D. Pettenella
Davide Petenella is a researcher in forest economics with the Department of Land Resources and Agroforestry of the University of Padova, Italy.
A look at Italy's changing forestry' administration is of interest for several reasons. The variety of forest formations, their differing levels of productivity and the strong economic and social imbalances currently prevalent in Italy have greatly diversified both the problems and the local forestry policies. This diversity has in turn produced a mosaic of distinctive forms of institutional organization within a relatively small geographical area. At the same time, the Italian forestry administration, like the other public institutions, has been extensively restructured during the past five years, and the new forms of administrative decentralization have often led to institutional clashes.
Forest management in Italy is not simply public or private: there are a significant number of intermediate semi-public bodies, either with joint public and private capital or else wholly financed by the government, but with considerable operational autonomy. These three institutional models interact but do not necessarily dovetail, thus producing differing forestry policies (FAO, 1988; Hummel and Hilmi in FAO, 1989; Richards, 1987). This article examines the organizational problems of the various public and semi-public institutions.
Forestry administration in Italy is basically a three-tier operation, involving: state institutions at the national level; the 20 (including five autonomous) regions; and the local level.
There is also a fourth level in the form of the European Union whose influence on forestry has significantly increased and will assume major proportions in the future, particularly as a result of the Common Agricultural Policy reform and a greater emphasis on environmental protection (Pettenella, 1993).
National institutions
The Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Resources is the state body responsible for forestry administration; the former Ministry of Agriculture and Forests was recently reformed and reinstated under this new name after being dissolved by popular referendum. The ministry heads the State Forestry Corps (CFS), which has a policing function, and the State Forest Board, which has a very limited remit (Adornato, 1991). Environmental protection, parks and nature reserves are under the care of the Ministry of the Environment which sometimes uses the CFS for surveillance work.
Minor forestry responsibilities are also entrusted to the Ministry of Industry, the government agencies for the economic development of southern Italy, the Ministry of Civil Defence and the Ministry of Universities and Research.
As indicated in Figure 1, many of the state agencies have been completely overhauled in recent years, an ongoing process which, with the elimination of certain semi-public bodies, is greatly simplifying the institutional picture and therefore the national areas of competence and policy instruments.
Regional institutions
The regional administrations (with or without special status) implement forestry policies through the Forest Services of their Departments of Agriculture and Forests. Some regions have delegated forestry responsibilities to the Department of the Environment (e.g. Sardegna); others have set up special forestry bodies that are directly answerable to the regional executive (e.g. Calabria). The regional forest administrations have all, to some extent, made use of the following three managerial instruments:
· the creation of decentralized technical services in the regional administration;· the establishment of a semi-public body (the Regional Forest Board) to manage regional forest land and certain activities (nurseries, technical assistance, vocational training, etc.);
· the transfer of responsibility for implementation to the local administrations.
Local institutions
Local administration is handled by the districts (communes) which own 27.5 percent of the national forest land. In the mountain and hill areas (which cover 76.8 percent of the national territory and account for 95.5 percent of the national forest area), districts are obliged to form associations (the mountain communities) which are responsible for the economic planning and, in some cases, the administration of local public forest land. In areas where such associations are not compulsory, only 25 or so associations of local councils have been formed to manage local forest resources. However, new legislation for mountain areas, introduced in early 1994, has revived the role of the Forestry Associations. Last of all, forest and pasture land is often collectively owned in mountain areas by long-standing, traditional, semi-public structures which are generally valid models for forest administration and management.
FIGURE 1. Italian forestry institutions at the state level
Altogether the public sector directly controls 39.8 percent of the forest estate. The more productive and economically attractive stands are generally in the public domain while much of the private woodland consists of coppice. However, the public institutions have considerable passive control over the forestry sector: according to the National Forest Inventory, 92.4 percent of forest land is governed by the so-called "hydrogeological restriction" which means that it cannot be used for other purposes and has to be harvested according to clearly defined local environmental criteria. This is in fact the basis of the CFS's extensive forest surveillance work.
The current administrative structure derives from the regional decentralization of 1977 which activated a constitutional provision, albeit 29 years late. Only the five autonomous regions had previously achieved considerable independence from the state in forest administration.
The reform of the 1970s included the very controversial decision to maintain the CFS and its "policing" functions under the direct control of the ministry. Subsequent to decentralization, the regions set up independent regional forest services, initially with a small staff working out of the central offices of the regional administration. During this period, the regions agreed bilaterally with the ministry to use the decentralized CFS offices not only for forest surveillance but also for the management of regional forest land, the distribution of public monies and technical assistance. During the 1980s, the growing concern of regional administrations and interest groups for forestry issues and the environment in general produced two major trends:
· the development of autonomous regional forest services and sometimes decentralization of responsibility to the local level, with a consequently reduced role for the CFS;· the transfer of forestry administrative and sometimes direct management responsibilities to local bodies (particularly the mountain communities).
PO: forest surveillance and policing
MA: direct management of state forest
PR: programming of activities (definition of forest policy objectives and instruments)
TA: technical and administrative functions (incentives, technical assistance, vocational training)
- direct accountability
- - agreements and conventions between bodies
PO: forest surveillance and policing
MA: direct management of state forest
PR: programming of activities (definition of forest policy objectives and instruments)
TA: technical and administrative functions (incentives, technical assistance, vocational training)
- direct accountability
- - agreements and conventions between bodies
PO: forest surveillance and policing
MA: direct management of state forest
PR: programming of activities (definition of forest policy objectives and instruments)
TA: technical and administrative functions (incentives, technical assistance, vocational training)
- direct accountability
- - agreements and conventions between bodies
Expected institutional structure of the forestry sector after the current reform
|
Level of administration |
Institutions |
Responsibilities |
|
State |
Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Resources and Ministry of
the Environment |
· General sector programming |
|
Regional |
a) Forestry departments |
· Regional programming |
|
b) Regional boards |
· Technical assistance |
|
|
Local |
a) Mountain communities |
· Local planning |
|
b) Forestry associations |
· Management of district and, in some cases, private associations, forest lands |
Note: For purposes of simplification, R & D responsibilities are not considered.
The relationship between the state, regional and local authorities therefore varies according to the form of decentralization adopted for forestry responsibilities and actions.
In one model, the regional administration agrees to delegate forestry technical and organizational responsibilities to the decentralized CFS services, only maintaining responsibility for overall programming. This model, still found in parts of central and southern Italy, maximizes institutional simplification and minimizes direct local responsibility in forestry policies.
A second model, which is relatively common in some of the northern (including the autonomous) regions, calls for the independent regional implementation of most forestry activities (a Regional Forest Board may be set up to help the CFS with local operations). The CFS maintains its policing role while the local bodies are, at best, only marginally involved in the direct management of activities.
Finally, a third organizational model advocates the extensive decentralization of policy implementation to local bodies, which are provided with their own staff and funds. This model, which is particularly common in central Italy, permits the concurrent presence of several public bodies with distinct responsibilities: the CFS, responsible solely for forest policing, and the regional Forest Services, responsible for integrating and back stopping the activities of the local bodies.
These three organizational models (see Fig. 2a, 2b and 2c) are clearly a simplification of a far more complex division of responsibilities that is still in the process of major change. It is nevertheless interesting to note the absence of any clearly discernible trend in the institutional reforms adopted by the regional administrations. Some, for example, have recently disbanded their Regional Forest Board and decentralized the management of forestry activities while others have taken the opposite course, setting up a Regional Forest Board and strengthening regional operating capacity.
Looking to the future, we can predict an institutional organizational structure such as that illustrated in the Table: Expected institutional structure of the forestry sector after the current reform.
Recent developments in Italy have revealed five areas that will need attention before the process of forestry institutional reform, initiated some years back, is completed.
Division of responsibilities and establishment of semi-public institutions
Some regions have adopted as their guiding principle the separation of the bodies responsible for determining forestry objectives and those responsible for policy implementation. In quite a few cases this has led to a Regional Department with programming functions and a Regional Forest Board with operational responsibilities - a public body with considerable autonomy and outside rigid administrative control. However, regional departments have often tried to add to their programming role and expand their functions (and staff), which has caused overlapping and confrontation with the regional boards. At the same time, the boards have often sought to exploit their broad autonomy to operate outside the prescriptions and control of their departments.
The semi-public institutions with private capital have not been any more successful. For example, the National Pulp and Paper Board and the three joint - stock companies that it set up for forestry (SAF), paper production (SIVA) and market research (RESS), respectively, have operated for years through a combination of public funding and levies on the import and production of paper products. This private sector source of funding has not, however, translated into the direction and control of company activities. Also, the increase in company operating costs and the parallel offsetting increase in public funding has gradually alienated the private sector from the decision-making process. A reduction in public funding so as to balance government expenditure has eliminated any private sector interest in keeping these companies afloat.
Funding the institutions
One form of reducing public expenditure has been to reduce guaranteed funding of the institutions and require extra external financing to cover operating costs. This has undoubtedly streamlined the institutions but it has also shifted objectives and commitments from the long to the short term. In the field of research and development, basic research has given way to applied research and some of the more important research programmes have been interrupted because of their limited short-term relevance.
Human resources
The numerous and often sweeping institutional changes that have been introduced in forestry administration have not always taken human resources sufficiently into account. For example, with the restriction of CFS responsibilities to forest surveillance, experienced government experts have only been used for policing work while the regional administrations have often had to recruit inexperienced staff to assume important technical assistance and financial management responsibilities.
Excessive decentralization
Some regional administrations have delegated virtually all public forestry activity to the local level as a reaction to over centralization in the past. While more direct community involvement in publicly financed forestry activity is undoubtedly beneficial, decentralization can trigger serious new problems such as the loss of economies of scale, the predominance of individual interests over the community interests of sustainable management and the absence of feedback from other environmental contexts for comparison and control. The ideal balance between centralization and decentralization has not yet been achieved in Italy, nor apparently in the forestry sectors of many other countries (Buttoud, 1992).
Lack of debate on forestry institution performance
Finally, although substantial institutional changes are taking place in Italy's forestry administration, the institutions, procedures and decentralization processes have never been studied by researchers or seriously and systematically discussed by policy-makers, foresters and the appropriate interest groups. The advantages and drawbacks of the various possible organizational models have not been looked into. The National Forestry Plan itself (Government of Italy, 1987), which defines the strategic objectives and operational instruments very clearly and comprehensively, fails to examine institutional performance and possible modifications. Institutional change to date appears to be geared more to balancing the books and accommodating (uncoordinated) legislation than to a general plan of reform.
Many of the lessons offered by the Italian experience are closely tied to the specific economic, cultural and political circumstances of the country. Institutional models that have produced relatively modest results in Italy are apt to work better in other forestry contexts. Indeed, the success of institutional reform seems to be linked less to theoretical organizational models than to how these are perceived and adapted at the local level.
The broadening and differentiation of forest resource utilization, in Italy as in other countries, has fostered greater direct public involvement in forest management. Coupled with administrative decentralization, this has made it both more difficult and more necessary to mastermind (or at least coordinate) public sector activities.
Agrarian, environmental, employment and timber industry policies, plus policies for deprived and mountain regions, are all interwoven in the shaping of national forestry policy. The issues involved are politically too important to be left to a single institutional organization, and this justifies the recent increase in the number of public sector bodies with forestry responsibilities as well as the increased programme and financial coverage.
The Italian experience clearly underlines the risks of uncoordinated institutional expansion: the duplication of responsibilities, administrative conflict, excessive increases in costs and a concentration on passive control (restrictions) rather than incentive measures. All too often, administrative objectives fail to identify with resource conservation and the promotion of sustainable forest use, with the primary goal being to hold on to acquired areas of competence. In such a context of open and potential institutional conflict, it is particularly important that public opinion and those directly concerned with forest management be kept informed. Only transparency in public administration can assure the democratic participation needed to produce the appropriate organizational decisions in a time of institutional transition.
In the near future, forestry policies will have to mediate between ever-growing conflicts of interest among the various parties involved (Schmithüsen and de Montalembert, 1991). Continuing change in the forestry institutional structure would appear to be largely inevitable because of the great number of sometimes divergent interests at stake and also because of an inherent sectoral characteristic: the time frame for policy change is generally shorter than that allowed for institutional change, and institutional change seldom reflects the need for stable long-term policy that is in step with the biological pace of forest development.
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Buttoud, G. 1992. Forest policy. Challenges and strategies for Mediterranean wood - lands. Nancy, France, INRA - ENGREF Chania, MAICH - ICAMAS.
FAO. 1988. Forestry, policies in Europe. FAO Forestry Paper No. 86 Rome.
FAO. 1989. Forestry polices in Europe: an analysis. FAO Forestry Paper No. 92. Rome.
Government of Italy. 1987. Schema di Piano Forestale Nazionale. Rome, Ministero dell'Agricoltura e delle Foreste.
Pettenella, D. 1993. EU forest policy from a Mediterranean point of view. Paper presented at the Scandinavian Society of Forest Economics Conference, Gilleleje, Denmark, 22-25 November 1993.
Richards, E.G., ed. 1987. Forestry and forest industries: past and future. Dordrecht, the Netherlands, Martinus Nijhoff.
Schmithüsen, F. & de Montalembert, M.R 1991. Current trends in forest policies. In Proc. 10th World Forestry Congress, Paris, 17-22 September 1991. Nancy, France, ENGREF.
