Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoIndustrias CreativasLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sostenibilidad

Just another web-blogs Sites site

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Agriculture and Food Security
    • Climate change
    • Ecosystems and Biodiversity
    • Environmental and Social Safeguards
    • Infrastructure and Sustainable Landscapes
    • Institutionality
    • Responsible Production and Consumption
  • Authors
  • English
    • Español

Latin American and Caribbean forests in the 2020s: Four teams of experts weigh in

March 19, 2021 por Allen Blackman Leave a Comment


Forests are the crown jewels of Latin America and the Caribbean’s (LAC’s) ecological endowment. The region boasts roughly half of the world’s tropical forests and a quarter of its mangroves.

But LAC forests face extraordinary challenges in the 2020s. They are being cleared and degraded at an alarming rate. Climate change is altering forest functioning, plant growth, and tree mortality. And managed forests confront increasing competition from Asia, declining global demand, and lagging sustainability certification.

The good news is that the current political climate favors meaningful policy action to address these challenges. Forests have attracted unprecedented attention in recent years in large part because of an emerging consensus that averting the worst effects of climate change will require step changes in forest conservation and restoration.

How can this political momentum best be used to promote conservation, restoration, and efficient management of LAC’s forests in the 2020s?

To answer that question, a new IDB monograph, Latin American and Caribbean Forests in the 2020s: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities, brings together four reports by leading experts focusing on (i) forest conservation and restoration, (ii) two-way links between forests and climate change, (iii) forest management, including trends in international trade in timber and bioenergy, sustainable forest management, and nontimber forest products, and finally, (iv) the IDB Group’s experience with forest projects over the past 13 years.

The reports offer several key messages:

1. First, domestic forest conservation policies and programs such as land-use change regulations are often hamstrung by resistance from land managers, a dynamic that has played out in Brazil over the past decade. As a result, although these types of policies can have significant short-term benefits, they are likely to be unsustainable in the long term unless accompanied by positive incentives for land managers.

2. Second, human-induced phenomena have triggered dramatic shifts in forest ecology, reducing resilience and productivity and spurring large-scale diebacks. The combined effects of global climate change, regional deforestation, and increased forest fires may well cause up to 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest to disappear by 2050.

3. Third, although growth in LAC’s wood products sector has exceeded the world’s average since the 1960s, virtually all of this growth has been due to expansion in three countries, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, which have invested in fast-growing plantations. Moreover, these plantations face competitive pressure because of declining world markets for paper products. It is therefore important for LAC to explore opportunities for new markets, new products, and enhanced productivity.

4. Finally, since 2006, the IDB Group has invested almost US $1.5 billion in LAC forest projects aimed at conserving, restoring, or sustainably managing natural forest resources, as well as promoting forest plantations and agroforestry. Both the number of IDB Group forest projects and their funding have increased significantly since 2006, mostly because of the increased availability of climate finance, which accounted for 14 percent of all forest funding approved by the IDB Group in the study period.

As preeminent biodiversity scientist Tom Lovejoy writes in the Forward, this new IDB Group monograph appears at a critical time in Latin America and Caribbean, when the Bank’s leadership is working to show the way to sustainability. It provides a wealth of information and insights that can help to inform and guide LAC forest policy in the 2020s.

Further reading:

Latin American and Caribbean Forests in the 2020s: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

Follow us on Twitter: @BIDCambioClima

Photo: Unsplash.com


Filed Under: Climate change, Ecosystems and Biodiversity Tagged With: forests

Allen Blackman

Allen Blackman is Principal Economic Advisor in the Inter-American Development Bank’s Climate and Sustainable Development Sector. His research focuses on urban environmental issues, agricultural supply chains, and land use and land cover change.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

SEARCH

Sustainability

This blog is a space to reflect about the challenges, opportunities and the progress made by Latin American and Caribbean countries on the path towards the region’s sustainable development.

SIMILAR POSTS

  • International Day of Forests: Guardians of the Environment and Biodiversity
  • How a bug small as a water drop can destroy 100 million trees in three years?
  • Can timber extraction permits help conserve tropical forests?
  • Is Investment in Palm Oil Certification Worth It?
  • Sustainable Oil Palm Cropping in LAC: Could this be possible?

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

    Blog posts written by Bank employees:

    Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


    For blogs written by external parties:

    For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

    The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

    Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



    Privacy Policy

    Derechos de autor © 2025 · Magazine Pro en Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

    Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

    Aviso Legal

    Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

    facebook
    twitter
    youtube
    This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser.
    To learn more about cookies, click here
    x
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT