The Jari project was an attempt to create a tropical tree farm in Brazil for producing pulp for paper.
The Jari project was an attempt to create a tropical tree farm in Brazil for producing pulp for paper.
The Jari project was a brainchild of US entrepreneur and billionaire Daniel K. Ludwig. In the 1950s he noticed that demand for paper was rising. Since the forests of the temperate zone were already in use, the supply of the wood pulp for paper was fixed. Ludwig foresaw a future increase in the price of paper due to the increase of mass media. Since most of the natural forest timber was not suitable for paper production, Ludwig planned a site where the natural forest would be replaced by a tree farm. It would have to be started decades ahead to supply the future paper production.
Ludwig selected the fast-growing tropical tree Gmelina arborea for his tree farm. At first he considered locating his tree farm in Costa Rica but the Brazilian military government encouraged him to settle on the lower reaches of the Rio Jari, a tributary of the Amazon River. In 1967, Ludwig bought 1.6 million acres (6,475 km2) for $3 million.
Ludwig controlled the project mainly from the United States. He built a settlement, Monte Dourado, with houses, schools, the only hospital in the area, bakery, supermarket, nurseries, bridges and community buildings. He also built roads and railways. The clearing of the land using heavy bulldozers damaged the topsoil the trees were to be planted in. It became necessary to employ local workers instead for land clearing. Removing the forest cover allowed sunshine to harden the lateritic soil. Gmelina turned out to grow crooked stems, which were very hard to load onto trucks. Also, the new trees were damaged by the numerous insects living in the area of the Amazon. Pinus radiata was planted on the sandier river-bottom soils.
Other settlements, the "free cities" of Beiradão and Beiradinho, grew up across the river to provide services not contemplated by the American planners. In its heyday, the Jari Project had 35,000 workers.
Ludwig had also commissioned two large ship-shaped platforms that were built in Japan and floated to the Jari Project. One barge module contained the pulping sector of the pulp mill. This module housed the digesting, the brown stock, the bleach plant, and the pulp machine. The second module housed the recovery boiler, the evaporators and the recaust. The pulp mill barge was finished in 1978 and launched on 1 February. It traveled through the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at the Brazilian city of Munguba on 28 April. The power group module arrived four days later. Both barges were floated into specially built locks. Hundreds of gum wood piles had been driven into the ground to support the two barges. By closing the locks and pumping the water out, the barges gently settled on the many piles.
It was found that the growth rate of the Gmelina wood was much lower than that predicted and anticipated. To satisfy the demand of the pulp mill production it became necessary to purchase other species of wood from other Brazilian sources. Beginning in 1981 the foresters planted Eucalyptus as they harvested the Gmelina. Eucalyptus tested well for pulping, grew quite well and reduced the demand on purchased wood from other sources.
Another of Ludwig's ideas was to grow all the food needed, including rice to feed the workers, which did not turn out well either. Rice growing required large amount of pesticides to keep insects at bay and the soil did not have enough sulfur for rice. Ludwig corrected the situation with the application of ammonium sulfate. He included cattle farming to feed on the grass that grew among the pine trees. He also discovered a very large source of kaolin. The mining of kaolin on the Jari river is still a large-scale commercial operation. Kaolin is exported to numerous countries in Asia and Europe for coating fine paper.
Problems also began to increase because of the so-called Amazon Factor - the combined effects of soil, insects, humidity and tropical disease. It was very hard to keep engineers for the pulp mill, as there was little entertainment for their wives. Newly planted trees required manual weeding for a few years, which meant importing many field laborers from the poverty-stricken Northwest of Brazil. Workers contracted malaria. Insects devoured the harvest and supplies.
Then Brazilian government officials began to criticize Ludwig's methods and the extent of his land ownership. They also questioned the project's exemption from taxes, not to mention his methods - he had fired twenty-nine directors during the thirteen years of the project and preferred to decide everything essential by himself.
Ludwig gave up in May 1981. The next year he turned the Jari project over to a consortium of Brazilian businessmen. He did not receive any money but the several hundreds of millions of dollars of debt were transferred to new owners. Ludwig was to receive a gradually diminishing cut of the possible profits until the year 2026. The new owners demanded - as Ludwig had - investment in the local infrastructure.
The remains of the project remain in Brazilian hands in the form of the Jarcel Cellulose company. Ownership is in the hands of Brazilian banks and holding companies.
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The country of Brazil occupies roughly half of South America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil covers a total area of 8,514,215 km2 (3,287,357 sq mi) which includes 8,456,510 km2 (3,265,080 sq mi) of land and 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water. The highest point in Brazil is Pico da Neblina at 2,994 m (9,823 ft). Brazil is bordered by the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, and French Guiana.
Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropical rainforests or temperate rainforests, but other types have been described.
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, opium, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, fruits, rubber trees and forest trees. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located.
Pulp is a fibrous lignocellulosic material prepared by chemically, semi-chemically or mechanically producing cellulosic fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemicals or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw material used in papermaking and the industrial production of other paper products.
The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products.
The International Paper Company is an American pulp and paper company, the largest such company in the world. It has approximately 39,000 employees, and is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.
Pulpwood can be defined as timber that is ground and processed into a fibrous pulp. It is a versatile natural resource commonly used for paper-making but also made into low-grade wood and used for chips, energy, pellets, and engineered products.
Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes. Tropical rainforests are a type of tropical moist broadleaf forest, that includes the more extensive seasonal tropical forests. True rainforests usually occur in tropical rainforest climates where no dry season occurs; all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm (2.4 in). Seasonal tropical forests with tropical monsoon or savanna climates are sometimes included in the broader definition.
Daniel Keith Ludwig was an American shipping businessman, who was also involved in many other industries. He pioneered the construction of super tankers in Japan, founded Exportadora de Sal, SA in Mexico and developed it as the largest salt company in the world, built a model community in association with the Jari project, which he pioneered, on the Amazon River in Brazil to produce pulp paper, and had numerous hotels around the world.
Laranjal do Jari is a municipality located in the west of the state of Amapá in Brazil. It is the only municipality in the west boundaries of Amapá, except for a small part of Vitória do Jari. Its population is 35,114 and its area is 30,783 km2, which makes it the largest municipality of Amapá.
Vitória do Jari, is a municipality located in the southernmost tip of the state of Amapá in Brazil. Its population is 16,254 and its area is 2,509 km2 (969 sq mi). Vitória do Jari has a population density of 5.9 inhabitants per square kilometer. The town is located on the Jari River on the other side of Munguba, and was originally called Beiradinho.
Rubberwood is a light-colored medium-density tropical hardwood obtained from the Pará rubber tree, usually from trees grown in rubber plantations. Rubberwood is commonly advertised as an "environmentally friendly" wood, as it makes use of plantation trees that have already served a useful function.
The environmental impact of paper are significant, which has led to changes in industry and behaviour at both business and personal levels. With the use of modern technology such as the printing press and the highly mechanized harvesting of wood, disposable paper became a relatively cheap commodity, which led to a high level of consumption and waste. The rise in global environmental issues such as air and water pollution, climate change, overflowing landfills and clearcutting have all lead to increased government regulations. There is now a trend towards sustainability in the pulp and paper industry as it moves to reduce clear cutting, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel consumption and clean up its influence on local water supplies and air pollution.
Wood-free paper is paper created exclusively from chemical pulp rather than mechanical pulp. Chemical pulp is normally made from pulpwood, but is not considered wood as most of the lignin is removed and separated from the cellulose fibers during processing, whereas mechanical pulp retains most of its wood components and can therefore still be described as wood. Wood-free paper is not as susceptible to yellowing as paper containing mechanical pulp. Wood-free paper offers several environmental and economic benefits, including reduced deforestation, decreased energy consumption, and improved waste management. The term Wood-free paper can be rather misleading or confusing for someone unfamiliar with the papermaking process because paper is normally made from wood pulp derived from trees and shrubs.
Deforestation in Borneo has taken place on an industrial scale since the 1960s. Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered by dense tropical and subtropical rainforests.
A genetically modified tree is a tree whose DNA has been modified using genetic engineering techniques. In most cases the aim is to introduce a novel trait to the plant which does not occur naturally within the species. Examples include resistance to certain pests, diseases, environmental conditions, and herbicide tolerance, or the alteration of lignin levels in order to reduce pulping costs.
The wood industry or timber industry is the industry concerned with forestry, logging, timber trade, and the production of primary forest products and wood products and secondary products like wood pulp for the pulp and paper industry. Some of the largest producers are also among the biggest owners of forest. The wood industry has historically been and continues to be an important sector in many economies.
Carl F. Jordan is Professor Emeritus, Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia.
Monte Dourado is a town and district in the Brazilian municipality of Almeirim, in the state of Pará. Monte Dourando is a planned town established in 1967 to house the workers for the Jari project. The city is located on the Jari River.
A tree plantation, forest plantation, plantation forest, timber plantation or tree farm is a forest planted for high volume production of wood, usually by planting one type of tree as a monoculture forest. The term tree farm also is used to refer to tree nurseries and Christmas tree farms. Plantation forestry can produce a high volume of wood in a short period of time. Plantations are grown by state forestry authorities and/or the paper and wood industries and other private landowners. Christmas trees are often grown on plantations, and in southern and southeastern Asia, teak plantations have recently replaced the natural forest.
