Is sustainable tropical timber production financially viable? A comparative analysis of mahogany silviculture among small farmers in the Brazilian Amazon

Conservationist arguments for international trade restrictions on tropical hardwoods, along with counter-arguments by the wood industry, are both based on the claim that key hardwoods, like mahogany, can be either sustainably managed in their natural forest habitat or sustainably produced in silvicultural settings. This paper examines the financial feasibility of three mahogany planting regimes found among small-scale family farmers in the Brazilian Amazon State of Rondonia: degraded fallow enrichment, agroforest consorciation (e.g., mahogany and coffee), and pure-stand plantation. The sensitivity of net future and present values from each of the three systems to changes in real interest rate of capital, opportunity cost of labor, production time, seedling survival rate, and producer roundwood price was tested under 10 scenarios, Overall, mahogany production was found to be financially viable in 21 of the 30 alternative scenarios considered, with pure-stand plantations offering the most profitable alternative, Based on financial criteria alone the most promising approach to blending tropical timber trade with natural forest conservation would be through mahogany plantations, especially if they are located outside the tropical forest zone of the Amazon region.