Forest Clusters: A Competitive Model for Latin America

contribute to success in the forest business. These include sound macroeconomic and long-term forest policies, secure land tenure, support from related education and technology programs, and cooperation among the various industries involved in producing and marketing forest products and services. The basic objective of this document is to examine the potential for creating forest clusters in Latin America. These clusters are based on the experience of Nordic countries and on studies of six natural resource-based clusters, identified by ECLAC/CEPAL. Specifically, this study aims to: 1) Identify issues and opportunities for forestry and the forest industry as a vehicle for development in Latin America; 2) Define lessons for forest cluster development in Latin America in the light of good-practice experiences in the Nordic countries; 3) Formulate policy recommendations for the selected Latin American countries on how to develop and environmentally manage different types of forest clusters.