Diario las Américas Newspaper, February 3, 1957, Page 24

<; US, and UN foresters Eugene Reichard and Paavo Pogry pose before a huge sande tree in Colombian jungle. A QUIET REVOLUTION is un- der way in the forests of tropical America that is opening up un- tapped resources for new industry. The long-coveted giant mahogany, exported for the mamufacture of fine furniture and ship-building, is growing scarce, losing its hege- mony to little-known trees that were once considered worthless. Cuangare foliage rising from the coastal swamps and thick stands of cativo along tidal rivers have become the symbols of a new eco- nomic era. Now the trend is away from log exports; instead, the fac- tory is moving right into the forest, near the source of raw materials, to turn -out veneers, fiberboard, plywood, and chip board. The fin- ished and semi-finished wood pro- ducts are sold to both local and foreign markets. And thanks to Latin America’s rapid industrial growth, the local market is an ex- panding one. ‘ This newly discovered green gold is found im the Department of Pe- tén, Guatemala; Darién Province, Panama; the Pacific coastal areas Dragging timbor from swamp forest by barge with a double drum of Colombia and Ecuador; the Rio Atrato and Magdalena valleys of Colombia; the Yucatan pen- insula; the Amazon basin. The re- volution now in progress is based on new industrial techniques, but there is still much to be learmed through simple trial and error. The complexity of forest growth alone raises the production problem of how to use mixed stands of wood. The Ford Motor Company pio- neered in using a mixture of tro- pical woods when it was develop- ing its rubber plantations in the Amazon basin during the 1920's. Big tracts of tropical jungle had to be cleared for settlement and planting, and to utilize the felled timber a large band mill with au- xiliary equipment was installed at Fordlandiao nt he Tapajos River. But because of the extreme variety in the characteristics and quality of the wood, several trial shipments proved unacceptable on the New York market. Yet this and other similar fail- ures have not discouraged venture capital from continued attempts to rages wand é Awakening Forests HOW NEW INDUSTRIES ARE USING TROPICAL WOODS F. BRUCE LAMB Photographs by the Author Reprinted from AMERICAS, monthly magazine published by the Pan American Union in English, Spanish and Portu- guese, _ POLS RETO TOT A AREA A RS MITTEE RAC ARRON establish profitable wood-using en- terprises at the edge of the forests. Today successful operations, all by private concerns, are based largely on the use of one or two species that, like cativo and cuangare, are relatively abundant and appear in forests limited to only a few species. On the Pacific coast of Colombia, Industria Forestal Colombiana has organized a thriving sawmill opera- tion based largely on cuangare (Iryanthera juruensis), which grows in almost pure stands in the swamp forests of that region. Ma- ture cuangare trees have a round, slightly tapered, symmetric- al trunk, which shoots up sixty or seventy feet to its lowest branches above the mass of tangled roots embedded in the swamp. The rough, reddish bark contains a gummy red sap that protects the logs from insect attack until they dry out. A market for this wood developed ten years ago, at the end of World War II, when a trial shipment to Germamy was wel- comed by the reviving wood-using industries, especially for rotary ve- neer, Producing lumber from the logs rejected for export, Industria Fo- restal Colombiana began modest- ly enough with a small circular sawmill, set up at Tumaco to sup- ply local lumber needs. Organized with the help of Mexican and U. S. technicians, it was financed by Colombian, Swedish, ,Mexican, amd U. S. capital. Now it is shipping lumber to Colombian, Caribbean island, Central American and U. S. Gulf Coast markets. Recently a big modern bandmill was installed, with accessory equipment such as edger, band resaw, and high-speed planing mill. Both a plywood plant and a chip-board plant are project- ed for the future. Industria ¥orestal Colombiana also experiments with other woods from the mixed tropical forest growing on higher ground, such as sande (Brosimum sp.) and tula- puerta (unidentified). Sande is a large forest tree with a spreading crown that dominates everything around it. The huge cylindrical trunk, often six feet in diameter at the base, soars eighty to ninety feet to the first branch and is cov- ered with a smooth: grayish-white ‘bark containing a milky latex. The creamy-yellow -wood should prove as popular as other blond tropical woods — primavera from Central America, for example, or korina from Africa. Tulapuerta is charact- erized by a large, somewhat irre- gular trunk that rises fifty to sixty feet to the first branches and is coated with scaly, yellowish bark. Its cocoa-brown wood is reported to be insect-resistant. In Surinam, the Brunzeel Ply- wood Plant produces veneers and plywood solely from virola. Virola surinamensis is a tree that also rises above the forest canopy in lindrical trunk of the cativo, which rivers in Central and South Ameri- ca. The wood is pale pink, lighter than Spanish cedar. Logs cannot be exported, for after cutting they are attacked by damaging imsects and fungi. Because of its rapid de- terioration, the wood had no com- mercial value until experiments proved its worth for plywood pro- duced close to the log source. whinch. Loggers must be tough to withstand rugged living conditions, Alto Tapajés, S. A., operating in the lower Amazon valley, is trying out the production of veneer from various tropical hardwoods for ex- port. As with other wood products, manufacture near the source saves shipping costs on waste materials, lowering the price of the end pro- duct. Compafiia Maderera del Atrato has a band sawmill and box factory in Barranquilla, Colombia, with a large production program under way, based mainly on cativo (Prio- ria copaifera). Like cuangare, ca- tivo became commercially import- School of Forestry brought cative to the attention of the wood-using industries. Heavy, nearly pure stands of this tree are easily acces- sible along the flood plains of many rivers from Costa Rica to Co- lombia, and a ready market has been developed for cativo veneer and plywood ih Panama, México, and the United States. Still another plant, a plywood factory at Las Quebradas, Guate- mala, has found uses for several Guatemalan woods that previously had little value and is now manu~ Wood users are experimenting with lumber from mixed stands like this in jungle along road clearing in Magdalena Valley, Colombia. ant only after World War II; its name, derived from the Italian word for “worthless,” indicates how it was previously regarded. The cy- wamps along the Atlantic coasta: rises fifty to sixty feet to the low- er limbs, is covered with a smooth whitish bark on young trees. As the tree matures, the bark becomes rough and scaly, and its sticky yel- low resin attracts many kinds of insects. The publication of test da- ta on the wood’s characteristics by Professor Kynoch of the Universi- ty of Michigan and description of stands in publications of the Yale facturing veneer and plywood for the local market and for export. Several sawmill, veneer, and plywood operations have sprung up since the war in the Yucatan pen- insula of México. At first they uscd mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and Spanish cedar (Cedrella mexi- cana) but they were forced to di- versify as these woods becarie scarce. One of the most spectacular examples of jungle-taming to maxe the forest productive is the opera- tion started by Alfredo Medina of México at Colonia, Yucatan. From a small sawmill it mushroomed in- Highly prized mahogany (leafless during dry season) is mo longe' chiel sign of forest wealth in Petén, Guatemala, j PAG. 16 HEMISPHERE... SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1980 :