environmental practices to achieve this seal. “But unfortunately, to this day, not a single cubic meter of wood was actually produced in the granted areas”, he laments.

“Bureaucracy and too many rules come in the way of investments in forest management”, criticizes Mauro Armelin, coordinator of the WWF Brasil’s Sustainable Development Support Program. He complains that the “government controls things in such a level of detail regarding just how species should be exploited that it ends up pushing producers into unlawful commerce”. Hope lies in the REDD market (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) which should boost forest management in the country as from this year. On a global level, up to 2012, resources that amount to US$ 10 billion are foreseen for REDD projects, the majority in forest environments.

After the conclusion of public consultations in April, the Brazilian standard for REDD criteria should be approved by the end of May. “It will be the social and environmental basis to guide different devices such as the Amazon Fund and federal and state legislations that are under discussion on the theme”, explains Maurício Voivodic, of the Forest and Agriculture Management and Certification Institute (Imaflora). (Translation Robert Rajabally - IDstudio)

Sérgio Adeodato is journalist with experience on different media houses in Brazil. He is the author of the books Amazônia - Floresta Assassinada (Terceiro Nome, SP, 2006), Arte da Reciclagem (Editora Horizonte, SP, 2007), Reciclagem Ontem, Hoje, Sempre (Cempre, 2008) e Caminhos para Mudança (Imaflora, 2009), and has won the Prêmio Ethos de Jornalismo e do Prêmio Docol/Ministério do Meio Ambiente de Jornalismo.