Diagnosis of hollow trees in an area of effective sustainable forest management in the Amazon forest

Abstract

The sustainable practices of Forest Management activities are used with the objective of minimizing impacts to the environment, as well as exploring tree individuals with qualities that aim at the highest volumetric yield in sawmills. However, some characteristics may not be diagnosed before logging, as is the case with hollow trees, commonly found in forested areas. Thus, the objective was to diagnose the occurrence of hollow trees in two areas of forest exploitation, for the knowledge of individuals at the family and botanical species level. In order to carry out thediagnosis of the occurrence of hollow trees, data on the effective exploitation of trees in the Company's Forest Management areas were obtained through a collection of information on two Annual Production Units - UPA, named according to the company's specification as named as UPA ITP11 and UPA FLA01. In each UPA, tree individuals were identified by gender, species, family, distribution, presence of hollowness and the basic density of their wood.  The results show that in the UPA ITP11 area, 7.38% of the total trees explored, had hollowness, while in the UPA FLA01 area it was 4.88% and that the majority had high basic density. Twenty botanical families were identified in the exploration areas, where the Leguminosae family obtained the greatest representation. A total of 49 botanical species explored were identified, being Manilkara huberi (Ducke) Stanley, as basic high density wood. Regarding the frequency of occurrence of hollowness, the species Dinizia excelsa Ducke, popularly known as Angelim Vermelho, stood out for the two areas under study. However, it is shown the considerable existence of hollow trees among the trees selected for forest exploitation, reinforcing the importance of better targeting of appropriate methodologies for their identification, as well as, the better volumetric utilization of logs in sawmills, in order to certify the sustainability for the activity, regardless of the structural aspect of forestry individuals.