An environmental success story : The final chapter of a 500-year dependency on wood in Brazil was brought to a close by the realization for the sustainable management of forests was the key to future lumber supplies. In the 1960s, the first eucalyptus plantations were planted in Brazil, destined mainly for the production of pulp, the main raw material for the paper industry. The Brazilian Silviculture Society estimates that currently there are 3 million hectares of eucalyptus plantations in Brazil that produce 70 million cubic meters a year of wood for various purposes.