|
The Destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest is a concern for us all. This is a complicated issue where political, social and economic demands conflict with ecological
priorities.
Faced with the reality of family needs, the local population in the Amazon basin clears and burns portions of the Rain Forest to provide land for subsistence farming and cattle ranching. However, the nutrient poor land will only support farming or grazing for a few years. This forces the clearing of more land in a never ending process of
devastation.
The use of lumber from Brazil can reverse this process by:
| • |
increasing the economic reliance on wood products which assigns a value to the forest and consequently will promote and help finance wise use and managed preservation and |
| • |
providing income for the farmers from a source other than agriculture and cattle
ranching. |
The harvesting methods used by our suppliers are designed to:
| • |
extract hardwoods in accordance with the highest accepted standards of sustainable yield forest management overseen by the President of the Brazilian Forest Management Association and the federal government, |
| • |
utilize selective cutting methods which limit the cutting to two or three mature trees per hectare,
and |
| • |
increase sunlight and water to the remaining trees to promote steady growth and quality of specimen.
|
 |