USING G.LS. TO HELP FOREST MANAGEMENT - THE INPACEL EXPERIENCE 
Amend, Marcos Rodolfo 
Inpacel - Industria de Papel Arapoti S.A. 
Arapoti, Paraná, Brazil 
ABSTRACT 
This paper has the objective to describe a planning process, integrating ecological values into 
forest land management, which has being implemented on an operational level by Inpacel - Pulp 
and Paper Company, located in Paraná State, Brazil. 
The first part of the paper points-out a brief information about the Company - production 
capability, forest land areas, forest management practices and logging and transportation systems. 
The model itself is based on a forest land using matrix classification. The first matrix is called 
Environmental Region and it is composed by three sub-areas. One of them is defined through forest 
legal requirements. The second one, is a technical environmental area, and it is established by using 
information about wildlife management, water resources, soil conservation and natural forest 
inventory. The third area is classified a non-productive land and it is based on soil depth. Forest site 
index and soil erosion were used to set up a productive forest land matrix. 
The model was applied on an area of 782.69 ha using data stored in a computerized 
Geographic Information System - GIS. Results of this research program has presented practical 
restrictions due to physical data as well as the model definition; mainly concerned about 
environmental matrix. Neverthless, some results of this planning system are being applied on an 
operational level and providing significant contributions to integrate ecological variables into forest 
resource management. 
1. INTRODUCTION and temporal decisions, associated with 
environmental and economical constraints. 
However, most private companies, even the 
pulp and paper industries, are using the GIS 
much more as a mapping instrument rather 
than as a predictive model. 
The objective of this paper is to describe 
a planning process, integrating ecological 
values into forest land management, which has 
been implemented on an operational level by 
INPACEL - Indüstria de Papel Arapoti S.A., a 
pulp and paper company, located in Paraná 
State, Brazil. 
The Geographic Information System is 
spreading all over the world. New hardware 
and software are announced constantly in 
papers, journals and in workshops. The same 
aspect doesn't occur in Brazil, where the 
Geographic Information System (GIS) is not a 
well known technology. 
The introduction of this tool in Brazil, 
started no more than a three or four years ago. 
The high prices of hardwares and softwares, 
availability of skilled labor and knowledge of 
GIS by private and public agencies, are some 
of the points that impairs a rapid adoption of 
this new technology in that country. 
One of the sectors that is using GIS as a 
planning tool, is the pulp and paper industry. 
Besides the fact that this industry is well 
developed and profitable, they usually own a 
large amount of forest land. Their forest 
resource management requires both, spatial 
2. STUDY AREA 
2.1 Industry 
The study area of this research is owned 
by INPACEL. The industry started its paper 
production in 1992 and it has an annual 
production capability of 200,000 tons. Right 
38 
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2.2 Study