Annual Cash Income from Community Forest Management in the Brazilian Amazon: Challenges for the Future

Abstract

Community forest management (CFM) is considered an alternative way to protect forests while providing income for smallholders. Since the mid-1990s, the number of CFM projects has rapidly increased in the Brazilian Amazon, although most of them still face several difficulties. In this paper, we discuss the obstacles to the financial viability of CFM in this region and propose some ways to overcome them. Based on evidence from five case studies, we assess the extent to which sustainable forest management for commercial timber production contributes to smallholder income. We show that harvesting timber only provides a limited cash income to smallholders, even though forest covers 80% OPEN ACCESSForests 2015, 6 4229 of their landholding. Market access to timber is very uncertain and smallholder communities often fail to make a profit from their timber. Minimum remunerative public prices and support for timber marketing are thus needed. Simpler and more flexible procedures are required to reduce the high transaction costs of obtaining a permit and increase smallholder involvement in legal forest management for commercial purposes. Finally, a better assessment of timber potential in smallholder forest reserves through systematic inventories would be useful to avoid arousing false expectations.

Multiple Patterns of Forest Disturbance and Logging Shape Forest Landscapes in Paragominas, Brazil

“…It became one of the main timber producing regions in the country in the late 1980s, as well as an important agricultural region of cattle ranching, and soybean and corn production. In 2008, the municipality was added to the Red List of Deforestation, published by Brazil's federal government, which includes the municipalities with the highest rates of deforestation in the Amazon, and imposes severe restrictive measures such as embargos, credit restrictions, and fines for illegal activities [13]. Consequently, the Paragominas municipality faced strong pressures to slow down deforestation and illegal timber and charcoal production and launched the "Green Municipality project".…”

“…Logging can vary from very low intensity (1 to 2 trees·ha −1 ) with few impacts, to more intensive and repeated logging, often occurring with ground fire [11]. Moreover, within the same forest landscape, logging concerns multiple actors and different areas of forest management are being juxtaposed, such as areas of forestry companies, forest concessions (currently only in five National Forests), but also areas in private and community-owned forests, for example in Legal Forest Reserve (Reserva Legal) of big farm (fazenda) or smallholder areas (assentamento) [12,13]. For these reasons, logged forests must be characterized by a disturbance gradient bound to (1) intensity of logging; (2) frequency of logging activities through time; and (3) forest management techniques (i.e., conventional management (CNV), Reduced Impact Logging (RIL), or no management techniques in case of illegal logging).…”

Incentives and Constraints of Community and Smallholder Forestry

“…Another important challenge corresponds to the lack of compliance with the rule of law among many actors who derive profits from forest products, especially timber. Community forestry is linked to forest sector legality in a myriad of ways, as discussed in several of the papers of the special issue (e.g., [9][10][11][12][13][14]). For example, financial viability of community forestry timber production is threatened by illegally produced timber in Brazil [14], but also in many other countries.…”

“…Piketty et al [14] provide a detailed cost-benefit analysis of communal forestry logging operations in Brazil, shedding light on the limitations communal timber operations must face to become a viable commercial option and the struggle communities undergo to be successful in a highly competitive sector. Poffenberger [15], in turn, focuses on how villagers in Northeast India strive to adapt to standards that emerge from global efforts to align local forest management to wider goals of climate change mitigation.…”

Feasibility of Community Management of Miombo Woodlands for Carbon Project in Southern Highlands of Tanzania

“…The market value of carbon stock and sequestration was calculated assuming a ton of CO 2 removal worth 5 USD [42]. Based on this, carbon credit was evaluated using net present value (NPV), internal rate of return, and benefit/cost ratio [43]. The cost of carbon sequestration in CBFM is the cost of improved forest management, including the cost of establishing CBFM and maintaining the system, plus the opportunity costs associated with the lost benefits of alternative systems (business as usual or open access).…”