FORESTRY

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The Forestry Project for Ivory Coast, to be implemented over five years, will assist the Government's efforts to start a plantation program on a significant scale and will strengthen its forestry management and planning capabilities through technical assistance to the unit of studies and programming within the ministry of water and forests. It will consist of a 20,000 ha plantation program as part of a 68,000 ha program on four estates. It will include clearing 20,000 ha of logged-over high-forest by force account and planting and maintaining short to medium rotation hardwood species. Risks of the project stem from its innovative nature and its scope. Although the species that will be grown have been successfully established over the past decade, this will be the first time that they will be grown in plantations. This is not expected to raise extraordinary difficulties; however, attention will have to be given to the technical operations, quality of the timber and promotion of the products.