National Forestry Office (Costa Rica)

Summary

The National Forestry Office (Oficina Nacional Forestal; ONF) is a public, non State institution established by Chapter II of the 1996 Forestry Law (Arts. 7-11) to provide advice to the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) on policies, legislation, and activities to improve the business environment for sustainable forestry management. The ONF acts as a link between the public and private sectors and produces statistics on the timber industry including production and imports. ONF will also promote and measure the use of wood in Costa Rica, one of the activities included in the national REDD+ Strategy and the Emissions Reduction (ER) Programme.

ONF's board of directors is made up of: (i) Two representatives from forest smallholders organisations; (ii) two representatives of other forestry producer organisations; (iii) two representatives of the timber industry; (iv) one representative of timber traders; (v) one representative of artisanal furniture makers; and (v) one representative of environmental organisations (Art. 10). The ONF represents forest producers in the REDD+ Executive Committee by sending two representatives to participate, one representing smallholders and the other representing industrial producers. The ONF is publicly funded with 10% of the taxes and 40% of the fines raised by the Forestry Law (Art. 11).