This International Forum focused on private sector investments in natural tropical forests. The Forum was jointly organized by ITTO, Forest Trends, and the Mexican National Forestry Agency CONAFOR, and was attended by close to 170 participants from 30 countries around the world.
The Forum made a significant contribution to increase the level of understanding on opportunities and constraints for investments in natural tropical forest based enterprises, and on the kind of information and types of tools available or needed to promote more responsible investment.
Questions that were addressed included:
- Who are the potential investors in natural forest based enterprises in the tropics?
- How do they make investment decisions, and what kind of information do they need?
- What characteristics of natural tropical forest based enterprises are particularly attractive to investors?
- How does the overall country-level business climate affect the attractiveness of forest-related investment, and particularly of natural tropical forest based enterprises?
- How can governments or firms attract more investments for natural tropical forests and what are they currently doing?
- How can an Investment Promotion Strategy improve both international and domestic investment?
- What other mechanisms can be used to make investments for tropical natural forests more attractive?
The Forum proved a great opportunity to make new business contacts and to get updated on the latest trends in forest investments worldwide, with a particular focus on natural tropical forests. Key presentations were made and panel discussions held on global issues affecting investments in tropical natural forests, including: trends and meeting forestry investment needs of the private sector; the role of governments and international organizations in enabling an investment climate; the role of international investors; new investment tools and approaches; ecosystem service payments; analysis of country investment opportunities; and the way forward – a vision for the process and preparing for sub-regional investment fora.
The outcome of this International Forum will assist ITTO in preparing for three subsequent Regional Investment Forums to be convened by ITTO and partner agencies in Latin America (tentatively planned for November 2006) and Asia and Africa (tentatively planned during 2007).
Proceedings of the conference are under preparation and will be published soon. In the meantime, the conference program, participants list, presentations and the summary are posted below.
We welcome you to consult and use this data as appropriate. When quoting data given in the Powerpoint presentations, please use the following reference:
International Tropical Forest Investment Forum: Issues and Opportunities for Investment in natural tropical Forests. 26-27 April 2006, Cancun, Mexico. Published by ITTO.
