Abstract
Knowledge about the activity of the timber sector and local industries assists in the management of a forest economy based on sustainable use in the Amazon. In this study, the situation of the timber sector of the municipality of Porto Grande-AP was examined to detail the extraction and processing of native wood from the Amazon and the sustainable use of this resource by the local sector. Forms were applied in all sawmills of the municipality, which collected information on factors of production and commercialization of native wood for the year 2017. In addition, interviews with local merchants were done and secondary data collection from several institutions related to the sector was conducted. All sawmills in the municipality exercise licensed activity and processed 69,300 m3 of wood in the period, with an average extraction of 21 m3/ha. The sawmills productive income was 55%, above of the 35%, maximum recently established by CONAMA. There is no destination for productive of residual waste generated by most sawmills and lumber is marketed mainly to the Northeast of Brazil for use in civil construction. Thus, in order to guarantee better economic and environmental performance of the sector, it is recommended that sawmills search for new forest areas as sources of raw material, participate in forest certification programs, and seek ways to use residual waste for bioenergy generation. The government recommends that new forests be managed through actions that solve land tenure problems and increase the supply of public forests, and for certified management units the recommendation is to reduce licensing costs, and simplify the bureaucratic processes of environmental agencies.
Highlights
The Amazon region is one of the principal producers of native tropical wood in the world and supplies local and regional lumber markets as well as those of the large urban consumer centers across Brazil, especially in the South and Southeast regions
Presentation of activities of sawmills Since all the legalized sawmills in Porto Grande operate with the necessary environmental licenses, this suggests that logging activity in the region is conducted in a sustainable manner, in the assumption that techniques of forest management are being applied
The fact that these sawmills do not possess their own forests for wood harvest makes them depend on forests owned by other entities or people, such as the Settlement Projects (SP) managed by Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA)
Summary
The Amazon region is one of the principal producers of native tropical wood in the world and supplies local and regional lumber markets as well as those of the large urban consumer centers across Brazil, especially in the South and Southeast regions. The production of legal wood is a challenge for the forestry sector in the Amazon because there is intense and unfair competition from wood that is illegally harvested. In this context, forest management represents an opportunity for the logging industry in the region to reconcile economic use with conservation, guaranteeing sustainable use of forests (CASTANHEIRA-NETO, 2018). The state of Amapá, part of the Amazon region, coexists with this scenario of illegal timber harvest, principally in the forest of the várzea (river floodplains). The location of the mouth of the Amazon River within the state favors efficient shipping to the American and European markets (AMAPÁ, 2018)
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