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BRAZIL:
Saving the Amazon
Depends on Consumers
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) -
Tree species such as the
andiroba (Brazilian or Royal
mahogany), the cupuacu, and the
acai and murmuru palm trees
produce fruit, seeds and oils
which may help save the Amazon
rainforests, if they capture a
wider market and are produced in
a sustainable way.
That indeed was the objective of
the Forest Market fair organised
this week by four environmental
organisations in the southern
city of Sao Paulo, with the aim
of establishing links between
producers - not only from the
Amazon - and potential buyers,
from Brazil and from abroad. The
event also sought to promote
debate about alternative
economic policies to preserve
the forests and their
biodiversity.
The country's first forest
products fair "exceeded
expectations in terms of
business," although the number
of visitors was lower than the
10,000 hoped for, IPS was told
by Luiz Villares, the manager of
Services for Sustainable
Businesses, of Friends of the
Earth - Amazonia, which was the
prime mover of the trade fair
held from Saturday to Tuesday.
The entrance fee of 20 reals
(nine dollars) limited
participants to a "qualified
audience" of people interested
in doing business or obtaining
specific information about the
market, he explained.
About 200 exhibitors, including
businesses, cooperatives and
community associations, showed
their products and services in
areas as widely distributed as
food, crafts, cosmetics,
medicines, furniture and
ecotourism.
A moisturising soap made from
the fruit of the murmuru palm in
the Amazonian state of Acre, "biojewellery"
made from seeds gathered in the
jungle, "vegetable leather" and
textiles produced with
seringueira (rubber tree) latex,
the raw material of natural
rubber, all formed part of the
exhibit.
"The variety of the products and
the experiences of
community-based economic systems
from the different Brazilian
biomes (large ecosystems)" was
the outstanding feature of the
fair, Villares stressed. He said
great interest was expressed in
the crafts and exotic foods,
such as Amazonian fruits and
yacaré (caiman, a type of
alligator) meat.
The Forest Market fair is
important because it promotes a
type of trade that "still lacks
structure, where the supply is
in its initial stages, and the
consumer market is uninformed,"
he stated.
But timber, which has its own
trade fairs, is the product that
has the greatest economic
importance and also the greatest
environmental impact on the
forests. "Demand for certified
timber products exceeds supply,"
stated Ana Yang, executive
director of the Forest
Stewardship Council of Brazil.
This restricted supply
frustrates consumers, and has
the additional negative effect
of discouraging and reducing
demand, instead of promoting
"indignation and increasing the
pressure to increase
production," Villares
acknowledged.
In Brazil this problem has
become more serious because it
is so difficult to secure
approval for forest management
plans. Operations against the
illegal felling and transport of
Amazonian timber, which have
included the arrest of corrupt
environmental authorities, have
resulted in stricter controls.
Personnel at Brazil's
Environment Institute (IBAMA)
are now reluctant to issue
permits at all.
Enlarging the market for
sustainable forestry products
implies bolstering the quality
and quantity of production,
improving productivity, boosting
the management and marketing
skills of producers who know
little about the market, as well
as "raising the consciousness of
consumers, which is a slow
process," summed up Villares.
That is why the international
environmental organisation
Friends of the Earth created the
"buyers group" to work with
construction firms, the biggest
consumers of timber, to persuade
them to opt for certified woods
from managed forests.
The use of certified timber in
building is still "limited and
insignificant," admitted Karina
Aharonian, an activist with the
buyers group. There is still
little contact between the big
consumer markets, like Sao
Paulo, which accounts for 15
percent of all the timber used
in Brazil, and the producers far
off in the north, she explained
to IPS.
It is also difficult to get
approval for management plans in
the Amazon jungle because of
problems related to registering
land ownership, she observed.
The international environmental
organisation Greenpeace also
works with the consumer market
in Brazil as a means of reducing
deforestation in the Amazon.
Until last year, the rainforest
was being cleared at the rate of
nearly 25,000 square kilometres
a year.
Greenpeace's targets are city
governments. The programme
Cities Friends of the Amazon
seeks to elicit commitments from
municipal governments to
"exclusively use timber of legal
origin," in their construction
projects and public tenders,
campaign activist Rebeca Lerer
explained to IPS. "Later on
we'll try to persuade them to
buy timber from managed areas,"
she added.
City governments which have made
this commitment pass decrees or
laws obliging the use of timber
of legal origin in all municipal
projects.
Seventeen city governments have
already joined the programme,
including Sao Paulo, Brazil's
biggest city, while some large
state capitals, like Rio de
Janeiro and Porto Alegre, have
also started negotiations. The
number of cities joining the
programme increased this year,
Lerer said.
The limited knowledge of city
governments about conditions in
the Amazon jungle and their own
participation in the chain of
production and consumption which
results in the destruction of
the rainforest is one of the
obstacles to this process.
Another is the fact that
certified timber costs 20 to 30
percent more than illegally
logged woodt, according to the
activist. The price difference
is a serious hurdle in the
struggle against illegal
felling, which is the source of
80 percent of the timber used in
Brazil, said Lerer. Increasing
the proportion of legal timber
used is essential in order to
reverse this situation and
create a trend towards using
legally felled timber, which is
why the effort is being made to
persuade municipal governments,
she added.
Public institutions must not
fuel illegal activities, argued
Lerer, who said buying illegally
felled timber has a cost in
terms of image, and may have
legal consequences as well, in
terms of the country's
environmental legislation.
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