Subject: BIOD: Brazil Allows Indigenous Sustainable Logging
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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Brazil Allows Sustainable Logging by Indigenous 
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
     http://forests.org/

2/5/98
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
In a potentially positive move, Brazil has approved creation of the 
first sustainable logging project on indigenous lands in the Amazon.  
The challenge of this approach will be to make it work on the ground, 
and to actually succeed in coupling conservation based sustainable 
management with maintenance of forest ecosystem and biodiversity 
values.  It is equally important that the promise of sustainable, even 
certified logging, not be used as justification to log all remaining 
ancient forests.  However, there are obviously situations, including 
pressing local development needs which preclude total forest 
preservation, where sustainable management (in reality not just 
rhetoric) is an important tool for forest conservation.  What is 
needed is the ecological wisdom and social understanding to choose the 
proper mix of preservation and conservation based sustainable-use in 
order to maintain functional natural forest systems over large areas.
g.b.

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Title:     Brazil allows sustainable logging by Amazon tribe 
Source:    Reuters
Status:    Copyright by source, contact for reprint permissions
Date:      February 4, 1998
Byline:    By Joelle Diderich

BRASILIA, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Brazil on Wednesday approved the creation 
of the first sustainable logging project on indigenous land in the 
Amazon in an effort to stem the devastation of its fragile ecosystem 
by commercial logging.

The project, partially funded by the World Bank, will eventually 
permit the Xikrin tribe to selectively log an area equivalent to nine 
percent of their reservation in the northern state of Para over a 
period of 40 years.

"This project is of special importance to us because it represents the 
first time there will be sustainable management of a forest in an 
indigenous area," said World Bank regional director Gobind Nankani.

The Brazilian government hopes to promote sustainable logging as one 
of several measures to slow deforestation in the Amazon. Official data 
released last week showed an area twice the size of Belgium was 
deforested between 1995 and 1997. The government announced on Tuesday 
the creation of seven new national forests in the Amazon which it may 
now lease to logging companies under strict environmental rules.

"It's not viable nowadays to imagine that something will happen to 
stop commercial activity in the Amazon," said Paulo Beninca, director 
of renewable natural resources at the government's Environment 
Institute (IBAMA).

Previous government policies in the Amazon have failed to prevent 
businesses from plundering tribal reservations of their natural 
resources.

"In indigenous areas there is predatory exploitation which goes 
against the interests of the indigenous population," said Beninca. "We 
are going to interrupt this process. It will be reverted to the 
benefit of the community."

The World Bank and recently privatized Brazilian mining giant 
Companhia Vale do Rio Doce have invested $400,000 in a pilot program 
to log and sell a variety of valuable tropical hardwoods from 1,400
hectares (3,460 acres) of the reservation.

If successful, the project will expanded to 40,000 hectares (98,800 
acres) of the Xikrins' 439,150-hectare (1.08 million acre) 
reservation.

Logging firms damaged swathes of the Xikrin do Catete reservation 
under illegal agreements they had with the tribe in the 1980s, 
according to the Social-Environmental Institute, which is helping the 
tribe sue those companies.

One of the aims of the new program is to market less popular varieties 
of timber and take the pressure off the small number of species which 
are currently most logged.

"We are trying to sign exclusive contracts with wood sellers for a 
certain period of time so that they will be our partners," said the 
institute's anthropologist Isabelle Giannini, who has worked on the 
project from the start.

"The task of these companies would be to open up the market," she told 
Reuters.

But Giannini and other officials were only cautiously optimistic about 
the success of the venture, pointing out that it represents virgin 
territory for most of the parties involved and that Brazil has little 
experience of sustainable logging.

"There is a great will for this to succeed. The implementation is 
something else," Giannini said.

Tribal chief Karangre Xikrin said that while the project was a 
milestone for the community, he was frustrated at the pace of 
discussions since its creation in 1993.

"You know how the white man is, always lots of bureaucracy,"  e said. 
However, he predicted that "if this works, and it will work, we are 
going to spread it to other villages."

For IBAMA, the cultural challenge is twofold.

One the one hand, to understand the age-old values and traditions of 
the Xikrin and on the other, to introduce a functional model of 
sustainable management in an area scarred by years of large-scale 
commercial exploration.

"The big question...is to prevent the indigenous population from 
taking a mercenary attitude," said IBAMA's Beninca. "Only time will 
tell." 

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