This paper measured the attractiveness of municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais (MG) for projects in the steel, cellulose and paper, furniture, energy and wood panel industry segments. A ...questionnaire was used to construct an index of attractiveness of the forestry sector for each municipality. As a result, it was found that 40% of the municipalities presented “average” or higher attractiveness. The mesoregions with the greatest potential for forestry development were the Metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Southwest of Minas and Zona da Mata. The steel and cellulose and paper segments found attractive factors in 74.08% and 72.79% of the municipalities, respectively. It was concluded that the methodology applied showed how close a location was to meeting the characteristics of forest-based industries. It is expected to encourage future research and influence strategic planning for the expansion of the forestry sector across the country.
Mongolia’s first Multipurpose National Forest Inventory, 2014-2017, was implemented by the Forest Research and Development Centre, in collaboration with international expertise and the country’s main ...forestry institutions, universities and research organisations.
The long-term objective of the multipurpose NFI is to promote sustainable management of forestry resources in Mongolia, to enhance their social, economic and environmental functions.
The NFI findings show that there are 11.3 million hectares of Boreal Forest in Mongolia. 9.5 million hectares are Stocked Boreal Forest Area, of which 69 percent is located outside of protected areas, 4 percent are designated for green-wood utilisation through forest enterprise concessions, and another 16 percent designated for fallen dead-wood collection through forest user group concessions. The non-protected stocked forests (i.e. production forest) have an average growing stock volume of 115 m3 per hectare, compared with an optimal growing stock volume of 237 m3 per hectare, and there is an additional 46.5 m3 of dead wood per hectare. The growing stock age distribution shows that 24 m3 per hectare are over 200 years (i.e. economically over-aged). The main tree species in stocked forest are Larix sibirica (81%), Pinus sibirica (7%), Betula platyphylla (6%) and Pinus sylvestris (5%), of which all, except for P. sibirica, are classified as legally harvestable tree species. Wild fire is the current main environmental factor decreasing the forest tree biomass.
The NFI helped identifying priority areas for the forestry sector, and to guide the implementation of sustainable forest management at the local level. The main forest management challenges of Mongolia’s boreal forest will be to address that they are a) under-stocked (less than 50% of production potential), b) over-aged (31% of growing stock volume in stocked production forest is above optimal production age), and c) under-utilised (4% of forest area designated to green-wood utilisation).
Green Infrastructure (GI) is a strategically planned network delivering and enhancing diverse ecosystem services whilst preventing further biodiversity loss. Although not mandatory for EU members to ...implement GI, it is increasingly advocated as a tool for landscape planning. In 2016, the Swedish Government mandated the County Administrative Boards (CABs) to design regional GI plans using a collaborative process. This study explored the GI collaborative process in the region of Scania in southern Sweden, focusing on forest as an important component of Swedish landscapes. We interviewed 14 different stakeholders who participated in the process, and analysed the preconditions, inner workings and outcomes of collaborative GI planning. Despite remarkably different expectations, the perceived outcomes were consistent. Most stakeholders perceived the process as mainly informational rather than deliberative and, in general, use of the GI plan was limited. Despite successful finalisation of the plan, collaboration as a long-term process has not been achieved, which may limit the realisation of activities that foster GI. Scania’s GI planning illustrates the defects of top-down approaches with insufficient resources, failing to address the stakeholders’ trust and positioning. A lack of inclusivity and deliberation undermine the legitimacy of collaborative processes, discrediting the very concept of GI in Sweden. Our analysis indicates that a genuine collaborative process and a long-term commitment to implementing GI is unachievable without sustained and substantial governmental funding, capacity development at the lead agency, thorough consideration of prehistory, and targeted measures to increase trust among stakeholders.
•Green infrastructure (GI) plans open a new venue for collaborative governance of (forested) landscapes.•Information exchange rather than genuine deliberation dominated the development of GI plan in Scania county.•Stakeholder commitment to the process was too low, GI plan not sufficiently concrete and unsatisfactorily implemented.•Ineffective collaborative process undermines GI planning in the Swedish context.
The Forests Source Book provides practical operations-oriented guidance for forest sector engagement toward the goals of poverty reduction, conservation and economic development. Intended to guide ...World Bank lending activities and projects, the Forests Source Book offers information useful to a broad audience of practitioners, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations. The Source Book was developed in partnership with members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, including the Food and Agriculture Organization. The Source Book provides background on key issues, lessons learned, and recommendations for practitioners on a number of topics including private sector engagement, forest governance, sustainable plantation and commercial harvesting, and forest information management systems. Giving insight into the complex interplay between different realms of development work that effect or are affected by forests, the Forests Sourcebook is a valuable tool for any stakeholder involved in development or business projects that could have impact on forests.
China is credited with undertaking some of the world's most ambitious policies to protect and restore forests, which could serve as a role model for other countries. However, the actual environmental ...consequences of these policies are poorly known. Here, we combine remote-sensing analysis with household interviews to assess the nature and drivers of land-cover change in southwestern China between 2000–2015, after China's major forest protection and reforestation policies came into effect. We found that while the region's gross tree cover grew by 32%, this increase was entirely due to the conversion of croplands to tree plantations, particularly monocultures. Native forests, in turn, suffered a net loss of 6.6%. Thus, instead of truly recovering forested landscapes and generating concomitant environmental benefits, the region's apparent forest recovery has effectively displaced native forests, including those that could have naturally regenerated on land freed up from agriculture. The pursuit of profit from agricultural or forestry production along with governmental encouragement and mobilization for certain land uses – including tree planting – were the dominant drivers of the observed land-cover change. An additional driver was the desire of many households to conform with the land-use decisions of their neighbors. We also found that households' lack of labor or financial resources, rather than any policy safeguards, was the primary constraint on further conversion of native forests. We conclude that to achieve genuine forest recovery along with the resulting environmental benefits, China's policies must more strongly protect existing native forests and facilitate native forest restoration. Natural regeneration, which thus far has been grossly neglected in China's forest policies, should be recognized as a legitimate means of forest restoration. In addition, social factors operating at the household level, notably the pursuit of profit and conformation to social norms, should be harnessed to promote better land-cover, biodiversity, and environmental outcomes. More generally, for China and other countries to succeed in recovering forests, policies must clearly distinguish between native forests and tree plantations.
At the limit of volunteerism? Danley, Brian; Bjarstig, Therese; Sandstrom, Camilla
Land use policy,
2021, Letnik:
105
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Sweden is not on track to meet its own national 2020 environmental goals for sustainable forests. Due to the deliberate design of Swedish forest policy, private forest owners? voluntary forest and ...biodiversity protection efforts are required to help close the policy gap. Using survey data from Swedish family forest owners, this paper outlines how forest owner attitudes reveal challenges and opportunities for two general strategies to increasing forest and biodiversity protection. The first strategy is attempting to institute changes within status quo Swedish forest policy by relying on family forest owners to make such changes voluntarily. The second strategy is encouraging management changes by using policy reforms. Our qualitative results suggest that Swedish forest policy is close to the limit of what can be accomplished with volunteerism alone and likely requires policy reforms to close its forest and biodiversity protection gap on family-owned forests.
The leading question of this Forest Policy and Economics special issue is whether, how and to what extent forest governance processes can be better understood by means of discourse analysis and the ...science-policy interface. This article focuses on discourses only, but it does so from an institutional perspective. The reasons to advocate this so-called discursive-institutional approach are threefold: (1) to acknowledge the relevance of both meanings and rules in policy continuity and change; (2) to emphasize the role of ideas, concepts and narratives in institutional dynamics; and (3) to make a useful distinction between discourses and practices ('analytical dualism'). As an example of applying this approach, we analyze the case of global forest politics from the early 1980s till today. It shows that new ideas and meanings concerning sustainability, biodiversity and governance have been institutionalized in this field over time, implying policy change and innovation. Compared to more 'classical' analyses, for example based on rationalistic or (purely) institutional accounts, the discursive-institutional approach draws another picture of global forest policy.
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