EXPLORATION OF TIMBER IN PARÁ : A COMPARATION BETWEEN PROCESSING PLANTS DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD AND CURRENT ONES

Abstract

In Pará, the State of Brazil, during the 18th Century, the exploration and processing of timber was done under an inconspicuous control of the government. Through a network of Portuguese-crown controlled processing plants that utilized indigenous labor force and having the rivers as the main means of transportation, this model of resource use served as a catalyst for the beginning of communities and villages. However, this model was implemented without any rational planning basis to ensure the regeneration of the natural resources essential for this activity, and inevitably led to a self-destructive profile. Later, after the declaration of independence and establishment of a Republican government, several factors related to the social, economic and political contexts of that period, allowed for the natural vegetation to regenerate. More recently, starting in the early 70s, already in the 20th Century, a new set of public policies engendered for an occupation of the Amazonian vast spaces, were put force by the government, promoting logging and in many senses perpetuating the model designed two centuries ago. This article is a contribution to the incipient historiography of this subject and a criticism of the continuing predatorial nature of the forest industry.