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Colombia Forestry and Fishing
Numerous types of tropical forests covered Colombia;
most,
however, remained unexploited for commercial use. In the
late
1980s, commercially viable forest tracts may have covered
as much
as 78 million hectares, with between 500,000 and 1 million
hectares
logged each year. Although more than 1,000 types of tree
grew in
Colombia, only 30 types had commercial value. Replanting
occurred
infrequently, and in the late 1980s only one hectare in
ten
received any type of restoration treatment, largely
because of poor
government regulation of the logging industry.
Colombia produced wood in the late 1980s for
construction and
crafts and also supplied fuel wood and wood pulp for
heating and
printing. Lumber production was, however, a minor industry
in
Colombia, limited in part by the country's terrain.
The vast Amazon region of southeastern Colombia was one
of the
most heavily wooded areas in the country. Large-scale
logging had
not yet been very successful, however, because of the low
value
attached to most tropical woods and because usable trees
grew among
less valuable ones. Nonetheless, because of the
development of new
processes to make cardboard and other stiff paper products
from
some tropical trees, such as the cecropia, loggers became
more
interested in opening new areas of the Amazon for logging
in the
late 1980s. Once initially logged, these areas could then
be
replanted with a single type of tree for future
exploitation.
Colombia still supported only a fledgling fishing
industry
despite long coastlines on two oceans and extensive inland
river
and lake networks. In 1984 approximately 100,000 tons of
fish were
caught, more than half from freshwater inland sources. The
fishing
industry constituted less than 1 percent of GDP and did
not meet
the domestic demand for fish. Commercial fishing for
export was
restricted to small businesses pursuing shrimp and
oysters. Most
canned commercial fish, such as tuna and sardines, were
consumed
domestically.
Despite its lack of development, ocean fishing
represented one
of the most promising industries in Colombia. The
government
targeted Buenaventura, a large port on the Pacific coast,
for
expanded facilities to support both domestic and foreign
fishing
vessels. Planned development included the addition of
docks,
refrigerated storage facilities, and canning and
oil-processing
plants. The potential ocean catch was estimated to be as
large as
240,000 tons, or ten times the amount of fish caught in
1986.
Data as of December 1988
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