EXTRACTION OF A HIGH-VALUE NATURAL-RESOURCE IN AMAZONIA - THE CASE OFMAHOGANY

Mahogany, Swietenia macrophylla King, is by far the most valuable timb er species in the Brazilian Amazon: 1 m(3) of export-quality sawn wood was valued at about $700 in the early 1990s. We studied the structure and economy of the mahogany companies operating in southern Para Stat e, the major mahogany processing center in the Brazilian Amazon. Of th e 86 mills in operation in this region, 24 specialized in mahogany and were responsible for processing 90% of the mahogany harvest. Many of these mahogany mills (60%) were established in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, most (98%) were vertically integrated-participating in forest logging, log transport, mill processing, and marketing. Mahogany compa nies achieved good profits in the early 1990s. A typical mill with one band saw produced, on average, 4500 m(3) of sawn wood year(-1) from 9 900 m(3) of roundwood. The value of this sawn wood was approximately $ 3 000 000; annual profits for such a company were approximately $800 0 00. In three logging operations that we studied, an average of 5 m(3) of mahogany logs were extracted per hectare; this is equivalent to the extraction of about one mahogany tree per hectare. However, future cu ts of mahogany are in doubt: in surveys of recently logged sites we en countered, on average, only 0.25 mahogany trees of at least 30 cm diam eter at breast height (dbh) per hectare and no trees between 10 and 30 cm dbh. Mahogany seedlings were also rare. Logging damage can be grea t on a local scale. Thirty-one trees at least 10 cm dbh were severely damaged for each mahogany tree harvested; approximately 1100 m(2) of f orest ground surface were scraped clean or trampled for each mahogany tree removed. However, because mahogany trees are usually distributed in widely scattered patches only a small fraction of the region's fore st has been directly disturbed by this logging. Nonetheless, the speci fic effect on Swietenia macrophylla-its population numbers and genetic structure-may be significant. Moreover, mahogany logging indirectly c ontributes to regional deforestation. Logging companies have opened up some 3000 km of logging roads in southern Para and mahogany logging h as been documented in each of the region's 15 Indian Reserves. After l ogging, there is a growing trend to convert forests to cattle pasture, in part perhaps, because the prospects for future mahogany harvests d o not appear to be good. We conclude our paper with a discussion of in itiatives in the policy, business, and technical sectors aimed at prom oting the sustainable management of mahogany forests in the Brazilian Amazon.