Good practice

Argentina Native Forest Conservation Fund — Ley 26.331 (FNECBN)

Argentina · Buenos Aires · See the Argentina profile

Argentina's 2007 Native Forest Law mandates 0.3% of the federal budget as direct payments to landowners and communities conserving Category I & II native forests—targeting ~54 million ha of Gran Chaco, Yungas and Patagonian forest across 23 provinces.

0.3% of federal budget

Statutory budget allocation

~54M ha

Native forest targeted

Provinces covered

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible de la Nación Argentina
Period: 2010-present
Keywords: Native forest, biodiversity, Gran Chaco, Yungas, Patagonia, national PES

Context

Argentina's 2007 Native Forest Law (Ley 26.331) mandates that 0.3% of the federal budget be paid directly to landowners and communities that conserve Category I and II native forests, targeting roughly 54 million ha of Gran Chaco, Yungas and Patagonian forest across 23 provinces.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-21
Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible de la Nación Argentina — accessed 2026-06-21
Argentina.gob.ar – Programa de Bosques Nativos — accessed 2026-06-21
FAO – Argentina REDD+ Results-Based Payments project — accessed 2026-06-21
Wikipedia – Ley de Bosque Nativo (Argentina) — accessed 2026-06-21

Quality score: 73/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported

Top 4% in this catalogue (335 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Carbon — sequestration / storage, evidenced2/3

Protecting 53–54 million ha of native forest limits deforestation-related emissions; UMSEF satellite monitoring confirms reduced clearing rates in Category I/II zones, but no project-level carbon accounting or registry is tied to individual payments.

Biodiversity — conservation / improvement, evidenced3/3

Legally protects Gran Chaco (globally most threatened dry forest), Yungas cloud-forest corridor and Atlantic forest remnants; IUCN and WWF identify Ley 26.331 as a critical biodiversity anchor for South America's most deforestation-threatened biomes.

Water & soil — retention, infiltration, erosion control2/3

Yungas and Patagonian forests are critical upper-watershed regulators; the law's zoning explicitly protects riparian corridors; however, no nationally published water-service outcome metrics are tied to the payment scheme.

Fire resilience — risk reduction, evidenced2/3

Gran Chaco and Patagonian dry forests are highly fire-prone; retaining native cover demonstrably lowers fire risk compared to converted land; Ley 26.331 Category I zones show lower fire incidence, but no fire-specific PES outcomes are formally reported.

Governance, certification & transferability2/3

Enacted by national law with multi-provincial implementation; UMSEF satellite monitoring provides annual deforestation reporting; 2023 national budget law (No. 27.701) assigned AR$9 billion to FNECBN; but chronic underfunding limits governance score to moderate.

Cite this

Evidoria. Argentina Native Forest Conservation Fund — Ley 26.331 (FNECBN). Persistent ID: 6801e1ad-a56e-4322-87f5-13a58b92d474.

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