Brazil: is necessary & possible to explore its forests well (only 8 pg. estrategical more exclusive)
ABSTRACT -
"While many BRAZILIAN PEOPLE much criticize the felling of OLD, DEAD OR UNUSED TREES in the Amazon and the Cerrados Forest/Caatingas Forest-extrativism/Atlantic Forest-extrativism /Pinhais Forest/Araucaria Forests (which compete unfairly, prevent or hinder growth – but with lower carbon absorption from the air more lower releases of human and animals oxygen too - by the trees/smaller vegetation in up to 4 floors below, which will greatly contribute to a better environmental future in the world, even with Brazil not being the environmental lung of the world – see below) plus the giant incinerations and disposals, these very incorrect, of our urban waste MSW (70% of biomasses), food leftovers, bark, straw, animal feces, etc., but without giving sufficient technological options and resources to municipalities / local entrepreneurs, etc. to solve them. Y think and y believe more - in a good and justice for Brazilian peoples and for world environmental future - known without the oil economy to start in up to 30-40 years -, the correct socio-economic, dispassionate and truly sustainable explorations of such biomass (for certified wood and/or for recovering many and many degraded/abandoned crops/livestock areas, already with more than double the total planted area in the country). For these we can to include and to deploy more to implement some recent and revolutionary, low costs socio-economics/environmental Brazilian research systems named SFM/MFS (Sustainable Forest Management) or FASfruits/ SAFfrutas (Forest-Agricultural System) or FLS/ SAP (Forest-Livestock System) or CLFIS/ ILPF (Crop-Livestock-Forest Integration System) or CLISextrativism/ ILPExtrativism (Crop-Livestock-Extrativism Integration System) and even with fast homogeneous cultivated forests and/or energy forests (eucalyptus, pine, rubber trees, parica trees etc..) - more than electric energy/heating obtained from biomass/waste/feces/leftovers/waste etc.). For understand the integration example, in the SFM/ MFS (Sustainable Forest Management) only a small part of identified and certified tree (really good for industrial wood mainly for export) is felled and exploited to - in a socio-economically and environmentally correct way (for certified wood). The great certified exploratory differential is that they only represent 3.3%/year of the released rotational area and only with mature and pre-identified trees each year, giving more than enough time (up to 30 years) to restore them area to the new forest properly, but producing much more employment, family income and local developments and, better, sequestering much more carbon and releasing much more oxygen over the long term and for all the people of the world. So, all integrated more certified forestry/crop/livestock/extrativism exploration Brazilian systems also can be a great environmental future, socio-developmentalist/environmental recuperators - fast, real and very profitable - from our regions that are still underdeveloped and with serious and constant sources of young people abandonment/migration.
Please note that y only defends the legal exploitation of all forests and other all legal biomes in Brazil, through intensive and certified uses of the technologies described above - all researched, produced and tested by our famous and highly respected research company EMBRAPA and/or other similar and partners private - BUT NEVER FOR ISOLATED OPENINGS / RE-OPENINGS OF PASTURE FOR ANIMALS OR FOR OTHER ISOLATED CROPS - INCLUDING GRAIN, CANE, COFFEE, FRUIT ETC. - OR FOR UNCONTROLLED, UNCERTIFIED AND UNSUSTAINABLE MINING, ESPECIALLY BY MINERAL ILLEGAL GARIMPOS (PAN) EVEN IF BY MINER COOPERATIVES OR INDIGENOUS.
Brazil, honestly, was not and will never be the lung of the world, but plankton and marine algae plus freshwater algae, all anaerobic and thus, today proven to be responsible for the production of 65% to 75% of all oxygen of the planet and producing everything from C02 in the air and more from intense sunlight (differentiated photosynthesis).
ANALYTICAL MORE PROPOSER ARTICLE -
First, I take the liberty of asking you more all serious Brazilian’s people the following five fundamental and very objective questions to follow, hoping that you will think and will analyze them well before answering them:
1) What the Brazil to do with our billions of Amazon and others forest trees - already adult and/or dead and/or in the phase of falls and/or insect attacks/diseases and/or attracting fires and with them destroying much more in places etc. - that is/ i.e. -, agricultural/forest items with absolutely no growth or no current use - from our adult forests plus our urban more rural wastes (MSW = 70% composed of biomass or food leftovers) much MSW still abandoned or not good processed (79,9 million tons/year, the fourth largest in the world, only surpassed by the very high volume of the USA with 258.0 million ton. metrics/year, more by China with 220.4 million ton. /year more by India with 168.4 million ton/year). In Brazil much MSW volumes/year still is burned or just buried in very expensive, problematic and short-lived landfills (probable giant methane source if poorly built or poorly managed), more than thousands of tons daily from processing residues more from food leftovers and from other forest, agricultural, extractive biomass items, and even our feces and animals today?
(Note 2: Please note that y only defends the exploitation of forests and other biomes in Brazil, through intensive and certified uses of the technologies described above - all researched, produced and tested by our famous and highly respected research company EMBRAPA and/or other similar and partners private - BUT NEVER FOR ISOLATED OPENINGS / RE-OPENINGS OF PASTURE FOR ANIMALS OR FOR OTHER ISOLATED CROPS - INCLUDING GRAIN, CANE, COFFEE, FRUIT ETC. – OR FOR UNCONTROLLED, UNCERTIFIED AND UNSUSTAINABLE MINING, ESPECIALLY BY MINERAL ILLEGAL GARIMPOS (PAN) EVEN IF BY MINER COOPERATIVES OR INDIGENOUS.
2) How much to render (financially yield revenue) each and all of these above possible very good energy/environmental source items today (only in a sustainable, correct and certified explorations), or they just causing only serious losses/costs for the future of our Brazilian/south American young people and for our country's socioeconomic developments, especially in the internal poorest Brazilian forest/cerrados/caatinga regions?
3) Environmentally, in the current situation and based on our high future exploratory potential of these items, it's fair for all that we hide in a shell and only criticizing, criticizing, hindering and doing nothing else to solve, to support/and to use well our above items in sustainable, certified and much employers’ forms?
4) In this situation, you are, today, in favor, or even against, opening a little more our diverse exploration for projects, well controlled/well supervised in our country – on sustainable, fair and developmental forms only -, through serious partnerships with other countries, investors and/ or other international companies, especially if with external demanders, more towards their investment funds, banks, etc.?
5) How long will we pose as owners or sheriffs or inspectors of the world's environment problems and damages, almost without profiting from this, much less for our young people and for our poor people and its families?
Provenly, and far from defending unsustainable devastation and non-technical felling/industrialization (on the contrary), it is known that in adult forests - especially in the Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Cerrados and even in the Caatingas, the trees/palms/coconut trees /larger crops, etc., not economically and controlled felled, die or catch fire between 25 and 40 years after birth (larger and/or slower) and between 60% and 90%, cfe. the places and species, without any uses or destinations other than causing fires, fires, salinization, potassium leaching of soils and subsoils by ashes, death of seeds and soil seedlings, ditto of smaller plants - equal or not - and in growths for replacements, burning of rich organic matter and inhabiting biota or their processors (worms, etc.), deaths of many animals and other direct and indirect environmental damage - in the medium and long term -, all of which are still poorly measured, as they are even considered unnecessary, though real and lofty (today it's even a big taboo to talk about it).
Technically, in forests, evapotranspiration plus canopy interception returns 65% to 80% of the rains received by adult trees that rarely reach the ground or fall in low volumes.
“It is estimated that 25% to 75% of the CO2 assimilated by perennial and woody plants is consumed in the respiration process, which is associated with the growth of new tissues, maintenance respiration and respiration corresponding to other metabolic processes. It is noteworthy that the respiration necessary for the growth of new tissues consumes about 30% of the total assimilation of CO2, so that the actual respiratory demand depends on the phenological phase in which the formation of new tissues occurs". Brazil's IMPA claims that dense forest only sequesters 1.0 t/ha/year of CO2 and Univ. from Leeds-Scocia states that they are around only 0.6 t/ha/year.
On the other hand, the fundamental evapo-transpiration in vegetables, forests and other crops, all of which also lead to an increase in the level of rain in the local area and throughout the country, increases a lot as the plants grow. For example, in the cultivation of corn (a fast-growing and intensive grass), the average evapotranspiration (ETm), measured in a laboratory at UFRGS in 2002, using a weighing lysimeter, was 656 mm of water during the crop cycle, ranging from 575 to 732 mm between years. This variation is mainly attributed to atmospheric evaporative demand and more due to variations throughout the crop cycle, with the ETm being low at the beginning, increasing with the growth of the leaf area index, up to a maximum near the pinning, and decreasing at the end of the cycle.
Studies carried out in the USA in 2001 proved that plants transpire about 99% of all the water they absorb, being this exaggerated transpiration due to the fact that plants do not have a recirculation of absorbed water like vertebrate animals. Trees lose an enormous amount of water in a single day, as is the case with trees growing in the deciduous forest in southwestern North Carolina, which can lose 200 to 400 liters of water per day, due to the sum of the phenomena of evapotranspiration.
Additionally, it is known that in order for the young plant to obtain maximum photosynthetic capacity it needs a generous but constantly growing leaf area, although the leaf area of ??each plant varies between species and locations (see above). According to other studies, the green tissues of growing trees have 30 times more chlorophyll than those of adult trees. On the other hand, to obtain a high level of photosynthesis, the plant needs maximum sunlight, but in some hours of the day sunlight causes the plant to heat up, and it is through the absorption and transpiration of water that the plant maintains its temperature ideal for continuing to carry out your metabolic processes.
Also, the adhesion and cohesion forces make the water flow continuous so that the water channel that rises from the roots to the leaves does not “break” because the specific heat of the water makes an efficient water-cooling role possible, since it needs high heat for its evaporation. Thus, we can say that water is of paramount importance in the life of plants, directly influencing their survival and that the properties presented by this liquid give it unique characteristics, which make it capable of being so adaptable to different situations.
“So, considering that scientific research is among the most important human activities and a central element for a knowledge-based society, the results show that biomass bioenergy can be the most important source of renewable (sustainable) energy in the medium term. It will play a crucial role in future integrated energy supply systems and will be a valuable element of a new energy matrix”.
Thus, for the good of the World, especially for the peoples of the poorest forest regions, we must not only publicize and clarify, but also encourage and even reward sustainable and technically correct exploitation of trees and other plants and medium and large-scale extractivism. However, all this is only intended to provide in full and if possible, faster and certified growth of young trees more several cultures not isolated and real extrativism in forests in the coming years, especially in the Amazon and Cerrados (where the largest occur today devastations), will be a major environmental revolution, more socio-economic and even cultural in the regions of Brazil, in general, so poor. Obviously and scientifically, a young tree plus its branches and leaves and roots, growing fast or even slow, sequesters much more carbon and produces much more clean oxygen (chlorophyll effect), than another tree that is already adult and close to death and/ or from its slaughter point.
Thus, my main objective here is not to talk or expose cultivation techniques / forestry and agricultural processing more than fast and energetic syngasifications of MSW, animal feces, agricultural and food leftovers nor about possible and fundamental GIANT, fast and cheap environmental cleanups - fully possible by such techniques until old, but still little used and not known/not encouraged in Brazil - BUT TO EXPOSURE, AND TO DEBATE, THE HIGHEST BRAZILIAN POTENTIAL FOR SOCIO-ECONOMIC EXPLORATIONS - REALLY SUSTAINABLE AND DEVELOPMENTALISTS/EMPLOYERS - OF OUR ALL FOREST BIOMASS MORE AGRICULTURAL BIOMASS MORE MSW, FECES, PEELS, STRAW, REMAINING, EXTRACTIVE ETC..
Repeating, please take note that y only defends the exploitation of forests and other biomes in Brazil, through intensive and certified uses of the technologies described above - all researched, produced and tested by our famous and highly respected research company EMBRAPA and/or other similar and partners private - BUT NEVER FOR ISOLATED OPENINGS / RE-OPENINGS OF PASTURE FOR ANIMALS OR FOR OTHER ISOLATED CROPS - INCLUDING GRAIN, CANE, COFFEE, FRUIT ETC. - OR FOR UNCONTROLLED, UNCERTIFIED AND UNSUSTAINABLE MINING, ESPECIALLY BY MINERAL ILLEGAL GARIMPOS (PAN) EVEN IF BY MINER COOPERATIVES OR INDIGENOUS.
I'M SURE THAT WE CAN NO LONGER BE AFRAID OR BE FEAR OF WORLD PEOPLE REACTIONS, SPECIALLY FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL NGOs/ BODIES AND FROM THE HISTORIC BRAZIL ANTI-DEVELOPMENTALISTS, BECAUSE WE NEED TO KNOW MUCH BETTER, TO ENCOURAGE AND TO CRITICIZE MUCH LESS. IN GENERAL, SOME NGOs AND THE PRESS AND EVEN UNIVERSITIES / RESEARCH CENTERS DO NOT TOUCH ON THESE ISSUES, CONSIDERED AS TABOO OR DIFFICULT OR FOR FEAR OF WELL CLARIFICATION OF THEIR AUDIENCES AND DONORS, ALTHOUGH ALL SCIENTIFICALLY, IN MAJOR AND SPECIALTY POORER REGIONS.
After all, exploring the widespread fear of the unknown and talking very badly about them in general, yields much more Brazilian the IBOPE research results (and probably much money in the short and medium terms for some people). The raw truth is that in Brazil has been going on for more than 40 years, since, for many years, most speak, write and it even punishes our problems with the environment or the Amazon and without ever proposing of them for socio-economic and environmental/energy solutions for that, or they are willing to raise resources to apply or to encourage their solutions for their people and for the world). After all, the world people, especially the Brazilian immediacy, love to be deceived and even to venerate - selfishly - but without remembering the futures of their children and family – more of daily crises in which they do not have to help solve, or at least disclose and suggest the honest and seriously socioeconomics-sustainable really actions, in the short term.
Most of the time, many people - still even with bad intentions - in Brazil and abroad are very critical of the intensive, illegal and uncertified/unsustainable deforestation more of constant fires / arsons and the occupation of the Amazon and other world forests, but few present viable solutions or proposals for clean, sustainable, fair and beneficial actions, real, for its peoples (not of some, including politically or as marketing banners or as enterprise/ investors/ NGOs/ staff social balance banner or as corporate social justification annual report /banner), especially for the survival and long-term socio-economic and environmental sustainability of such larger (higher) forests, more smaller trees/ plants/ cultures/ extractives more of its peoples and its animals (of all sizes and biomes) more of its soils, sub-soils and its waterways, rivers etc..
All of us only remember the current, very expensive ethanol and biodiesel Brazilian clean production (not so sustainable and, at the moment, even a little out of reality or an economic solution for consumers) and nothing is researched or developed about our very high potential to cultivate and/or to use and/or to process our immense volumes of our all forest and agricultural and extrativism biomasses for food and/ or wood more from urban and rural garbage/leftovers/bark/straws/animal and human feces etc. but little is reported or done about and of their importance of these other items (except ethanol more biodiesel) for our current and future environmental cleaning and solutions, urban and rural, more for public and private business more for be fundamental to produce many more jobs, incomes, taxes, developments in the much poorer regions - more for the necessary and real world environmental cleanup, also providing much more oxygen and sequestering a lot of carbon dioxide - thus reducing the greenhouse effect - and for all peoples.
"Even so, Brazil has one of the greatest potentials in the world to explore forests more for other biomass mainly those coming from the processing of our forests (natural or cultivated) plus from extractivism and from non-isolated agricultural crops (all certified for that purpose) and from MSW urban or rural waste plus animal and human feces, etc., in technical, environmental and socially correct, effective and really sustainable ways”.
According to an important diagnosis “Global Potential of Sustainable Biomass for Energy”, published in 2009 by the Upsala
University of Sweden (see in English at: https://worldbioenergy.org/ uploads/WBA_Global%20Potential.pdf , the World needs to exploit its forests well for the good of all the people. This report has a global perspective and summarizes the amount of information on bioenergy and its relative distribution in different fields, and their potentials”.
“Globally, the bioenergy is based on resources that can be used sustainably across the globe and can provide an effective option for delivering energy services from far greater technical and sustainable perspectives. Over the past decade, the number of countries exploring biomass opportunities for energy supply has increased rapidly. The global use of biomass for energy is continuously increasing and has doubled in the last 40 years (considering until 2008)”.
“Biomass, present, are already the fourth largest source of energy after coal, oil and natural gas; however, they are already the biggest and best renewable energy option most important at the moment, as they can be used to produce different forms of energy. As a result, it is, together with other renewable energy options, capable of providing all the energy services needed by a modern society, both locally and in most parts of the world. Renewal and versatility are, among many other aspects, important advantages of biomass as an energy source. Furthermore, compared to other renewable energies, biomass resources are common and widespread throughout the world.”
“The sustainability potential of global biomass (natural certified forest, cultivated certified forest, syngas energy/ charcoal / pulp / rubber cultivated certified forest, agricultural not-isolated, certified extrativism and MSW certified processing) for energy is widely recognized.
For example, the annual global primary production of biomass is equivalent to 4,500 EJ1 than the solar energy captured each year, that is, it is much higher in potential terms. However, the potential for biomass energy depends in part on the availability of land. In 2008, the amount of land devoted to growing energy crops for biomass fuels was only 0.19% of the world's total land area and only 0.5-1.7% of global agricultural land in uses”.
In addition, any solar or wind captures are only for 2 main purposes of global environmental and socioeconomic sustainability, that is, more, or only, for energy generation and/or local/regional heating production, while planting, extraction and certified biomass processing can go from at least 14 very beneficial final destinations and for all places and peoples, namely:
1) Generation of much more electrical energy, close and cheap, especially via syngas with the processing of waste and leftovers, previously only burned/incinerated;
2) Production of nearby and cheap residential and/or industrial heating, especially with such waste, previously only burned/incinerated;
3) Strong cost reductions with expensive electrical transmissions and distributions (supply and/or on demand - local, regional, state), since these are now generated locally or regionally, most of them for own or regional uses;
4) Significant reduction in the high and growing pressure of electricity demand to be generated by expensive and giant hydroelectric plants, more by SHP “small hydroelectric plants” and even by thermoelectric plants, most of them unsustainable and/or causing serious socioeconomic and environmental problems, especially in forests and their biomes;
5) Continued and sequential carbon sequestration, greatly reducing the global greenhouse effect. How much more mature trees and non-isolated crops are processed and replaced, the more air carbon gas is sequestered;
6) Possibilities of correct technical-scientific exploration of the carbon stored in the trunks and in the roots of trees, litter, extractivism, etc. for processing and production of syngas, whose end - after more local electric generation too - only releases a little carbon dioxide (much less than the burning of the trees trees etc.) and almost no methane;
7) Continued release of much more oxygen, the essential gas for human and animal life around the world;
8) Fundamental improvement of humidity and rain conditions now released with certified felling for the lower floors of the forests up to their floor;
9) Fundamental increase in rainfall volumes (much greater evapo-transpiration) plus improvements in storage conditions, constant supplies and the quality of local and regional waters (lakes, swamps, creeks, streams and rivers) and also of sub soils waters;
10) Significant reduction of plant diseases, as well as of soils, subsoils and animals’ diseases too, due to the greater insolation / sunny provided;
11) Reduction in the number and extensions of forest fires, due to the much smaller existence of old or dead trees, which attract many rays and burn very easily, also because many are already infested by termites (It has already been proven that up to 60% of fires in the Amazon and Cerrados in Brazil are due to the great attraction of lightning by giant, dry or adult trees);
12) High improvement in living conditions, more survival and feeding of all animals (biotas), whether in trees or in soils and sub-soils;
13) Idem for all biomes involved, even if they are not biomass producers;
14) Real possibility of rapid and significant integration with other crops and livestock and extractive activities, greatly improving the nutritional status of local poor families and peoples.
“Complementary, in a practical and environmentally and socioeconomically sustainable view, as early as 2008 (as the Sweden diagnostics), the standing forest stock was already a large bioenergy reservoir and in line with the theoretical potential of biomass energy. However, most research studies on biomass potentials ignore existing studies on demand and supply of wood (“certified”), despite the extensive literature and data on the subject. The Sweden diagnostics points that are 4 major sources of sustainable biomass: forestry, agriculture, food waste/MSW and other minor items, including extrativism. However, from about 4,911 records of research on bioenergy recovered, few already discuss the certification criteria (only 51 records) and certification and sustainability criteria, especially for energies (23 records)”.
"The references cited in that Sweden report demonstrate that the global bioenergy potential is large enough to meet the global energy demand in 2050. Therefore, sustainable production of biomass for energy is the important issue for increasing bioenergy production."
Taking into account 2008 data from a variety of international sources, plus approximate estimates of the energy production potential of woody biomass from forestry, all showed that, in theory, the demand for industrial firewood and roundwood in 2050 can be met from fully certified form, without further deforestation, although some regional shortages may occur”.
However, the change in the future energy matrix requires much more investment in infrastructure, much more modern equipment and machinery, new cultivation/processing systems and, in some cases, much more research and development by research centers and various companies. In addition, a prerequisite for reaching and expanding the high potential of bioenergy from agricultural more forest biomasses more MSW biomasses etc. - already high and in all regions - requires rapid replacement of current, but inefficient and less intensive management systems with others with best practices and technologies (see summary above)”.
“Approximate estimates of the total energy production potential of woody biomass from forestry show that forests can, in theory, become a major source of bioenergy supplies, and that the use of woody biomass can, in theory, be carried out without putting into risk the supply of industrial products more than firewood logs and without further deforestation”.
“Liquid fuels obtained by gas made from biomass (including direct gaseous = singás) are attracting growing interest around the world. Three main factors driving the growing interest in these biomass biofuels:
1) Energy security concerns;
2) Environmental considerations that focus on the still much higher GHG emissions;
3) They are very suitable for maintaining and creating jobs and economic development in rural poor areas”.
"In 2008, however, the amount of land devoted to global cultivation of bioenergy crops was only 25 million hectares or 0.19% of the world's total land area." Therefore, the future potential for obtaining energy from biomass depends largely on the future availability of land for this purpose”.
It is technically known, and worldwide, that, at high latitudes (north countries), photosynthesis (growth of the whole plant, by means of a lot of local respiration of carbon gas and oxygen exhalation and that it occurs in about 70%-80% in its leaves and branches higher) is only possible in spring-summer, from three to five months/year and with short cycle crops such as corn or sugar beet”. On the other hand, in tropical countries - such as in Brazil but in some of its equatorial neighbors and some in equatorial Africa - and with high temperatures, photosynthesis is possible practically all year round, both in forests and in crops with medium long and much lower cycles, such as sugar cane, palm oil, cassava, fruit trees, cocoa, coffee etc. and even in rapid and low-lying crops such as corn and soybeans. After forests, a sugarcane or oil palm field, for example, is one of the most efficient and profitable solar plants in existence”.
It is very good to remember and analyze, potentially and due to our socio-economic and environmental duty, that in 2004, according to FAO, about 41.9% of the world's total arable area of ??1,350.1 million hectares (including native forests and others), equal to 565.0 million hectares were still available for new planting (including for forests to be planted or replanted), i.e., 58.1% of the total area was already occupied.
Among the main agroforestry countries, and in descending order in terms of arable area/no-till still available, Brazil still had 83.5% of the agricultural area alone to be planted = 329.0 million ha, as we only cultivated 16.5% of our arable area = 65.0 million hectares); Russia had 40% available = 88.0 million ha, but with many frozen areas (already planted 60% = 132.0 million arable hectares); the US still had 30% available arable land/no-till = 81.0 million ha (already planted 70% = 178.0 million arable hectares); Australia still had 44% available = 37.0 million arable ha (already planted 56% = 47.0 million arable hectares) and Canada had 39% still available = 30.0 million ha (already planted 61% = 46.0 million arable hectares).
In 2003, according to EMBRAPA - Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, the total AVAILABLE area in Brazil reached 851.0 million hectares, of which 707.0 million hectares were already cultivated or had pasture for animals + 39.0 million were for other non-agricultural uses. The giant area with pastures reached 220.0 million ha; the Amazon Forest alone occupied 350.0 million hectares (about 42% of the country's total area of ??851.0 million hectares); total agricultural crops – annual with grains + permanent with coffee, sugarcane, fruits, etc. -, occupied about 62.0 million hectares (currently, they only occupy about 95.0 million hectares and for the agricultural sum, being 67.7 million hectares only with grains in the 2020/21 crop, having and including about 20.0 million total hectares with up to 3 sequential crops per year and in the so-called “safrinha” in succession); protected forest and indigenous areas reached 55.0 million hectares; the cultivated forests only 5.0 million hectares and, by the sum, the areas with cities, lakes, dams and roads reached 15.0 million hectares. Still available for new crops were 106.0 million ha, but the total potential area will reach 382.0 million hectares in 2050, according to projections by Valmont, a world irrigation company, both occupying the 106.0 million already available as above and absorbing about 50% of the areas with degraded pastures in 2003.
Currently, in terms of forestry and agroforestry-extractive potentials, only the total Amazon has 7,584,421 km 2 (including the 9 countries) and is home to 50% of the world's biodiversity, being only the Brazilian area of ??5,033,072 km 2 and representing 7% of the planet's surface. Meanwhile, about 78% of upland soils in Amazon are acidic and of low natural fertility and the average temperature in Brazil is 26º C, with very high air humidity and 77% in the dry season from April to October and 88% in the season the heavy rains from November to March. There are in our Brazilian Amazon about 5,000 species of trees (larger than 15 cm in diameter) and there are between 40 to 300 different species per hectare (in North America the diversity is between 4 to 25).
In Brazil, of the total area of ??our Amazon Forest, 74% was occupied by trees in forests in 1999, of which 38% were located in dense forests plus 36% in non-dense forests plus 13% in cerrados and grasslands and a further 13% in already deforested areas but in regeneration (which can take 20 to 30 years, fortunately, because some trees require 50 years). About 33% of the entire forest area is located in some area of ??legal protection, but unfortunately, not respected and even with deforestation incentives and/or forgiven and/or forgotten, nationally, but not by the world press (it is one of the subjects debated and reported in the day-to-day of the world press in the last 10 years, unfortunately).
Thus, Brazil - as one of the biggest and best agricultural and forestry countries in the world (now much more processor and exporter in the world, after becoming agribusiness. In 2065, according to projections above and if we take good care from now on, the Brazilian agricultural potential area could reach 382 million hectares.
However, it is necessary to remember that EMBRAPA estimated that around 90 million hectares of the total area of ??pastures or mixed uses – out of a total of around 220 million ha at 2003 – are already degraded in the country, especially by low-level livestock but sequential crops with little soil protection, little limestone and/or with low technology, near/inside watersheds and/or compacting elements etc... Also, it is estimated that some farmers (not all) almost just abandoned 110 million hectares of forest + agricultural land with high initial fertility in the original regions and with good levels of rainfall, have almost destroyed or abandoned or stopped exploring/left behind.
Thus, the sum of agriculture and livestock farming would already be around 200 million hectares of total areas already degraded and with difficult recovery. What is worse is that of the remaining pastures still in use, even if mixed, in Brazil (about 130 million remaining from the 220 million ha at 2003) it is estimated that 50% of the pasture areas are in current high uses, that is, about 65 million they have already been invaded by several fast weeds or toxic plants for animals or invaders of already acidified lands, that is, they also need to participate in a good project of environmental sustainability and correct socioeconomic renewal.
“Additionally, In the world, certification is considered the most suitable instrument for the development of forest bioenergy systems (more agricultural, MSW and others, including extractive ones). Therefore, we need more research on sustainability and certification, as well as on topics that could form the basis for a new system with more reliable and comprehensive sustainability standards for bioenergy”.
Certainly, they are already - and will be much more - certified forests (high-level wood for exports and/or internal uses), in fact, as is already done in coffee, fruits, sugar, other agricultural/food items and meats, all “certified”, including organic or the so-called “fair trade”, a growing but very demanding sector of trade (which I have already written a lot about here).
Such certified industrial crops or correct forestry explorations only need to be really encouraged and with areas even ceded to safe and serious international partnerships, if possible, with large demander/consumer groups also certified at the other end (we can no longer be afraid of this and nothing that we generate jobs, income, safe developments and effective and well-planned/supervised environmental clean-ups). Much worse are the illegal and 100% national logging and mining companies, which even count on the probably collaboration/encouragement of many Governments from the 3 spheres, according to complaints from some NGOs, and even from a few businessmen and local and few regional/state agents, even police officers, maybe.
Such systems proposed in the summary can and should also be used much more for rapid and economically viable renovations and recoveries of already degraded and/or abandoned lands throughout the country, as described and measured before (including for subsequent sales and/or reuses). Few countries in the world have this condition as in Brazil (only a few more in the north and northeast of Europe and some in Africa and Latin America).
In our Amazon, it is estimated that there are 390 billion trees and the tallest ever detected is 88 m tall, but most grow up to 30 m above the ground. Each adult tree, living in its final stage and/or dead, occupies a huge area and its canopy captures most of the incident sunlight, practically preventing it from reaching the lower/below 4 floors of other vegetation, which are growing very slowly due to lack of light and lesser reception of rain. Only by felling it, technically and sustainably correct, and replanting it immediately will there be a vigorous and immediate protective growth higher, sequestering carbon by all the vegetation of the lower floors and which will now become vigorous and disputing areas for insolation, CO2 and rain and releasing much more oxygen to humans and all biots near and far.
As an example, in the case of Brazil nut trees =” the castanheiras” (a vigorous tree, very common and with good industrial wood), the average crown diameter varies between 14.68 m to 23.66 m, with an average of 19.50 m2. Obviously, for identical and smaller (and even different) plants or even lower branches of the same tree - and in attempts to survive and even substitute growth on the lower floors - it is an immense challenge to overcome barriers due to lack of superior solar radiation more than much less direct rain received.
In 2003 diagnoses carried out by the Forest Management Unit in Paragominas (PA) it was found that, in areas with shallower vegetation, around 854 short trees per hectare occupied an average of 4.93 m2. In more closed areas, as in most of Amazonia, the approximately 309 tall trees per hectare occupied an average of 27.45 m2 of surface in the soil.
How larger the crown/roof of each adult or semi dead or already unproductive tree or vegetable, little or no rain passes or falls to the ground, because much of it evaporates beforehand to form such "flying rivers" or "rivers of clouds" that run through thousands of Km, to the taste/transportation of the winds in Brazil, especially towards the areas of grains, sugarcane, coffee, fruits and pastures etc. the Midwest and Southeast regions. Also, the total available leaf area fluctuates about 25% per year, depending on the wet/dry seasons. The difficulty for the entry of light due to the abundance of crowns makes the 4º floor undergrowth vegetation very scarce in the Amazon, as well as the animals that inhabit the soil and need this vegetation. Most of the Amazon fauna is composed of animals that not inhabit the treetops, but between 30 and 50 meters in height.
In the Araucaria forests of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul south states – closer the Argentina (much less vigorous and smaller than in Amazonia), the optimum and maximum density is close to 165 trees per hectare, so there is no competition for crown. With this, the number of trees per hectare is up to 331, but a thinning of approximately 50% is necessary to open the canopy of the stand. In older forest systems, with minimum diameters above 45 cm in diameter at the best industrial point (“squeegee diameter” for maximum wood production), the value for optimal density cannot exceed 100 trees/ha; with values ??above 55 cm, this should be close to 58 trees/ha.
Also, in forests in RS, most of the tree crowns are between 5 and 10 m2, but there is a large number of trees with crowns with surfaces between 10 to 20 m2. In the upper canopy they have horizontal, sparsely dense canopy; those in the lower stratum have deep more vertical crowns.
Thus, in conclusion of this little technical part, to prevent the growth - in a technical/sustainable way - of any medium/large tree or plants in free or possible growth (or above all preventing them from growing and bearing fruit, from yielding their wood in an industrial and safe, as animals do with their bodies, and from sequestering much more carbon), it certainly leads to far greater environmental and socioeconomic damage to all peoples on the planets. Keeping them adult or waiting for trees death and fires that are harmful to many ecosystems and biotas and soils/subsoils can also be considered as a “great environmental crime as well as being anti-socioeconomic and demonstrably unsustainable”.
I think I have made it very clear here that, with appropriate Technologies in a sustainable way and with few resources, each tree growing or on the lower floors - in addition to other gains already described - can sequester 5 to 10 times more carbon than trees at the end of their growth, or adult or already dead.
Also, we need to encourage and to invest so that the correct, for fast and much cheaper waste syngasifications occur, since more animal feces, residues, litter, bark, straw (in particular, from processing certified and cultivated trees, crops and extractivism – more from natural forests, non-isolated agricultural crops or planted energy forests or reforests or rubber trees). Everything will need to happen to produce certified and exportable wood, that is, generating much more jobs and income and also generating a lot of own electricity in distant places/with expensive electricity networks and always with problems of offers and adequate maintenance etc.) plus even leftovers of solid food or with up to 14% humidity as long as with a lower calorific value PCI minimum of 2,850 kcal/kg (even easily obtainable with our techniques and machines, very efficient and cheap, Sino-Hindu-Brazilian).
Technically, urban and rural waste (MSW) contains between 65% to 75% of biomass; idem from vegetable residues, food leftovers, etc.
In fact, the current rapid syngasifiers can also be analyzed today as great cleansers and/or safe and highly successful environmental sustainers - it doesn't matter, but very important - only their future objectives and great socioeconomic and energetic results, even if individual and substitutive of the current and growing ones more from landfills and biodigesters plus from MSW burning/incineration, animal and human feces.
Grateful for the reading, analysis and dissemination - Prof. Research/Inventor Climaco Cezar de Souza – e-mail: [email protected].
Brasília (DF)- BRAZIL, June 30, 2021
