Forestry control in the Brazilian Amazon: charcoal anatomy of tree species from protected areas

Abstract

Protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon suffer from conflicting activities, such as the production of charcoal from illegal logging. Charcoal anatomy is an important tool that can be useful for forensic charcoal identification and to help the conservation of these areas. To assist in combating deforestation in protected areas, this study describes the charcoal anatomy of 14 tree species that occur in the Tapirapé–Aquiri National Forest, Pará, Brazil, and provides macrographs of transverse surfaces and scanning electron microscope (SEM) images to aid government agencies during surveillance. We adopted a carbonisation method that simulated real conditions. Anatomical features were well preserved in the charcoal. The axial parenchyma and vessel frequency are easily observed in both macrographs and SEM images, so they are important diagnostic features for initial screening of families and for checking the load according to the ‘document of forestry origin’ (DOF) by the surveillance agents. Uncommon and highly diagnostic features for distinguishing genera or even species, such as rays exclusively uniseriate, sheath cells, tile cells and storied structure, were observed only in SEM images. Our findings are suitable to provide a database on charcoal anatomy of native tree species of the Amazon, with practical application in government inspection activities in protected areas in Brazil and other countries with similar issues.