Sustainability as our core

Fast-growing plantations, the best way to preserve the forest

Commercial forestry is the best way to preserve the natural forest. That may sound like a contradiction, but the fact is that an efficient and modern forestry that takes place according to both nature's own and the country's laws, is the best way to achieve two important environmental goals;

  1. Conservation of natural forest

  2. Bind more carbon dioxide.

Brazil has the world's second largest forest area, with a total of 497.90 million hectares (ha) of forest (58.47% of its territory), which is more than 10 times the entire land area of ​​Sweden (41 million ha). Of this area, 98% or 488.06 million hectares are occupied by natural forests, while only 9.83 million hectares correspond to planted forests (SFB, 2019). Recently, Brazil has been the focus of heated discussions focusing on the need to maintain Brazilian forests, primarily for its role in global climate change. Deforestation is the country's biggest threat in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Brazilian forest-based sector is a world leader in wood productivity (wood volume per unit area) (Figure 1 below). Among the most important commodities in the forest sector, we have pulp and paper, wood panels and sawn wood (mostly native species that come mainly from the Amazon and Centro-Oeste, and foreign species such as pine and eucalyptus).

Despite the negative development of economic activity in various industrial segments, development in the forest-based sector has been strong in a long-term perspective. The pulp and paper segments are currently standing out in terms of positive expectations, due to the increased consumption of personal hygiene and cleaning products (VALOR, 2020). Therefore, the Brazilian forestry sector faces the challenge of intensifying its production to meet the growing demand for fiber, wood, energy and several other new applications that are still in the research and development phase. This is also where the fast-growing plantations fit well in to the future demand.

How does the production of forestrated raw materials effect global climate change?

Climate change is one of humanity's greatest challenges. The world is looking for solutions and alternatives to meet the effects of climate change, which not only refers to global warming but also changes in rainfall intensity and the occurrence of extreme climate events, such as hurricanes and heat waves.

It is currently indisputable that such changes occur mainly due to human activity, especially due to the emission of a large amount of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, into the atmosphere. It is also common knowledge that forest maintenance plays a major role in the discussion of global warming, especially in Brazil, a country known for its forest productivity.

See the graph below how Brazilian forests have worked to calm the threatening effects of climate change.