Phytotherapy Program seeks to improve the community’s quality of life

In 1984, in a combination of the company’s disposition to preserve the environment and its culture of sustainable development and social responsibility, Klabin started a project to utilize NWFP’s – Non-Wood Forest Products – in the Monte Alegre plant, in Telemaco Borba (PR), an activity which is a world first in the forestry sector, the Phytotherapy Program.

Capitalizing on an ongoing evaluation of the forests, Phytotherapy seeks to improve the quality of life of the community of Telemaco Borba town (employees and their families) and to make multiple, rational and sustainable use of the biodiversity found in more than 105 thousand hectares of native forests and the underbrush of the commercial plantations on the farm.

Currently, the Phytotherapy manipulation laboratory uses medicinal plants to manufacture about 30 medicines and another 31 products in the Phitosfera Line – Health & Beauty.

The features of this Program, as a model operation in conservation and in sustainable use of biodiversity, were recognized globally in 1999, when the first certification in the world for Management of Medicinal Plants was obtained from the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). This was complemented, in 2001 and 2006, by the chain of custody certification for NWFP’s of phytotherapeutical medicines and phytocosmetics issued by the same FSC.

The program reflects Klabin’s historical vision which, since its foundation, has been to optimize the production of managed forests, in harmony with protection of natural resources and with social responsibility, proving Klabin’s conviction that forestry activities can be diversified, without losing sight of the main goals, generating profitability by investing in man and his environment.