Reserve in the Amazon has low-impact forest management – 03/20/2024 – Environment

The noise of a chainsaw disturbs the sounds of the forest in the middle of the Amazon. A crack occurs, accompanied by the noise of leaves moving, as if something were pushing the top of the vegetation. A tree has just fallen in the Uatumã RDS (Sustainable Development Reserve), in Amazonas.

It may seem like another case of criminal deforestation, but it is not. In the reserve, which employs low-impact forest management, controlled cutting involves the community and, due to good practices, received certification from the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).

The report followed, in 2023, the felling of a black laurel. It was one of two individuals of this species marked for removal from the logging unit in use by the local community.

Soon after the fall, a flock of insects spreads across the place where the black laurel stood — of which only the base remains. In the area, 97 trees of 19 species were mapped for felling.

More than 30 have already been destroyed in the block of the reserve where logging is taking place, with around 70 hectares to date. Among the species, logically, some are more coveted by the market, say the community members responsible for the work, such as massaranduba and angelim.

The work at Uatumã, despite its commercial nature, is considered sustainable because it is small-scale and community-based. The idea there, echoing the site’s RDS classification, is to be able to exploit natural resources — in accordance with the area’s management plan — to guarantee the lives of the local populations without causing structural damage to the forest.

One of the assumptions is that a tree can only be felled in the area after there is a buyer for the cubic meters of that wood. Only once a contract is signed do the inhabitants of Uatumã go into the forest and take the tree to the ground.

After the cut, that is where it remains for up to weeks, in a kind of post-falling aftermath. The technique avoids the risk of cracks in the wood, which can happen if it is processed immediately.

If in other larger logging activities one expects to see heavy machinery, in Uatumã, in addition to some sawmill machines, there are two small tractors. The work is essentially manual, says Gracilazo Rodrigues Miranda, one of the community members involved in forest management.

Raised in Uatumã, he spent most of his life there, with an interval of time in Roraima, also to work in the timber sector. His father was a Guaraná grower, but ended up migrating to woodworking activities.

“There’s no way a customer can come here and say: ‘Boy, I need 20 meters today [cúbicos] of sawn wood'”, explains Miranda.

“We don’t knock it down and wait [alguém] ask”, summarizes Elizangela Cavalcante, also a participant in forest management and Miranda’s wife.

Another concern in the process are the trees around the one that will fall to the ground. To avoid falling due to a disastrous “push”, the best angle is studied before cutting

In the felling accompanied by Sheet, depending on how the black laurel fell, there was a risk of another large tree nearby being hit. The fear, however, was discarded minutes later, when the size of the open clearing was measured — another necessary practice in the process, to calculate the damage in the region.

Prior care also extends to animal nests — in the region, there are reports of sightings of harpy eagles, for example — or places where monkeys tend to stay. If identified, the tree is not felled.

“We are part of this work with great pride. It’s very nice to say ‘it’s our management plan’. It’s ours”, says Cavalcante.

“I don’t see being part of the management plan as something just to improve income generation. I see it as us in the community entering the forest and respecting it. If we just wanted to make money, we would have already exploited it in a disorderly manner. Those of us who know the value of the standing forest”, he adds.

For her, not depending on companies is another differentiator of the plan. “A company from outside doesn’t come and say what it can or can’t do, do whatever it wants and then leave us without a forest. Without a forest, I’ll be without water, I’ll be without animals, I’ll be without food. That’s why we embrace the cause of the management plan.”

If a tree takes seconds to fall, the process up to that point is not at all simple. Starting along the path to the reserve block. Travel, as usual in the Amazon, is by river. First using larger arms and then using tails —smaller motor boats— to navigate through the igarapés, which are smaller water channels in the middle of the forest.

The difficulty of access is compounded by climatic and time limitations: from January to June, exploration is avoided, due to the rainy season in the forest. With all this, when they go to the region to collect wood, the inhabitants of Uatumã and members of the AACRDSU (Agroextractive Association of the Communities of the RDS of the Uatumã River) usually stay there, sometimes for a few weeks, in accommodation built on site.

And, before all this, there is still the effort to identify, map and geolocate trees with commercial value. The site’s second management area, for example, has already been fully inventoried.

All this infrastructure and preparation is not cheap. The structuring was made possible with resources from the Amazon Fund to the Cidades Florestais project (around R$ 12 million allocated to various Amazonian community forest management projects), starting in 2018, and with support and technical advice from Idesam (Institute of Conservation and Development Sustainable Amazon).

Just like for Miranda, the tradition of wood, for Cavalcante, is something that comes from other generations. Currently, she and her husband have a furniture business that, logically, uses wood extracted in the region itself.

“I saw my father arrive with wood in Itacoatiara (AM), where we studied, and I was ashamed to say that my father sold wood”, says Cavalcante. “I know that we will never be able to make up for what our parents did. But if they didn’t know how to do their part, we are trying to get it right and do ours, with conscience.”

The work done at Uatumã by Miranda, Cavalcante and other members of AACRDSU gained recognition, in 2022, with FSC certification. The internationally renowned green seal appears on the packaging of products that have earned it.

“It’s for the world. We’re not going to take this forest and put it in our pockets, it’s for future generations. As long as it’s only good for some, for a few, and it’s bad for many, this is not the way forward”, says Cavalcante.

“We know that it is our voice here in the middle of the forest and that the world is vast. But I believe that if in every little forest there is someone who thinks this way and speaks this way, the difference will be very big.”

The journalist traveled at the invitation of the certification body FSC Brasil.