1. Introduction

The goal of this paper is to provide a broad globally oriented overview of the situation and prospects for the development of valuable hardwood plantations in the tropics and their potential to augment supplies from the natural forests. It is based on review of the literature. The specific objectives are to:

• Define valuable hardwood plantation species;
• Describe their current extent, location, species;
• Discuss economic issues surrounding their development;
• Estimate current and future woods supplies from valuable hardwood plantations and discuss their potential to supplement and substitute for supplies from natural forests.

There are various other issues related to valuable hardwood plantations that are common to forest plantations in general. These have been treated in the other papers.