Ecobreves – COLOMBIA:: Promoting a Reforestation Plan

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

BOGOTA, Oct 11 2004 (IPS) - Colombia is to spend 20 million dollars on reforestation for industrial and environmental purposes, with the backing of the government and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The goal of the 'Colombia Forestal' program is to reforest some 15,000 hectares, promote new projects in another 11,000 and maintain care of another 140,000 hectares of forest.

''It is about offering alternative employment and exports in the chain of forests as an option to illicit drug crops, and with a commercial focus,'' explained Vincent Ruddy, official from USAID coordinating the support for the plan.

Colombia is a country of forests, but has not achieved the level of industrial reforestation of other countries, Adolfo Aristizábal, head of the newly formed National Federation of Wood Industrialists, told Tierramérica.