Marketing of Parica Wood (Schizolobium Amazonicum) Production in the Plywood Industry through Empowerment of Farming Families in East Kalimantan Province

The wood processing industry in East Kalimantan Province has recently experienced difficulties in obtaining log raw materials. The productivity of natural forests is decreasing both in terms of quantity and quality. Some of the causes are uncontrolled logging operations, rampant illegal logging, encroachment and conversion of forestland into other areas, as well as fires that occur either naturally due to prolonged drought or non-naturally due to irresponsible human activities. One of the real impacts on the forest is that it is increasingly difficult to obtain wood from commercial species, and due to the large demand for wood, the production target has shifted by utilizing other types that are less commercial. To reduce this pressure on natural forests, the development of industrial tree plantations (HTI) has begun to flourish. However, it is very unfortunate that those that should be developed in degraded and less productive areas, in fact, not a few are using potential natural forestland under the pretext of land conversion because it is no longer potential. The types of HTI plants developed can still be counted on the fingers and fast growing species are generally selected. The purpose of using wood is still limited as raw material for pulp and paper or light construction, besides that in terms of area area it has not been able to cover the demand for wood raw materials. Several pulp and paper industries are still very dependent on the supply of wood from natural forests by utilizing timber utilization permits (IPK), so that the initial goal of reducing pressure on the remaining natural forests is still far from expectations.

Parica wood (Schizolobium amazonicum Huber Ducke) is a lesser-known type of wood from the Leguminosae family, a native plant from Brazil which is widely found throughout the Amazon rainforest. In Indonesia this tree species is still not familiar enough because of its limited existence. From the information obtained so far, this type of parica wood is only found in the Purwodadi Botanical Garden. This type of wood can be classified as fast-growing wood because it has a high diameter increment of 3.68 cm per year at the age of 8 years (Amin et al. 2008), even higher than that of acacia wood (2.4 cm per year). years, age 4 years) (Rossi et al. 2003).

The Paricá (Schizolobium amazonicum Huber Ducke) is a viable native species for recuperation of disturbed areas and with a role in the wood market, nationally and internationally. Its rapid growth and adaptation to areas with low nutrient levels allow it to be optimum in agroforestry systems, being the second plant species used in reforestation in the state of Para (Ruivo, et. al. 2019).

The aim of the research was to find out the long-term business of a Dipterocarpa.sp farming family, in marketing plantation forest production to support the plywood industry in East Kalimantan Province.