Characterization of the wood productive chain for furniture and naval carpentry in Óbidos, Pará

Abstract

The timber extraction sector in the Amazon greatly contributes to the local, regional and national  economy, as well as to the generation of jobs and economic growth. However, the sector faces difficulties as the lack of policies and actions towards the consolidation of a forestal base that can supply the demands from who depends on timber for raw material in the smaller municipalities of the Amazon, like Óbidos-PA. In this sense, this study looks to identify by means of perceptual study, information about the local forestal production towards furniture construction and small naval vessels in Óbidos, highlighting the socioeconomic importance of these practices and the main bottlenecks in the productive chain of timber. A semi-structured questionnaire has been applied, through interviews with key players involved in the business, like entrepreneurs, institutions representatives and business owners, using a non-probabilistic method known as snow-ball and the law of information access. The obtained results shown that the rising scarcity of raw materials obtainable from legal means encourages predatory practices of timber extraction, witch causes forest degradation and hinders the timber supply chain in the city and region, as well as the lack of policies that take into account the local reality, the lack of technical assistance and the bureaucracy in the regulation haltes advancement in the sector.