Science Week: Day 3

Original Post: Tapajós-Arapiuns
Date: September 5, 2008 at 11:56 AM 

Several caboclo communities in the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve wanted to start a small furniture business using selected timbers from the forest.  To do so, they needed to prepare and submit a formal management plan to IBAMA, the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Natural Resources.  They had no idea how to do this.  I did, however, and so in mid-2004, in collaboration with IPAM and with support from the Overbrook Foundation, I started working with a couple of communities in the reserve to collect the baseline data needed to write a management plan. 

The video was shot during the forest inventory and growth analysis work conducted by villagers from Nugini. The fieldwork involved 18 people who worked for 8 days, encountered 5 poisonous snakes, established 1,000 sample plots, and counted and measured 3,452 trees from 42 different species. More information about the Oficinas Caboclas do Tapajos and their forestry operations within the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve can be found here or here.

[NOTE: The management plan for Nugini was submitted to IBAMA and approved, and the community is now harvesting furniture woods from a 100 hectare management area on a sustained-yield basis.] 

The Scent of a Tree (From the Archive)

The smell of the inner bark is one of the most important diagnostic characters for identifying trees in tropical forests where flowers and fruits may be small, of drab color, and high up in the canopy.  Materos all over the world use this trick.  Approach the tree, glance up at the canopy to check for flowers or fruits, slash the bark, and give it a whiff - or occasionally a taste.  All with such wonderful insouciance.

The Scent of a Tree (From The Archive)

The smell of the inner bark is one of the most important diagnostic characters for identifying trees in tropical forests where flowers and fruits may be small, of drab color, and high up in the canopy.  Materos all over the world use this trick.  Approach the tree, glance up at the canopy to check for flowers or fruits, slash the bark, and give it a whiff - or occasionally a taste.  All with such wonderful insouciance. [NOTE (added to re-post): These materos are working in the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve in western Para, Brazil (see Tapajos-Arapiuns)].

Pau Rosa

I can't remember where I took this photo, but I know that it's Aniba rosaeodora Ducke, the source of rosewood oil, and I know that this tree species is currently on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species because of over-exploitation and indiscriminate felling. So maybe it's just as well that I don't remember where I took the picture. [NOTE: Somewhere in the Brazilian Amazon in a botanical garden or zoo; Museu Goeldi in Belém?]

The Scent of a Tree

The smell of the inner bark is one of the most important diagnostic characters for identifying trees in tropical forests where flowers and fruits may be small, of drab color, and high up in the canopy.  Materos all over the world use this trick.  Approach the tree, glance up at the canopy to check for flowers or fruits, slash the bark, and give it a whiff - or occasionally a taste.  All with such wonderful insouciance.