Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are a consolidated source of income and acquisition of inputs from forest environments. Therefore, the objective of this work was to carry out a collection of publications on NTFPs in Brazil, until 2019, available in the Scopus database, presenting a bibliometric review and the state of the art of this theme from the evaluation of these publications, discussing the challenges of Brazilian legislation on NTFPs. After screening the articles of interest, 196 documents were evaluated, in which they were observed institutions and authors, analyzing networks of citations and terms used, areas of forest sciences and sciences that encompass the most explored biomes and the most studied species. The results showed that the concern to research on NTFPs in Brazil began in the 1990s, with an increase in the number of publications over the years. Besides that, the research on NTFPs is multidisciplinary, with emphasis on the areas of Agricultural and Biological Sciences and Environmental Science. For better regulation of the process of exploration and management of NTFPs in Brazil, the need to create specific legislation that takes into account factors such as the phytogeographic domain the explored area, producing species, and the products and co-products obtained was observed.

The aim of this study was to provide information on the anatomical characteristics of carbonized wood of Prosopis alba and also test the potential of near-infrared in discrimination of wood and charcoal from natural or planted forest. The samples from four different sites were carbonized at 450°C in muffle furnace, both wood and charcoal anatomical qualitative and quantitative features were analysed and measured, and infrared analyses were performed. The qualitative characteristics of the wood anatomy remained in charcoal and the vessel diameter was the only quantitative feature with a statistically significant difference between them, hence the anatomical aspects were insufficient to distinguish between sites. Near-infrared spectroscopy with multivariate statistics showed good results in segregating the samples from planted forest from those of natural forests by using partial least square regression both in wood and carbonized material, indicating a good potential use in distinguishing material from different origins.

In this study, based on the mechanical shear treatment, the cellulosic pulp was fibrillated in nanofibrils dispersed in aqueous suspension. Nanofibrillated Cellulose (NFC) matrix - Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) nanocomposite films’ were prepared by casting from NFC/PVA suspension mixtures. The thermal and mechanical properties of the obtained films were evaluated. Low levels (2, 5 and 10 wt%) of PVA were used as an additive in a nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) matrix. The predominant use of NFC, with superior properties due to its purity, with an efficient and environmentally friendly method, has allowed the production of NFC-based biodegradable materials with enhanced properties for high-level applications. The addition of PVA to the NFC matrix produced positive results, as it causes little aesthetic interference, without changes in surface brightness. After the addition of PVA the films showed a great gain in mechanical strength, increasing by 24% in Young’s modulus with the addition of 10% PVA. Even after addition, the samples’ chemical composition remains unchanged and the mixture shows a decrease in the film surface hydrophilicity when compared to pure NFC. Composite material thermal analysis indicates that thermal degradation temperatures remain unchanged after the addition of PVA. Although PVA is not very temperature resistant, in the proportions used, NFC thermal resistance is preserved.

This research aimed to determine the concentration of tannins in the bark and in the branches of ten species of Caatinga occurrence. The Folin-Denis colorimetric method was used to determine the phenol content and the tannins are precipitated using a protein. The tannin content was obtained by the difference between the supernatant and the non-tannic phenol content. The data were subjected to the Shapiro-Wilk normality’s test and after, to Analysis of Variance using a 2x10 factorial design and Turkey’s test was used to detect differences. For bark sample, the species Parapiptadenia zehntneri, Parapiptadenia rigida and Libidibia ferrea presented the three highest percentages among the studied species, being 10.84%, 10.74% and 10.27%, respectively. For branch sample, Aspidosperma pyrifolium presented the highest percentage of tannins among the ten species, with 9.15% of these substances. It is possible to suggest the use of other parts of the tree to extract the tannins, such as the branches and their bark, offering an alternative for the extraction that is usually made from the main trunk and providing sustainability to the Caatinga.

The anatomical description of wood and charcoal for a wide variety of purposes is an essential tool for compiling databases to correctly identify species. This study describes and compares the anatomy of the wood and charcoal of Manilkara sp., collected in a protected area in the Pará state, Brazil. The qualitative anatomical characteristics of the wood, such as diffuse-porosity; vessels in radial multiples; alternate intervessel pits; axial parenchyma in lines or reticulate; rays uniseriate or biseriate, not storied, are corroborated in the literature. Moreover, this work reports the presence of helical thickenings in the vessel elements and possible helical thickenings in fibres in Manilkara. After the carbonization process, there were morphometric changes in the anatomical elements, as an increase in vessel frequency between 23 % and 141 %, and in ray frequency between 2.8 % and 12.9 %; while ray height decreased and ray width increased. Overall, some anatomical variations could be related to, or a result of the interaction between species plasticity, genetics, age and environmental factors. These characteristics enabled the identification of the samples at the genus level and the anatomical description of the wood and charcoal can be useful for forest inspections.