Rosina Portas

Santa Catarina and Rosina Portas Ltda. is one of the most important Brazilian industrial poles producing and exporting wood, paper and furniture. With a little more than 10\% of the country\s reforested area (approx. 650,000 ha), in 1999 the state produced 20\% of the cultivated wood for industrial use and accounted for 14\% of the forest products exported by Brazil. The state\s mechanical wood processing industry is mostly directed to the export market, accounting for 50\% of the furniture and more than 20\% of the total processed wood and wooden products exported.

The excellent soil and climate conditions for the forest development features Santa Catarina as one of the regions with the highest forest productivity level in the world. According to ANFPC - Associação Nacional dos Fabricantes de Papel e Celulose (the Brazilian Association of Paper and Cellulose Manufacturers), in 1995 Santa Catarina had the highest productivity of pine trees in the country, reaching more than 40 st/ha/year.

The genetic material for the cultivation of pine, presently available in some Santa Catarina\s forest sector companies, like the clonal nurseries for seed production, can reach a production of more than 60 st/ha/year. With this material, it is possible to obtain wood for the production of sawed lumber in rotation cycles shorter than 15 years, while in northern hemisphere countries, where the weather is colcer and drier, this is only possible in at least 40 years.

The consumption of reforested wood in Santa Catarina in the most varied forms of industrial processing has widely increased in the last years, approaching 13 million cubic meters in the year 2000 (table 3). The cultivated forests already overtake the native ones in the supply of raw material for all wood products, except vegetal coal.

The increased demand for forest raw material in the last years in Santa Catarina was mainly due to the increase in exports of forest products. The sales of these products to other countries have been increasing since the 1990\s and have already exceeded the amount of US$ 600 million, 48\% of which refers to wood and wooden products, 34\% to furniture and 17\% to paper and cellulose.