The PAMINE project

Nature of the project
This project consists in planting economically and socially useful trees in a zone where the forest was impoverished (zone formerly deforested by the colonists) near Surui villages, so that they can exploit the profits of it (harvest of seeds and fruits) in a durable way.

The Suruí first determined a zone of about 12 ha, close to Lapetanha village, which they wish to reforest, or more exactly to enrich which useful species. They made a list of these species. After a study with a forest engineer, Luis Maretto (of the association Kanindé de Porto Velho) and discussion with researchers of the EMBRAPA ( federal agronomic research institute), it was considered more adapted to split this zone of 12 ha, according to appropriate needs for every sort of tree. Certain sorts were abandoned, because of their cultivation difficulty, and left aside for a possible later stage of the project.
The total number of trees was determined according to the amount of work that the Suruí of Lapetanha's village thinks of being able to invest during year 2006 in reafforestation without destabilizing their other activities.

The number of trees to be planted at first during 2006 was estimated at 1440 trees.

The choice of trees to be transplanted was made according to several needs and specific objectives, in preference order:

1. Fulfill traditional direct needs of consumers today impossible to satisfy due to the lack of these species. In particular trees among which the foliage or the wood enters in the construction of traditional houses: babaçu, açaí, pupunha. We can also include the satisfaction of more cultural needs, notably by the sorts used in crafts and in the fabrication of ritual instruments: tucum ã, açaí, pupunha.

2. To assure an improvement of the food, notably by the direct consumption of fruits. It is the case of the açaí, the pupunha, the mango, the avocado, the coconut, the castanheira.

3. To supply sources of monetary incomes by the marketing of products:

Crafts: it is in particular the case of the tucumã: the shell of its fruit allows to make pearls which enter in all the ornamental Surui objects: necklaces, bracelets, rings, belts. The pupunha enters also in the composition of certain objects (ornamental daggers), which can be sold on the market. The current problem of their marketing is not the price but the access to the market. The Rondônia province has few guests and its inhabitants are not very interested in native art. Means to enter to establish contacts with shops specialized in the sale of native art, in Brazil or abroad are at present studied, possibly through an Internet website.

Fruits: it is the case of the açaí (on the condition of resolving the problem of its trtansportation, because it is preserved only 2 or 3 days after the crop without refrigeration); its sale as rough material, not transformed into juice or compote (which Suruí have no means to make) is rather profitable: the price in kg is superior to the price of the coffee for a much smaller time of work. Can also be sold as not transformed fruits, if their production exceeds consumer needs: the avocado, the coconut tree of the babaçu and the castanheira (which is certainly the one that offers the best cost price).

Raw materials: fruits of the babaçu and the castanheira can be sold as raw material for their oil. It can enter into the make of cosmetic products (soap, cosmetics) or, for the babaçu, into the manufacture of biofuels. The Suruí don't master at the moment at all these techniques of transformation.

Transformed products: the fruit of the babaçu can allow the preparation of a food product, a " farinha ", marketable at the local level. This technique of transformation is rather simple and easy and can be done by the Indians themselves; the freijó should help in the production of honey, marketable locally.

(The choice of the sale of fruits for the one or other one of these usage will be done according to the local demand and the proposed prices.)

4. Biologic diversification: it is the case of the sorts exhausted by the exploitation of the wood: freijó, mahogany and cerejeira.

5. Acquisitions of the technical knowledge and the auto-production of natural resources (semens) to be able to widen the reafforestation to the other zones and the villages.