Sustainable Woodfuel Production in Latin America: The role of Government and Society

Abstract

Woodfuel is an important energy source for many developing countries. At the same time, unsustainable woodfuel production can be a cause of forest degradation and eventually deforestation when demanded by unregulated markets. Most of sustainable forest management approaches for woodfuel production are theoretical, with only a few successful cases in Latin America. One of these are the Forest Replacement Associations (FRA), which are a nonprofit civil association that promote woodfuel production in small and medium farms and has been extensively tested during the past 20 years. The main objectives of this book is to review some experiences of sustainable woodfuel production emphasizing the FRA in Brazil and Nicaragua, including field visits and semi-structured stakeholder interviews, to extract the lessons learned and the potential challenges in their future implementation as sustainable forestry strategies elsewhere.