One third of France is covered by trees, the farm ministry says, and at more than 16 million hectares, the country's forest takes up more land than all the arable crops combined.
The investment yield is not even close to that achieved on stock or bond markets. But investors do enjoy tax breaks and they get something that an equity stake can't provide -- a slice of the countryside they can pass on to the next generation.
Seventy percent of France's forest is privately owned while the remaining 30 percent is state owned with just over one million proprietors owning at least one hectare of trees.
"In exchange for looking after their piece of forest, owners obtain significant tax rebates," a top manager at the largest forest fund management business, CDC Foret, told Reuters.
He said many people chose to invest in forests in the late 1970s, seeing them as safe havens at the time of the oil crisis.
"Forests then became for many a sound investment," he added.
The country gains something too. Forests absorb the equivalent of 138 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and provide three percent of the country's energy consumption.
Investing in forests became even more attractive after the wind storm of 1999 that destroyed many trees throughout France.
But even with the fastest growing trees, investors have a considerable wait to see any return on their money.
Poplars are one of the fastest trees to reach maturity
"Poplars take on average 25/30 years to grow and if the wood sells well, it can yield a return of up to six percent on investment," the manager said, adding that to be economically viable a unit requires an investment of more than 50 hectares.
FORESTS CARRY TAX ADVANTAGES
French retail bank BNP Paribas says taxpayers who invest in wooded land, forests, or parts of a forest group from mid-2001 until end-2010, can benefit from a tax deduction that equals 25 percent of their investment within a limit of 5,700 euros for a single person and double for a couple.
"This brought capital into forests and revived investment in this section of the economy," the CDC Foret manager added.
The farm ministry says the woodland area has expanded in French regions such as Britanny in the northwest and the south of the Massif Central in central France that have seen people drift away from the land towards the cities.
It likens investing in forest land to other types of real estate. Both are kept many years and handed on as inheritance.
Three forest owners out of four are above fifty and one out of three is at least 70 years old, the ministry added.
And many trees outlive their investors by a long way.
"You have to be patient with those investments when one knows that it takes some 150 years for an oak tree to come to maturity," the CDC Foret manager said.
Story by Muriel Boselli