The development of strategies to access the European market for legally produced timber in Mato Grosso has progressed. A workshop was held on October 24 by IDH in partnership with the Centre for Timber Producing and Exporting Industries of Mato Grosso (CIPEM), which had about 20 representatives from the state’s forestry sector.
The event is the result of a partnership signed between CIPEM and IDH in April this year to continuously improve the value chain of the sector in Mato Grosso. The actions are structured based on four core pillars: digitization of the Forest Registration and Management System; knowledge exchange; Sisflora-MT System benchmarking in relation to internationally acknowledged programs; and development of communication strategies aimed at the European market.
IDH and CIPEM are part of the Mato Grosso State PCI Strategy. PCI’s commitment to native forests is to reach 6 million hectares of sustainable forest management area in Mato Grosso by 2030. Currently, 3.7 million hectares of privately managed forests are owned by the state.
“Sustainable forest management is an important tool for conservation, for it promotes economic use linked to long-term plans for responsible logging, conservation and regeneration. Production and export expansion in this sector depends on a joint effort to improve the reputation of Brazilian timber in consumer markets, such as the European Union,” says Marcela Paranhos, investment manager at IDH.
Within the topic ‘Building a reputation path for Mato Grosso timber with the European Union’, IDH presented industry data, the export scenario and trade rules to serve major buyers from the economic bloc.
According to the consultants hired by IDH, Brazil still produces very little when compared to Indonesia, which is a country made up of many islands. “Although it has only 7% of all rainforests in the world, Indonesia produces 26% of all the timber consumed on the planet. You can also get an idea of our size when we talk about dividends. While they circulate over USD 17.3 billion in the global market, Brazil operates only USD 272 millions of this total, that is, only 1.5%”.
Intermediate results of the study indicate that, in terms of timber legality, the Forest Products Trading and Transportation System (SISFLORA), of the State Secretariat of the Environment (SEMA), complies with European regulations on the subject.