News

2021-08-30

IUFRO Spotlight #90 - Employment and Sustainability in Latin American Forests

The "Guide to Forestry-Based Entrepreneurship", an ambitious "how-to" forest-based guide for use throughout Latin America, is now available in Spanish and English.


The guide is the result of a collaboration between the Joint IUFRO-IFSA Task Force on Forest Education (JTF) and Reforestamos, a Mexico-based NGO.

José Carlos Martínez Hernández, Director of Innovation at Reforestamos, notes that more than 100 million youths in the region are affected by unemployment. By adding entrepreneurial strategies to existing technical knowledge, Reforestamos helps businesses increase their economic, social and environmental impact.

For the past seven years the NGO has, through its Young Forest Entrepreneur Initiative (YFE), conducted training for 7,000 forestry students in 12 countries. Several of these have been hosted at major IFSA and IUFRO events in collaboration with the IUFRO-IFSA JTF.

Sandra Rodríguez of the Faculty of Animal Science and Ecology at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Mexico, and IUFRO coordinator for the entrepreneurship guide project, said, "This guide, developed through the YFE experience, strives to reach more young people and teachers to promote entrepreneurship as a skill that complements the academic development of future forestry professionals."  

Those who use the guide will learn why forest entrepreneurship is important; will see exactly what a forest enterprise is; and will find follow-up steps to take after the enterprise is created.


Further reading:

Files:
spotlight90-forest-entrepreneurship.pdf506 Ki
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