The Southern Cone Countries and the Montreal Process

2 Abstract: The Montreal Process, a Commitment to Sustainability This report highlights the key role played by the Montreal Process to help South American Member countries, to meet the essential current and future challenges and opportunities for conservation and sustainable forests management. Whereas forests play an important and multifaceted role - as carbon sinks, habitat for most terrestrial species and as the main source of fresh water and biomass - permanent collaboration and coordination measures are required to meet the challenges of sustainable forest management, at the operational, national and international level. Gradually each of our countries has taken steps to advance the implementation of sustainability in the global management of our forests. For example the unprecedented adoption of specific legislation for the sustainable management of native forests that has recently been enacted in the Republics of Chile and Argentina, and the efforts of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay to complement the high productivity wood biomass from forest plantations with the role of biodiversity conservation and soil and water protection that meet the native forests. In the same way, the Southern Cone countries had signed a cooperation common interest project with FAO to strengthening the capabilities of criteria and indicators monitoring and reporting, based on the Montreal Process. This paper, in a very condensed form, refers to major arguments about the usefulness of sustainable forest management criteria and indicators for the decision-making process, showing examples of each country's major approaches and instruments of forest policy, for which the contributions of the Montreal Process are significant.