Prospects for improved management of natural forests in Latin America

Natural forest management can help preserve forest ecosystems in LAC against encroachment by the well-known forces of agriculture, pasture development, road construction and migration. Because this form of land use conserves the natural capital, it can help sustain environmental services, such as carbon sequestration, water and soil conservation, and even biodiversity. A review of LAC project experience (1930-1993) reveals the technical feasibility of improved natural forest management. It also, however, exposes the major constraints to its implementation, namely: (a) weak baseline and research information for decision-making, (b) unprofitability, (c) contradictory policies that encourage legal high-grading and forest destruction rather than good forest management, and (d) an overcentralized and weak set of public forestry institutions. The paper highlights the conditions that could help increase the chances for successful natural forest management in the region. Since there are risks of failure, natural forest management should be promoted primarily in already logged forests or in threatened forests made accessible through the advance of the agricultural frontier. And because public institutions need to actively support natural forest management, its economic niche are lands where environmental and social values are important.