Brazilian Paper company ORSA offers sustainable forestry solution

The Brazilian pulp and paper company Grupo ORSA has been using a sustainable forestry model for the past five years that offers hope for the Amazonian rain forest.

Managing the world's largest private tropical forest, ORSA harvests just 30 cubic meters (12,713 board feet)of timber per hectare (2.47 acres) every 30 years. This falls just below the natural regeneration rate, so the forest is able to grow faster than it is destroyed. Augusto Praxedes Neto, a manager at ORSA says "selling certified timber harvested in a sustainable way is the only solution for the Amazon."

This is because illegal loggers tend to "kill 30 trees to get one," according to Ana Yang of the Stewardship Forestry Council (FSC) in Brazil. The loggers illegally clear vast amounts of forest every year for timber and farmland, which hurts the environment while creating little long term income.

The Brazilian government, though enthusiastic about the project, will move cautiously. They will select three companies to manage a small piece of federal land, just 96,000 hectares (237,200 acres). Tasso Rezende, head of Brazil's forestry service, believes "Forestry management is a great alternative and ORSA is a good example of it but we want to take things slowly."

[via Planet Ark