Incremento de la competitividad de la reforestación comercial en Costa Rica

Forest plantations for commercial uses in Costa Rica have decrease progressively in the last
decade creating a reduction in the offer of wood for the local market, and an increment in the risks
of illegal logging in natural forest, as well as the loss of employment and an increase the importation
of wood and wood products.
According to the Forestry National Plan for Costa Rica (2011-20120), the “Fondo Nacional de
Financiamiento Forestal (FONAFIFO)” has assigned every year sources to reforest 7,000 ha, and
to plant 750,000 trees in agroforestry systems, however, only 50% of these resources have been
utilized by the land-owners. In the same way, it is estimated that at the present only 75 000 ha of
forest plantations remain in the country, quantity that is not enough to supply the wood needs of the
country in the next decade.
It has been proposed that the landowners do not have incentives to grow forest plantations in theirs
lands due to several market and financial problems, some of them are:
a) The lack of wood products of high market value that may allow to increase of incomes to
the small and medium forest landowners or to have better prices for their timber yields.
b) The time and the irregular distribution of the incomes proper of the forestry activities.
c) The low productivity of the forest plantations in the country and/or the high costs that forest
producers has to overcome to increase the productivity of theirs forest plantations, and the
d) Lack of competitive markets for the wood products in the country, including the growing use
of substitute products in construction, furniture, energy production, etc.
The general objective of this project is to increase the competitiveness of the commercial
reforestation activities in Costa Rica in order to satisfy the needs of forest products as well as to
increase the REDD+ emission reductions (ERs) of the country. The project has three specific
objectives: a) increase the productivity of the forest plantations, b) develop and test a financial
mechanism able to correct the deficiencies detected in the current payment for environmental
services program (PES), and c) develop innovative high market value wood products, that may
increase the incomes of the plantation landowners.

Calidad y productividad de plantaciones forestales