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In 1998, Klabin’s environment preservation philosophy and practices were proven: it became the first company in the Southern Hemisphere, in the paper and cellulose sector, to receive FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification. In 2003, Klabin’s forest management procedures, seedling production, seed production, non-timber forest products management, and the custody chain of woodwork and non-timber products in Paraná were certified again by FSC for a five-year period. Santa Catarina’s forest area is in the process of obtaining such certification.
A few years ago, with the wider reach and deepening concern for the environment, sectors that work with forest products started to be watched closely by ecologists. Currently, the awareness about the damages caused by forest devastation has been causing consumers to buy wood and by-products, as well as other forest products, from undertakers that value sustainability with the purpose of assuring the maintenance of resources for the future.
As a response to these demands, the market prepared certification programs, such as the FSC, whose purpose is to promote and acknowledge good forest management throughout the world in an environmentally correct, socially fair, and cost-effective manner. The FSC is made up of non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace, WWF, and Friends of the Earth (Amigos da Terra), as well as native Indian organizations, companies and class associations, which guarantees its credibility and reputation as the world’s most demanding and respected forest certifier.
Klabin was also the first company in the world to have non-timber forest products certified by the FSC, because of the management of medicinal plants and the manufacturing of phytotherapic and phytocosmetic products. These achievements show that Klabin has been performing its forest activities within the highest international standards of environmental conservation, sustainable development, and social responsibility.
Forests
In Santa Catarina, the planted area corresponds to 66,300 hectares of Pine, 3,300 hectares of eucalyptus, and 664.4 hectares of Paraná pine tree (Araucaria angustifolia), totaling about 70,300 hectares under sustainable management. Out of this total, 57,500 hectares correspond to planted lands owned by the company, and 12,800 hectares are under partnership or lease with landowners from the region. The permanent preservation and legal reserve areas total 36,300 hectares, corresponding to about 31% of the forest property.
In Paraná, the company owns a total area of 229,300 hectares in Telêmaco Borba and nearby municipalities. There are 118,700 hectares reforested with Pine taeda, Pine elliottii, Araucaria angustifolia, and different kinds of eucalyptus. The planted area is perfectly integrated with the native woods – 85,100 hectares – forming an extensive mosaic that creates ideal conditions for the maintenance and perpetuation of the region’s great biological wealth.
In São Paulo, for the production of semi-chemical cellulose, Klabin owns, in the Angatuba region, a total area of 4,300 hectares, of which 200 hectares correspond to Pine crops, 2,100 hectares of eucalyptus, and 1,700 hectares of natural reserves, which correspond to 41.41% of the forest assets. In this unit, the company preserves an Atlantic Forest reserve with more than 1,000 hectares, located in Serra da Paranapiacaba, between the municipalities of São Miguel Arcanjo and Tapiraí. This area has a great variety of vegetable species that shelter and sustain a rich wild fauna.
The company’s planning always takes into account the constant search for sustainability. With planning, maintenance and an enhancement in production capacity can be achieved, allowing the desired mosaic arrangement of production areas, connecting them with natural formations. The purpose is to achieve harmony between the ecosystems to be preserved and the Pine, eucalyptus and araucaria crops.
The mosaic arrangement is obtained through the variation of species and genetic materials, plant ages, and management systems of forest crops, in addition to the landscape composition with permanent preservation and conservation areas.
Harvest cycles vary according to the forest’s purpose: eight-21 years for eucalyptus; 20-25 years for Pine; for planted araucaria, management cycles total 40 years. This kind of management permits the development of the undergrowth, important for protecting and supporting several wild animals, such as mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and insects.
The company’s Yearly Harvest and Implementation Program guides short-term forest production (one year), indicating the areas that require harvesting or planting. Concerned with assuring good management of their crops and minimizing potential environmental impacts, the company invested in technological development, which includes using modern resources for geographic information and impact assessment of silviculture on hydric resources, soils, and biodiversity.
Implementation, maintenance, and harvesting practices of planted forests help conserve soils, maintain water quality, and preserve wild life. The assessment of the nutritional demand of species and the supply provided by each soil allows selecting locations appropriate for each one of them. Pine, more resistant to frosts and less demanding from a nutritional perspective, are planted in lower, less fertile locations. Eucalyptuses are planted according to a zoning map, in which the climatic and nutritional requirements of each species are observed.
Minimum cultivation walks side by side with the maintenance of all vegetable waste resulting from forest activities – branches, leaves, and bark stay in the cultivated area. The use of fire for cleaning has been abolished. All waste resulting from the performance of forest activities is separated and final disposal takes place in accordance with the law and based on the environmental quality maintenance objective.
Procedures related to the response to emergency situations and to worker health and safety have been established so as to minimize damages to health and the environment resulting from unforeseen situations.
To assure greater protection of its forest areas, Klabin counts on a fire-fighting and prevention system made up by observation towers equipped with radios and directly connected to emergency response centers, where fire trucks are ready to operate. Water bodies are mapped, forest guards have motor vehicles, and work teams are trained for integrating firefighting brigades. The company also has a monitoring and control program for plagues and diseases.
To assure the necessary conditions for the company’s forest management program, some mechanisms and procedures exist for evaluating the performance of fundamental items with this purpose. Knowing forest growth rates is essential for the sustainable planning of forest harvesting and implementation levels. For that, the company has a continuous forest inventory system, which surveys forest growth and quality indicators in permanent sampling units fixed on the field and identified on maps or sketches.
After planting, a seedling survival survey is performed, by recording the number of live and dead plants, failures, umbrella ant and cricket attacks, damages caused by frosts, etc. Nutritional deficiency and other information pertinent to each situation may also be checked.
All those involved in the planning and execution of forest management operations need to be aware of their responsibilities and of the environmental effects that come as a result of their activities. The company maintains training programs for employees and fosters the maintenance of similar programs by their service providers, with the purpose of providing to those who perform each activity, knowledge about the care required for maintaining environmental quality in all activities related to forest management.
Ecosystems
To assure the implementation of practices capable of maintaining the health of ecosystems, Klabin makes permanent investments in important studies about the biological resources of each region. The research confirms that the measures adopted by Klabin in its reforestation activities directly benefit several bird species, abundant at the Monte Alegre farm, in Paraná. The birds are the most well studied group in the farm area, and the first surveys date back to 1981. Since then, 392 species have been identified, six of which are endangered, according to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama, Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis).
In the state of Paraná, scientific information about anurous amphibians is still incipient, both from the taxonomic and ecological perspective. With the purpose of studying these animals at the Monte Alegre farm, Klabin supports a doctor’s degree thesis, whose surveys were finished in 2003, having recorded 40 amphibian species. This figure makes the Monte Alegre farm one of the areas with the most amphibian diversity in Paraná. Among identified species, at least six have been indicated for environmental preservation and quality, as they live in areas with restricted conditions and don’t survive when changes occur.
At the Monte Alegre farm, a species of a large predator mammal finds favorable living conditions. It’s the suçuarana or cougar (Puma concolor), a feline found in the three Americas, from Patagonia to Canada. In Brazil, it’s an endangered species because of the destruction of its habitat and hunting.
Being relatively abundant in the region, and also being an endangered species, in addition to its potential as a bio indicator, the cougar was the object of research financed by Klabin and the Program of Human Resource Training for Strategic Activities of the National Scientific and Technological Development Council (Rhae-CNPq Program, Programa de Capacitação de Recursos Humanos para Atividades Estratégicas do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico). This work was entitled Ecological Cougar (Puma concolor) Study at the Monte Alegre Farm.
Research began in March 1998 and was finished in March 2000. This work was performed by the Cougar Project NGO (ONG Projeto Puma), an entity with headquarters in Florianopolis that studies large Brazilian felines. For project execution, several survey methods were used, such as radio collar monitoring, remote photographic cameras, identification by paw prints, fecal analysis, and wild animal visualization cards.
After two years of work, the sampling indicated the presence of more than 100 cougars in the Monte Alegre farm area, which came as a surprise to the researchers. This significant number shows that the farm has the great biological diversity needed for the survival of these felines.
The biodiversity of the native forests preserved by Klabin´s Forestry in Paraná allows the input that guarantees the production of phytotherapic products (medicines made from plants) to be obtained.
Having started in 1984 on a manual scale, and having operated on a manipulation scale beginning in 1989, the phytotherapy program is based on a search to enhance the quality of life of the company’s community (employees and their relatives) and to preserve and make good use of the local biodiversity. This is obtained through the diversified use of the more than 85,000 hectares of the native forests and undergrowth of commercial crops.
The use of natural products reinforces the company’s commitment to sustainability in its financial, ecological, and social aspects. In Monte Alegre, the development of phytotherapic products was preceded by detailed research that determined the main diseases of the local community. At the same time, the forest was assessed, taking into account the self-sustainability and scheduled cultivation needs, aiming at the use of the forest with the maintenance of material for future generations.
Before they were prescribed, the active principles of the medicines were subject to a strict quality, effectiveness, and safety analysis. Phytotherapy is part of a comprehensive program in the health area that helps more than 15,000 people, among collaborators and their families.
Based on the principle of maintaining the health of an ecosystem, comes the need to have a plan for maintainingthe values of the hydrographic micro basin. The micro basin, as a primary landscape structure, that is, as the smallest physical manifestation that allows an integrated quantification of the way nature works, allows a systemic approach to be established for forest activities.
Practical forest management measures that allow these ecosystem integrity components to be attained are not restricted to the maintenance of Permanent Preservation Areas (APP’s, Áreas de Preservação Permanente) to physically protect water courses. An integrated vision must be applied from the micro scale, which includes, for instance, a concern for the surface of the soil, the conditions of which are fundamental for the hydrological process. Thus the need to evaluate the soil preparation and planting system, the adoption of conservation measures, road and wagon trail design and maintenance, and the protection of hillsides and other critical areas.
The global focus on the sustainable management of forest crops must also consider a macro scale, which regards the insertion of the forest project in the biogeographical medium context. That is, there must also be a deeper analysis of the physical medium, of its geomorphologic and climatic features, of hydric availabilities, flora and fauna, its natural inclination, and of the interaction of all of these features with man.
In line with these concepts, Klabin’s experimental monitoring program began in 2003, in a partnership with the Micro Basin Environmental Monitoring Network (Remam, Rede de Monitoramento Ambiental de Microbacias). Two experimental micro basins were installed: one, a model in the native woods of the Paraná unit (ecological park area), and the other in a recently planted Pine area.
Environmental education
Concerned with the dissemination of the sustainability concept and a sense for environmental responsibility, Klabin develops environmental education programs in the communities where it works. In Paraná, the Caiubi Environmental Education project was a result of the need to provide the students of the Telêmaco Borba region with better opportunities for using the structure of the company’s ecological park. The teachers also needed information for an interpretation of nature with a focus on the region’s fauna and flora aspects. Five steps of the project have already been developed, with the participation of 47 state and private schools from the region and 20 municipal establishments in Telêmaco Borba.
In Santa Catarina, in the Correia Pinto, Otacílio Costa and Lages communities, Klabin has been developing, since June of 1997, an environmental education program as part of its Environmental Management Program. In this initiative, the company also diagnosed the need for a course aimed at elementary school teachers that provides knowledge about ecology and environmental education.
More than a consequence of ecological awareness or of the mere observance of laws, the environmental attitude of companies has proven to be a very valued asset in the competitive global scenario. International markets are becoming increasingly demanding with regard to products coming from sustainable activities with certified and acknowledged environmental performance.
In the paper and cellulose industries, the energy matrix is strongly based on renewable energy coming from their own forests. The use of biomass offsets CO2 emission by planted forests. Recently, Klabin has become the first Brazilian company to participate in the select group of the 52-member Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Thus, it’s qualified to sell carbon credits to companies that are part of this organization that need to take measures to reduce and control gases that cause global warming.
At Klabin, 84% of the thermal energy used comes from renewable sources: bark, chips, and sawdust from the company’s and third parties’ reforestation initiatives. The percentage of fossil fuel, especially in the form of heavy oil, must be dramatically reduced over the next few years, as production capacity increases.
The analysis of environmental impacts has also caused open manufacturing processes that don’t include the recovery of chemicals to become less attractive, and they are moving towards extinction. Bleaching chemicals, such as elementary chlorine, have also been banned because of the impact of organic chlorine elements on nature. Today, the bleaching process is based on ECF (Elementary Chlorine Free) and TCF (Total Chlorine Free) systems that use ozone and hydrogen peroxide. Emissions have been reduced, and odorous gases are collected and processed.
The growing focus on environmental performance will cause Klabin to continue to make the needed investments for improving its acknowledged environmental positioning. The company, that holds the position of the country’s biggest paper recycler, has recently announced its participation in a consortium of companies that will allow for the total recycling of long-life packagings, an unprecedented initiative in the world. Our commitment to the environment and sustainability, which is key to our history until now, will become even more intense in the future.•
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