WikiHome

Harvesting Wood in Brazil

Jorge Roberto Malinovski
Ricardo Anselmo Malinovski
Rafael Alexandre Malinovski

Brazil

Brazil started  most of their forest plantation in 1965 with support from government incentives programs.  Currently,  there are 5.3 million hectares planted with pine and eucalyptus.

As the planted forests were growing, they also were integrated in the wood chain supply and several industrial units of pulp and paper, particle boards, sawmills, and other manufacturing plants were built in Brazil. This process changed the Brazil economy  from being a forest products importer to an exporter. Today Brazil occupies a leading place  in the world forestry sector due to technological innovations such as adaptations in the soil preparation, tree breeding programs,  “in vitro” seedling culture, introduction  of new timber species integrated with the genetics improvement, intensive forest management programs, and other factors that have increased forest productivity.

Beyond the high productivities of the planted forests, which  result in low production costs, Brazil has competitive advantages because there are lands available for forest development; there are forests planted with different development stages; and there is  manpower available at with relatively low costs compared to developed countries.

History

Brazil is a leader in the technology required to produce wood with the desired quality required  by the wood consuming  companies, and the forestry component of business in Brazil is perhaps the best in the world.  The harvesting and transportation operations have evolved to being increasingly efficient and competitive as well. 


In the 1960s,  the first chainsaws, called "modernization ladies", were introduced into Brazil.  In the same period, Brazil began using small agricultural tractors for skidding logs, and for rudimentary log loaders. In the 1970s,  several pulp and paper factories were constructed  in the country.  Similarly, Brazil experienced the beginning of the equipment improvement process, such as the chainsaw power increasing and weight decreasing; the connection of winches and grapples in agricultural tractors (miniskidders); tractors developed specifically to skidding trees (skidders); and hydraulic equipment for logs loading in trucks.

The 1980s  was marked with the beginning of the utilization of feller bunchers in Pine, trying to decrease man's contact with the trees and thus to reduce the risk of accidents,  improving the ergonomic conditions of work and maximizing the operational availability of the equipment regarding in various weather conditions.   Skidders also had a great productivity improvement, because the activity with “feller” provided a pre-piling up of the trees, decreasing the time spent  to pile  the trees for  skidding. Some new delimbing methods were developed  also.    The equipment and crane quality used for loading trucks increased, acquiring more weight bearing capability and  agility. This decade marked a great jump in the productivity of forestry operations in Brazil, which proceeded to being called wood harvesting instead forest explotation , when referreing to  pine and Eucaliptus.

Besides the improvements that occurred in Brazil during the 1970s  and 1980s,   developed  countries of the northern hemisphere developed many new wood harvesting machines, which led to basically two large markets of  machine producers and consumers with very distinct harvesting philosophies. The first approach was taken by the the Scandinavian countries, and focused on  cut-to-length systems, with machines that make the felling, the delimbing, and the sorting in the same location with Harvesters, and the subsequent  removal of the logs to the deck at the roadside with forwarders. The second approach was taken in North America countries, with full tree systems, where tractors called feller-bunchers cut the trees and collected bunches, which were skidded to the deck or road  by skidders, where the trees would be delimbed, sorted, and loaded in the trucks.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Brazilian  market was opened and allowed the country to import manufactured products. With that, most well known large world companies, with  high technology  machines and equipment, came to Brazil.  Thus  most technological innovations developed  in the forest equipment sector could be quickly acquired by Brazilian companies. With the adoption of these new equipment, significant increases in operations productivity, lower costs, increasing of safety in the operations, smaller dependence of manpower and climatic conditions occurred as well, resulting in more supply autonomy and independence for industrial facilities.

Current Status

 
Today wood harvesting in Brazil is integrated with the forestry and environmental activities. The objective is to produce wood while respecting the sustainable forest management principles and criteria, defined by appropriate silviculture and management, in conjunction with protecting the environment, benefiting society and enhancing the economy.

The tendency in some  large companies, due to environmental certification standards,  is a  reduction in the size of the clear cut areas and a consequent increasing of quantities of cuts in small areas, generating forest mosaics, and reducing  the visual and environmental impact in the harvesting areas.

 
Forestry contracting  services is a segment that still remains in a state of flux for some companies of the sector. In the 1990s, most forest companies contracted their harvest activities to independent loggers and truckers. Currently some traditional companies in Brazil are changing practices, and are now buying their own forest machines, and significantly reducing their contracted activities. Contracting services was in general anticipated to be a good business, but now it becomes less clear that it is always the best approach forest company  owners.

The manpower qualification of specialized forestry work has been improved significantly in the country with training centers builted near of some forest concentration areas. These centers are not yet enough to supply the demand of all companies in the short term, because the estimated growth by the sector in this period is significant.

 
Presently, once of the main difficulties in the Brazilian forestry sector is the opening of new forest enterprises and expanding the actual forest plantations. The environmental nongovernment organizations (ENGOs) have become stronger,  and have focused in the environmental preservation, not in the social and economic development of Brazil.

 
The main challenges for the next years in Brazil will be to keep and to increase the productivity of the planted forests; to maintain a desirable cost differential for the costs of wood harvesting operations in relation to the North America countries; to use  residual biomass for energy generation; and to find a production balance with the soil nutrients export.  Brazil probably has the best combination of productive lands and exotic plantation tree species coupled with technology, infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, and capable labor in the world.  We will need to enhance these natural and human resources in our timber growing, harvesting, and processing sectors to maintain our competitive advantage in world markets.

The authors are professors with Univeridade Federal do Paraña, Brasil and forest engineering and harvesting consultants.

Posted 19 August 2007
 
Updated 23 August 2007