Latin America, an introduction to the special issue

This Special Issue (SI) collects 15 papers that examine forestry in Latin America (LA). Their specific intent is to review major themes in LA forestry and forest policy and to identify important characteristics of the region that either do or should separate policy and economics in that region from that in other regions of the world. The first two papers begin with a review of national and regional forest cover and its component natural and plantations shares, then use country level forest cover and economic data to assess the region's experience with deforestation and its position on the spectrum of forest development. Subsequent papers review the effects of agricultural expansion at the forest frontier and policies to constrain that expansion or to improve forest management in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Paraguay. Two papers examine the potential for sustainable timber operations in Brazil's Amazon and two others consider the social impacts of Brazilian plantations and community management in Guatemala. These papers all reflect on shorter-run 10–30 year policy impacts. Another calls on well-known models of climate change to inquire of the longer-run 50-year anticipated impact. Three final papers begin an examination of the forest industry with specific focus on the involvement of new institutional landowners, the technical efficiency of the pulp industry and LA's participation in international markets for forest products. This first paper introduces the 15 papers. A concluding paper organizes and summarizes their contributions within the three broad themes of LA's differences with forestry in the rest of the world, the implications of these differences for forest policy, and assessments of LA's developing forest industry; then closes with recommendations for further inquiry.