HIGHLIGHTS 
Language: Portuguese. 
Population: 71 million (1960), 50 percent literate: labor force, 27 million. People 
concentrated along east coast and in the south; vast areas of the Amazon 
lowlands and the interior have almost no inhabitants. 
Total area: 3 million square miles: 44 percent in productive forests. 
Forest area: 1,454,800 square miles or 931 million acres, 15 percent being exploited, 
mostly in the southern States; 793 million acres not now in use, mostly in 
the Amazon Basin. Broadleaf species (hardwoods) occupy more than 95 
percent of the total forest area. 
Volume: Estimated total, 2.784 billion cubie feet in broadleaf species, 11 billion 
cubic feet in Parana pine. 
Timber cut: 3.8 billion cubic feet annually for industrial wood and fuelwood; 
one-fourth of it Parana pine. Only one-sixth of total cut is for industrial 
wood, of which 60 percent is Parana pine. 
Forest products industries: A great many small establishments except in the produc- 
tion of pulp and paper. The forest industries account for 5 percent of the 
value of Brazil’s industrial production. 
Imports-Exports: Value of forest products exports 70 percent greater than that of 
forest products imports. Pulp and paper account for nearly 90 percent of 
the value of forest products imports. By value, 47 percent of forest 
products exports has been Parand pine lumber, two-thirds of which went 
to Argentina, and 48 percent nonwood forest products, particularly palm 
waxes and Brazil nuts, the United States taking half of each, and maté. 
With 20 percent of the world’s tropical broadleaf (hardwood) forests, 
Brazil supplies less than 1 percent by volume of the tropical broadleaf 
logs and lumber sold on the world market. 
