Financing sustainable forest management: proceedings of an international workshop, Oslo, Norway, 22-25 January 2001

This proceedings contains the highlights of the International Workshop of Experts on Financing Sustainable Forest Management that was held 22-25 January 2001 in Oslo, Norway and also the full set of papers for the workshop. The meeting was organised to provide support to the U.N.'s post-Earth Summit international dialogue on forests by advancing discussions on the financing of sustainable forest management (SFM). It focussed on three topics: the feasibility of a proposed mechanism known as Investment Promotion Entity (IPE); private-sector financing of SFM; and other means of increasing financial resources from all sources, including the proposed Global Forest Fund. The highlights include: 1) the poor competitiveness of the forest sector in general and SFM in particular; 2) low priority accorded to forests and SFM by developing countries, donors and external partners alike; 3) a perception that SFM is risky as an investment option; and 4) idealistic and unrealistic expectations of achieving progress toward SFM in relation to every forest, which are seen as overly ambitious and likely to fall short of the mark, thereby discouraging potential investor. The papers input at the workshop offered a wide range of views and examples related to current financing of SFM. Some areas of overlapping interest, concern and agreement were apparent, especially with regard to observation of what factors constrain private-sector involvement in SFM and what is necessary to change the situation and encourage invetment.