Sustainable Model for the Brazilian Wood Flooring Production Chain
Brazil
The ITTO Mission to Brazil identified that the key constraint to the development of a sustainable timber industry based on natural tropical forests is the fragility of the supply chain, which is subject to disturbance by several factors. Moreover, the financial competitiveness of SFM in natural forests with alternative land-uses is often low, leading to significant deforestation. This project will address this constraint. Its development objective is to contribute to the sustainable and adequate utilization of forest resources from the Brazilian tropical forest. The specific objective is to increase the efficiency in forest resources utilization by the production chain of solid wood flooring, from the forest to the final product; integrating extraction and utilization of commercial and less used lumber species, improving drying and manufacture processes, adding quality and value to the product, promoting residues utilization, and with social benefits to industry employees. The expected outputs are a more diversified forest utilization, improvements in manufacture process, reducing residues generation and setting a flooring quality standard; and to establish a Quality Certification Program for wood flooring. This project should be executed I through the involvement of several Brazilian research institutions and universities.
Implementing agency
ANPM -National Hardwood Flooring Association
Budget
ITTO: USD 516’927
Swiss contribution: USD 50’000
Planned duration
30 months
Starting date
April 2010
Status
under implementation
Topics
Contact
james.gasana (a) intercooperation.ch
Progress report
November 2011 The progress during the reporting period can be summarized as follows:
Under output 1, Proposing a management model to integrate the exploration and use of lumber from commercial and less used species: revision of the literature and identification of potential timber species as well as interview with private companies has been carried out; and
Under output 3, Quality certification programme: activities towards the compilation of international standards and specifications for solid wood flooring have begun.
It is expected that field activities will start from July 2011, once the flooring companies partnered in the project start harvesting.
