it is an attempt to achieve environmentally-friendly logging. Mil Madeireira, a Brazil-based forestry company, has evolved a way to cut trees in such a way that when a tree is cut, it falls in an area where few other trees would be affected. The company's logging method has been acknowledged by conservationists in their fight to stop the devastation of the world's largest tropical rainforest.

Hardwood buyers and sellers recently gathered in Brazil's Amazon capital Manaus to seek ways to preserve the nation's vast rainforests. One of the aims of "The First Workshop of Sustainable Forest Production in the Amazon,' was to show loggers in the region how to map, select, cut, and transport their tropical hardwood with the least possible damage to the forest. These logging practices used by Mil Madeireira cost some 30 per cent more than the traditional methods