**1. Introduction**

96 Sustainable Forest Management – Case Studies

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Scolforo, J. R. S.; Oliveira, A. D. & Davide, A. C. (2002). Manejo sustentado das candeias

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Challenges and opportunities. *Forest Ecology and Management*, No.256, pp.1427–

Historically, agriculture and livestock farming have been the main drivers of land cover conversion replacing natural forests in tropical and sub-tropical Brazil. The consequences for the landscape are well known: habitat fragmentation, biodiversity loss, and reductions in the quality of environmental services. The intense exploitation of natural forest resources tends to generate immediate, but limited, short-term economic wealth, which is generally very poorly distributed. In the long-term, forest resources are depleted thus reducing the ability of small rural owners to move out of impoverished situations. Therefore, while conversion of forest to agriculture can in some cases improve rural incomes, all too often deforestation leads to impoverishment of both ecosystems and communities. In Brazil, forest displacement in favour of agriculture and livestock has occurred since early in its colonization; in the Southern region – the principal agricultural area – this process took place in the late XIX and XX centuries. In this part of the country, past forestry practices such as clear-cutting and predatory harvesting, combined with social and legal encouragement, produced scenarios in which forested lands are now mostly degraded, not fulfilling their ecologic, social or economic roles in our society. In spite of the challenges that forest management faces in sub-tropical Brazil, some promising experiences and experiments are helping to create an environment receptive to the reintroduction of sustainable forest management (SFM) as a means to enhance economic incomes for rural property. Herein, we explore the obstacles related to the adoption of SFM as an economic alternative and propose technical opportunities for both small and large rural properties by presenting two case studies.

<sup>\*</sup> Maria Augusta Doetzer Rosot1, Afonso Figueiredo Filho2, Marilice Cordeiro Garrastazú1, Evelyn Roberta Nimmo3, Betina Kellermann1, Maria Izabel Radomski1, Thorsten Beimgraben4, Patricia Povoa de Mattos1 and Yeda Maria Malheiros de Oliveira1

<sup>1</sup>*Embrapa Forestry, Paraná, Brazil*

 *<sup>2</sup>Midwest State University in Irati, Brazil*

<sup>3</sup>*University of Manitoba*, *Canada*

<sup>4</sup>*Rottenburg University of Applied Forest Sciences, Germany*

Sustainable Forest Management in Rural Southern Brazil:

a dry season (Oliveira, 1999).

**2. The** *Araucaria* **forest and the fragmentation process** 

areas, as well as the sustainable management of the remaining areas.

Exploring Participatory Forest Management Planning 99

According to the "Ecosystems of the World Classification", edited by Lieth and Werger in 1989, the Subtropical Evergreen Seasonal Conifer Forest or Mixed Ombrophilous Forest is typically dominated by the species *Araucaria angustifolia* (Bertoloni) O. Kuntze (paraná-pine) (also known as Araucaria Forest). Although the species is predominant, the forest type also supports complex, variable and regional ecosystems commonly composed of more than one hundred woody species, some of which are endemic to this forest type. Araucaria forest occurs naturally in an area of 216,100 square kilometers, encompassing a region of mountains and plateaus throughout Southern Brazil (Figure 1). The region is characterized by altitudes above 500 meters elevation and a subtropical highland climate (Cfb), where frosts might occur during the winter months or, less frequently, light snowfalls in the highest areas. Annual precipitation is high, ranging from 1,300 to 3,000 millimetres, without

During the last century, Southern Brazil has experienced a rapid deterioration of its forest resources mainly due to land conversion, displacing forests for agriculture purposes as part of the colonization process and unsustainable selective logging of its commercial species. A central problem that is prevalent is determining how to manage the natural Araucaria forest fragments that remain. Some of these fragments are very small and are becoming poorer in terms of biodiversity because of intense human interference. The challenge is reconciling economic development and the conservation of biological resources and using the natural resources without destroying the possibilities for future generations. An important element in the efforts to save natural biodiversity is the establishment and maintenance of protected

Given the current situation, management strategies should be developed and applied to forest fragments in Southern Brazil in order to prevent the continuation of current processes of forest degradation and loss of biodiversity (Viana et al., 1992). Untended forests are more prone to disappear as they are gradually converted into other land uses that provide lower levels of ecosystem services and goods (Mc Evoy, 2004). In regions with intensive agriculture, protection against anthropogenic disturbance of these fragments is unlikely to be sufficient. A change from a top-down social relationship in which farmers are not sufficiently engaged in the process of developing environmental policies to a system that creates alternatives for natural resource use is likely one of the biggest challenges managers face in Brazil. There is an urgent need to reconcile local ecological knowledge (LEK) with

environmental policies and natural resources protection with economic prosperity.

Environmental law in Brazil is expressed mainly through the current Forest Code (Brasil, 1965) and subsequent regulations. The Forest Code considers that interventions in forested areas should be prescribed according to approved Management Plans (MP). However, for many years and in most cases, MPs have become synonymous with illegal logging practices. It was not until 1994 that the government defined SFM in practical terms through Decree 1.282 (Brasil, 1994). In establishing an official SFM policy, Brazil adopted the reduced-impact logging (RIL) concept as the basis for forest management (for the development of RIL see Putz & Pinard, 1993; The International Tropical Timber Organization [ITTO], 1990; and Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations [FAO], 1993). The definition of a policy

**3. Legal issues concerning forest management in southern Brazil** 

When the process of land conversion and the introduction of intensive land activities reached Southern Brazil, it found prosperous ground: timber harvested from the subtropical forests – especially the conifer *Araucaria angustifolia* – was Brazil's main export product during late XIX and early XX centuries. Sub-tropical forests were gradually reduced, plummeting to levels as low as 1-5% of primary forests. Today, the remaining forested areas are mostly secondary and in early or intermediary successional stages which are profit-limited in the short-term. However, the SFM potential of these forest areas should not be underestimated; they account for approximately 30% of the lands originally covered with forests in Southern Brazil. Environmental laws currently in place aim to protect forest cover through rigid control and bans on forest management, with a few exceptions at the small scale level, such as firewood collection for small farmers. Although environmental laws were mostly unsuccessful in avoiding deforestation, secondary forests have increased in the region.

The current set of state and federal legislation requires that at least 20% of the surface of most rural properties must be covered with forests and places severe restrictions on their use, while allowing for some agroforestry activities. Additionally, any waterway must have a forested buffer zone. Paradoxically, while aiming to prevent further deforestation, environmental legislation created an antagonism between forests and landowners to a point in which forest regeneration is avoided. In fact, rural properties that still have forested areas are drastically reduced in market value; the ultimate consequence is continued poverty in rural areas with an increasing economic disparity between urban and rural communities. This process contradicts the perception that forests should help in providing for basic needs of small landowners and forest communities, as well as the idea that the benefits and costs originating from maintaining forests should be shared by society as a whole and should not be a burden exclusively imposed on those remaining in rural areas. As a consequence, the restrictive legislation prevents forests from being used as a source of income while blocking any SFM initiative that, in the broad sense, includes recovery, conservation and long-term use. Although more recent experiences with payment for environmental services (PES) have helped to counter-balance the distortion in relation to sharing the costs of maintaining forests, such payments seem to be unfeasible even for family farms and forest communities.

Although the challenge for meeting people's needs in rural areas and managing forests is not a problem restricted to Southern Brazil, it is particularly relevant as the region is characterized by a severely threatened forest type in an area where more than half a million small rural properties (< 50ha) are subjected to near poverty conditions. The production of family farms accounts for about 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) and currently small farms account for 70% of food production. This figure demonstrates the economic importance of the sector.

In this paper we will explore some of the legal, social, economic and environmental issues related to the reduction of the forests in Southern Brazil and propose the implementation of a "locally adapted participatory sustainable forest management" (lapSFM) system focusing on reducing both rural poverty and deforestation. Finally, we discuss two case studies of participatory forest management in the south of Brazil. This paper aims to deliver scientific expertise translated into practical solutions related to land use and participatory SFM, considering a landscape approach for both small and large properties. The intent is to provide an evidence basis for changes in environmental policy to better reflect the enhancement of SFM in line with agroforestry and the use of tree genetic resources across the landscape, from forests to farms.

When the process of land conversion and the introduction of intensive land activities reached Southern Brazil, it found prosperous ground: timber harvested from the subtropical forests – especially the conifer *Araucaria angustifolia* – was Brazil's main export product during late XIX and early XX centuries. Sub-tropical forests were gradually reduced, plummeting to levels as low as 1-5% of primary forests. Today, the remaining forested areas are mostly secondary and in early or intermediary successional stages which are profit-limited in the short-term. However, the SFM potential of these forest areas should not be underestimated; they account for approximately 30% of the lands originally covered with forests in Southern Brazil. Environmental laws currently in place aim to protect forest cover through rigid control and bans on forest management, with a few exceptions at the small scale level, such as firewood collection for small farmers. Although environmental laws were mostly unsuccessful in avoiding deforestation, secondary forests have increased

The current set of state and federal legislation requires that at least 20% of the surface of most rural properties must be covered with forests and places severe restrictions on their use, while allowing for some agroforestry activities. Additionally, any waterway must have a forested buffer zone. Paradoxically, while aiming to prevent further deforestation, environmental legislation created an antagonism between forests and landowners to a point in which forest regeneration is avoided. In fact, rural properties that still have forested areas are drastically reduced in market value; the ultimate consequence is continued poverty in rural areas with an increasing economic disparity between urban and rural communities. This process contradicts the perception that forests should help in providing for basic needs of small landowners and forest communities, as well as the idea that the benefits and costs originating from maintaining forests should be shared by society as a whole and should not be a burden exclusively imposed on those remaining in rural areas. As a consequence, the restrictive legislation prevents forests from being used as a source of income while blocking any SFM initiative that, in the broad sense, includes recovery, conservation and long-term use. Although more recent experiences with payment for environmental services (PES) have helped to counter-balance the distortion in relation to sharing the costs of maintaining forests, such payments seem to be unfeasible even for family farms and forest communities. Although the challenge for meeting people's needs in rural areas and managing forests is not a problem restricted to Southern Brazil, it is particularly relevant as the region is characterized by a severely threatened forest type in an area where more than half a million small rural properties (< 50ha) are subjected to near poverty conditions. The production of family farms accounts for about 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) and currently small farms account for 70% of food production. This figure demonstrates the economic

In this paper we will explore some of the legal, social, economic and environmental issues related to the reduction of the forests in Southern Brazil and propose the implementation of a "locally adapted participatory sustainable forest management" (lapSFM) system focusing on reducing both rural poverty and deforestation. Finally, we discuss two case studies of participatory forest management in the south of Brazil. This paper aims to deliver scientific expertise translated into practical solutions related to land use and participatory SFM, considering a landscape approach for both small and large properties. The intent is to provide an evidence basis for changes in environmental policy to better reflect the enhancement of SFM in line with agroforestry and the use of tree genetic resources across

in the region.

importance of the sector.

the landscape, from forests to farms.
