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Brazil is a country of continental size, with the Amazon region occupying almost 60% of the whole country. More than 85% of timber production from natural forests comes from the Amazon, where over 3,000 logging companies were in operation in 2005. The value of exported timber from the Amazon is just under US$ 1 billion, with 30% of these exports going to EU Member States. In the Amazon, legal timber is produced from either authorised land clearance or from managed forests. However, there is considerable disparity between these authorised volumes and the amount consumed by the forest industry. Perhaps as much as 80% of the total timber production in the Amazon is unauthorised. Recent reforms are leading to a coherent set of instruments for the verification of legal forest production. Over the last 10 years Brazil has undergone a steady process of adaptive improvement in the normative framework regulating forest management and land-use change, driven in large part by a concern over deforestation in the Amazon. The most significant of these legislative changes is the 2006 Law on Public Forest Management, which allows (for the first time) legal timber production on public forest land under a concession system. With perhaps as much as 45% of the Amazon under this type of tenure there is now the opportunity to regularise considerable quantities of timber production that were previously illegal. The creation of a federal Forest Service and a Fund for forestry development under this Law should also make the control system less dependent on the political priority attached to environmental management that has been a major reason for uneven progress in the past. Another structural design element introduced under this Law is the requirement for 3-yearly independent audits of concessions given out on public forests. Inter-ministerial cooperation and coordination - involving parts of government not usually involved in policy discussions on forest development, such as the Ministries of Justice, Defence and Science & Technology - has strengthened national efforts to address the problem of illegality. This approach, channelled through a broadly-supported National Forest Program, together with political leverage at the highest level and strong individual leadership appear to be critical ingredients for success in achieving reform. The application of innovative technology offers new possibilities for regulatory control. There has been considerable investment in a number of technologies, including on-line databases, to help address the challenge of effecting control over such a widely dispersed sector. However, the current reform process must be seen against a backdrop of uncertain land tenure. Lack of capacity within the State administrations for the issuance of land title continues to undermine efforts to secure legal compliance. Unresolved land tenure is perhaps the main constraint on forest legality in Brazil. The devolution of regulatory functions sets additional challenges in a Federal system, where the division of responsibility between the different levels of government is not well defined. Some forest-rich States, particularly in the Amazon, are amongst those whose environmental agencies responsible for forest monitoring and enforcement are seriously under-resourced. The low professionalism among forest managers poses another weak link in the control system, which is not helped by the lack of clarity over their responsibilities regarding forest management controls. Application of existing legislation is also held back by lack of capacity within the judicial sector. Capacity development across the whole control system therefore remains a critical issue in Brazil. |
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VERIFOR is an ODI-led project, with partners in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Find out more about VERIFOR. |
   
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 VERIFOR is funded by the European Union Tropical Forest Budget Line, and the Governments of the Netherlands and Germany.
Find out more about VERIFOR funding. |
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