Local Industry
During the week we headed out to see two of the main local industries that you might expect to find here in Juruena, namely, timber and Brazil nuts! You may remember from earlier that many people are employed in farming on the large fazendas (ranches) and and in the production of sugar cane, cotton and soya beans. On the edge of town Juruena has a very large meat processing plant where up to 500 cattle can be slaughtered in a day. That is a process that we would rather not see first hand.
As Juruena is situated at the edge of the Amazon, the harvesting of trees has been one of the main industries over the past few decades. While an effort is now being made to make this industry sustainable through regulation of cutting and re-planting, unfortunately, in the early stages, thousands upon thousands of acres of trees were cut down with no consideration of future consequences to the environment. The Rohden Timber Factory that we visited is probably the largest of its kind in the locality. It is one example of what can be done when care and thought is given to the future. Rhoden is now committed to sustainable harvesting of trees through a system of rotation where, over a twenty five year period, harvested areas are re-planted and not touched again during that time. An area of 250,000 sq hectares of land is now being planted in this way. While it is a large area in its own right, and is great to see it being done, much more is needed in the future if the Amazon forests are to ever survive.
It is difficult to capture in a picture this initial process of cutting a large tree trunk into planks. The worker in this picture is catching the next plank that is being cut from a huge tree that is now on its side and is run along a track through the cutting blade. This man guides the plank onto rollers, lays it flat and pushes it through another cutter to his left (picture below) which cuts off the bark and quite a piece along with it, leaving a nice neat plank of timber which rolls off to the side to another team who stack it for drying.
Because timber was so plentiful in the past, the main part of a tree was processed in this way and anything up to 40% was thrown away and burned as wastage. Now, as timber is not as plentiful, but also with better work practices and better knowledge, more care is taken in optimising the most from the the harvesting of a tree. Again, Rhoden has introduced a whole new dimension to their factory with new ideas as to the best use of "off-cuts" from these larger planks of wood.
One of the main finished products produced on site for local supply are doors. Each piece of the door is cut and shaped as necessary and then assembled. The two pictures here show this one man who assembles a door in less that a minute at a time! He then hands it on to two lads just beside him who put the finishing touches to it in terms of construction. It heads on down the line through many other processes such as fine sanding, varnishing, quality control etc.
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| The finished product. |
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| Finishing touches |
As we walked through the factory, it was interesting to see how massive trees were handled and literally cut down to size. But what was even more fascinating now was to see the transformation from start to finish, of the off cuts that were once discarded into beautiful wood products.
Brazil Nuts
We also visited a small co-operative industry out in the countryside that processed Brazil nuts and a number of associated products. Brazil nuts are consumed raw, roasted, salted, in ice creams or as prepared confectionery items. They are an important ingredient in shelled nut mixtures. Their oil contents range from 65 to 70 percent. As one who adds a few Brazil nuts to my breakfast cereal, I had no idea how they were processed or how they grew!!
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| Outer Shell from Castanhiera Tree |
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| Castanhiera Tree |
It begins with the Casstinhera tree that you will have seen before in the blog.
Out of the total forest area of approximately 90 million hectares in the Amazon, Brazil nut trees are found over an area of approximately 20 million ha. As in the picture here, this tree produces a large outer fruit that contains anything from 10-25 (seeds) Brazil nuts. The Brazil nut or Castanheira tree is one of the most important economic plants of the Amazonia. The edible seeds of this species, are often cited as the most important products of extractive reserves in Amazonia. Brazil nuts are collected mostly during wet season and rubber is tapped during the dry season. The combination of these two forest products provides year-round income. While there are large processing plants of Brazil nuts, up to 30% of the crop can be lost in wastage due to damage in transportation so the closer the processing is to the source, the better the yield. The co-operative plant we visited is one such example.
As there are Castanhiera Trees everywhere, the produce is collected by many individuals. These are bought by the Co-Op and are initially dried in the dryer as seen in the picture here. After that, they are ready to be shelled / cracked open. Again, from the picture, you see that the nut has a hard outer shell. These shells are also kept and used to make pulp or can be spread on flower beds etc similar to what we do with stone or the broken up bark of a tree.
As you might imagine, the cracking process is very labour intensive as it is all done manually. There are rows of work stations were people work all day at this process. The average wage here is €10 per day. Here in Brazil there is no social welfare so everybody tries to work at something. Whether in Sao Paulo or here in Juruena, everybody puts their hand to some sort of work. You will see all sorts of small initiatives being done by people in an effort to earn some money.
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| Sorting process. |
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| Filtering Process. |
Once the nuts have been shelled, a sorting process takes place. From here, a decision is made whether the Brazil nuts will be crushed for oil, or roasted.
The picture to the right shows the filtering system that the oil goes through before finally being bottled. This oil is widely used in cosmetics which is the primary market.
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| Roasting Process |
There are a number of these outdoor roasting ovens. Even if the Brazil nuts are used for oil, they will be partly roasted as it makes them easier to crush in order to extract all the oil. If the nuts are for the market place, they will spend longer in the oven. You may recognise the natura logo from the cosmetics industry.
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| Work-stations for cracking the Brazil nuts. |
Circle of Life
A particular focus of our visit was to present a cheque from the proceeds of the "Circle of Life" CD to the Church Community of St. Clare. This was done at the Saturday evening Mass this weekend Oct 12th. However, our presence represented much more than that. We represented all the people back home who have supported Fr. Paudie's mission to Brazil over the past nine year while in Juruena and his other missionary endeavors in previous locations. The people of the parish were overwhelmed that a group from Fr. Paudie's own home parish would make the effort to come and visit them and see first hand how they are getting on. Money could not buy for them or for us what we experienced from each other. We cannot be absolutely sure, but we think we may be the only Irish parish group that have visited this part of Brazil. Many Irish have stayed a night or two while passing through Sao Paulo but have not made a direct parish visit as the central focus of their journey.
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| St. Clare's Church Community. |
In accepting the cheque, the chairperson of the Parish Pastoral Council thanked all involved in the "Circle of Life" project and again stressed how much it meant to them not only financially but to know that in another part of the world, very far away from Juruena, someone was thinking of them and went to the effort of taking on the fundraising necessary both for the Cd and for our personal visit to then. As mentioned earlier, the money will be used firstly for two stain glass windows for the sanctuary area of the Church - St Claire and St. Francis of Assisi.
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| Fr. Joe, St. Clare's Community Leader, Chairperson of Parish Council, Stella |
Again on Sunday morning at Mass in the main Church of St. Pedro Apostoli, the Chairperson of the Parish Pastoral Council thanked us for our visit. In attendance at this Mass also was a group of young teenagers who will be confirmed later this year. He told these young teenagers to take example from Stella who "followed her dream" but who, in doing so, inspired others to come on board both in the production of the CD and on this pastoral visit.
Quality of Life
In many respects, Juruena is no different from other towns in the sense that there are people who have more and people who have less. Certainly, people here Juruena start off with much less and work towards improving their living conditions over time. Many families will start of with a small wooden structure that has a small kitchen, a living area and maybe one or two small bedrooms. Over time as they gather some resources, they will begin to build a more permanent structure on the same site. Yet, any families we met seem to be happy with what they have even though they aspire to better living conditions for their families.
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| Bedroom Area |
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| Kitchen Area |
The pictures give you some idea of what a family might start out with. Although the kitchen is small, everything is spotless and kept very neat and tidy.
There are many really beautiful houses being built in Juruena too as people begin to prosper. There is no doubt that over the years, living conditions have been improving dramatically. Earlier I made reference to the arrival of electricity for all homes which was very significant. No matter how much any community develops, there will always be the poor who need special attention.
Out on the edge of town are quite a number of new social housing projects. Unfortunately, they are very small and poorly thought out in terms of meeting the needs of the families who occupy them. Those who dwell in them are more than happy to have a house and are not complaining. It is just from a neutral observation that I comment.
How development takes place is interesting in many respects. Developing countries and nations do not necessarily follow through all previous stages of development. They join in at the stage where things are at now. So with the arrival of electricity, all electrical appliances will the the latest in terms of technology. Flat screen TVs will be the norm for anyone getting a new TV in Juruena the same as in Ireland. As we visited the schools, many children now have a mobile phone similar to children at home. Presumably when a road surface is eventually laid, the car will replace the motorbike and so on.
Another interesting point I meant to mention earlier is that there are no newspapers available in Juruena at any stage. They don't even arrive a few days late!!! There is no local newspaper published anywhere near either. And to be honest, they don't seem to want them either!!
Our experience of meeting people has been very positive. Whether they were families with little or with plenty, they gave us a similar welcome. They were more than delighted to share with us and delighted to meet with us. Life is certainly at a different pace here in Juruena - maybe a better pace - it certainly leaves me with a question about life generally.
Thanks to who have been following our journey so far. Yesterday we passed the 1000 mark for hits on the blog. Today, Sunday, Oct. 14th, we start back for Sao Paulo. And would you believe it, we have got the heaviest rain so far during the night and still raining now. The words of the song "Slip-Sliding away" comes to mind for our bus journey to Juina in a while. Lots more to report later, probably Tuesday, when we get back to Sao Paulo.
