Bainbridge Island, WA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/22/2011 -- A recent report from the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch blog is being championed by Forestry Research Associates (FRA) as a beneficial piece for the forestry investment industry.

FRA is a research and analysis consultancy specializing in sustainable forestry and forestry investment topics. It is not a surprise, then, that its analysts welcomed the article explaining how investing in Latin American forests can be profitable during these uncertain economic times.

The article highlights the fact that forestry in the region is an up and coming asset class and that investors are learning that there are opportunities to analyse the market and invest with schemes that specialise in certain products. FRA says that many REITs offering forestry as an option outside of Latin America can focus on land coverage, rather than what the forestry projects actually produce. However, in Latin America, investors can buy up land managed by producers who focus on charcoal production, or eucalyptus crops, for example. Greenwood Management offers investors the chance to directly invest in their plantation projects in Brazil that largely focus on producing charcoal for use in the booming Brazilian steel industry and this is an area that is attracting the attention of in vestors from outside the region.

FRA supports these kinds of projects as, as well as being profitable for investors, they offer alternative sources of timber and charcoal to using native species, thus helping to reduce deforestation.

Latin American forestry is also benefiting hugely from the growth in demand from Asia and the resulting soaring timber prices. FRA’s analysis partner, Peter Collins added, “Timber values have increased steadily over the past few years and over the past decade, forestry investments have outperformed returns form stock markets.” He also asserted that the volatility of the equity markets are driving more and more Western investors to the relative safe havens of alternative investments.