The private sector is increasingly investing in the harvesting and management of the world’s forests, and will likely be, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the source of funding that will offset the current shortage of public assistance and aid to the forestry sector.

Many of the most promising investments in forestry and sustainable forest management are in developing countries; one example is Latin America and the Caribbean, which has about 50% of the world’s primary forests, considered the most important from the point of view of biodiversity and conservation, covering more than 663 million hectares.

Forestry investment, in this sense, is an opportunity to participate in an environmentally responsible enterprise that has the potential to generate returns on your money and, at the same time, help preserve the planet.

The main importance of forests lies in the fact that they are a fundamental means to mitigate climate change. In addition to providing us with multiple goods and services, forests capture carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases, and fix it in their wood and products, releasing oxygen in the process.

Forestry, as an activity that consists of controlling the health and quality of forests, is essential for conservation. The interventions applied are aimed at maintaining or improving their usefulness with respect to specific objectives such as: the production of timber and other forest goods, the preservation of biodiversity, the protection of watersheds and the maintenance of pastures for livestock.

Forest degradation

According to the study “The State of the World’s Forests 2020”, published by FAO, forest degradation is advancing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that since 1990, some 420 million hectares of forest have been lost, despite the fact that the rate of deforestation has decreased over the last three decades.

The study states that the area of primary forests worldwide has decreased by more than 80 million hectares since the 1990s. More than 100 million hectares of forests are being affected by forest fires, pests, diseases, droughts and adverse weather events, most of them directly or indirectly caused by man.

It is the duty of human beings to take the appropriate actions, if not to reverse, at least to mitigate their actions on forests, and investing in it can be a way not only to earn money but also to help the planet.