Sustainable logging permissions 'successful' in Brazil

24/09/2012

Brazil's decision to permit some sustainable logging practices by certain groups within the Amazon rainforest appears to be a successful way of handling the problem of deforestation.

The country has permitted a collective of local people living on the margins of the forest in the Tapajós to operate a sustainable logging concession; the idea being that they will find alternatives to the much wider-reaching destructive actions of illegal logging and clearing for agricultural. At the same time the local people will still be able to improve their living standards and provide economic development within their community.

A report from Andrew Blackwell, published in the Scientific American, explained that while initially the scheme looks to be permitting the destruction of the rainforest, albeit on a small scale, it is actually making sure that the people living in the forest become “critical stakeholders in its preservation” because their community “can only be sustained by the forest so long as the forest continues to exist”.

Ultimately the key to saving the rainforests will be to find the right mixture of logging activities. Introducing sustainable practices through investment schemes should help keep the outside demand for industrial scale crops satisfied, but smaller schemes, such as the one being run in the Tapajós, are required to allow local people the chance to improve their situation without severely impacting the forest.