Half of the surface of Chaco Province is still covered with natural forests. Thousands of employees and hundreds of small and medium scaled enterprises depend on raw material from natural forests. Nevertheless, actual forest management is not sustainable and the forest resources are degrading continuously. The regional government of Chaco Province aims to stop this degradation process. One element of the governmental efforts was to elaborate a manual for sustainable forest management (SFM), which should form the technical basis for the new forest legislation. The manual was developed by UNIQUE in a participatory process (round tables, workshops, stakeholder interviews).

• Analysis of forest resources, processing industry, value chain, institutional framework, legislation.
• Elaboration of a manual about silvicultural systems and treatments, forest planning and monitoring.
• SWOT analysis of the institutional and legislative frame conditions regarding SFM.