EL SECTOR FORESTAL EN COLOMBIA

The document argues that Colombia's forestry sector, despite its resilience to COVID-19, faces systemic challenges including high informality, lack of unified institutional vision, and inadequate financing. It highlights that 42% of produced timber is estimated to be illegal and that deforestation persisted during the pandemic, with over 75,000 hectares lost in the Colombian Amazon in early 2020. The brief recommends strengthening the Forest Monitoring and Carbon System (SMByC), creating a national forestry observatory, reforming the Forest Incentive Certificate (CIF), and promoting community forestry concessions to integrate small producers into the formal economy and meet 2030 GDP targets for the forestry economy.

• The forestry sector is critical for Colombia's climate goals, as it contributes 36% of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the conversion of forest lands to other covers accounted for 25% of Colombia's CO2 emissions in 2014.
• Informality and illegality are pervasive in the sector; a 2006 World Bank study estimated that 42% of the timber produced in the country is illegal.
• Deforestation continued during the COVID-19 pandemic, with an estimated 75,000 hectares cleared in the Colombian Amazon during the first three months of 2020, representing 47.4% of the total deforested in 2019.
• There is a significant institutional disconnect between the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADS) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR), resulting in a lack of a unified vision for forest utilization.
• Commercial forest plantations are underutilized and concentrated; as of June 2020, Colombia had only 531,693 hectares of plantations despite having seven million hectares with high potential.
• Forestry supply chains are excessively long and dominated by intermediaries who increase costs without adding value, which was exacerbated during the pandemic when intermediaries bought timber at lower prices from small producers.

APA

Ramos, J. L. D. (n.d.). EL SECTOR FORESTAL EN COLOMBIA. Transforma. https://transforma.global/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CARTILLA-2-SECTOR-FORESTAL.pdf

Chicago

Ramos, Jose Luis Diaz. EL SECTOR FORESTAL EN COLOMBIA. Transforma, n.d. https://transforma.global/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CARTILLA-2-SECTOR-FORESTAL.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ramos |first1=Jose Luis Diaz |title=EL SECTOR FORESTAL EN COLOMBIA |publisher=Transforma |url=https://transforma.global/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CARTILLA-2-SECTOR-FORESTAL.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ramosndsector, author = {Ramos, Jose Luis Diaz}, title = {{EL SECTOR FORESTAL EN COLOMBIA}}, institution = {Transforma}, url = {https://transforma.global/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CARTILLA-2-SECTOR-FORESTAL.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }