0300-C2

Sustainable forest management for a region of small private ownerships

E.W. (Ted) Robak and Jacobo Aboal Vignas ¹

Abstract

Galicia is the most important forestry region in Spain, but its potential as a forest product producer is under-developed. A healthy and growing forestry sector could be an engine for regional and rural economic development, but forest management is impeded by forest ownership patterns. Most forests in Galicia are privately owned in small, scattered holdings that make it difficult to carry out the sustainable forest management (SFM) required for forest sector development.

A comprehensive SFM strategy, based upon internationally recognized principles of sustainability, has been proposed as a means of rectifying the situation in Galicia. This strategy involves eight lines of actions that include such initiatives as improved legislation, increased public education and participation, and a new process for SFM that would be run by the government.

This paper outlines the strategy, then goes on to describe new forest management processes and supporting technologies that are seen as necessary for promoting SFM in a region predominated by small forest ownerships. The new process will be based upon hierarchical and integrated forest management concepts, but will involve innovative approaches to regional and forest district management. The paper ends with a brief description of the initial steps that have been taken to implement the SFM Strategy of Galicia.

Introduction

Galicia is a region of Spain that produces more than 40% of the national timber supply on 6% of the country's land base. Although the most important forestry region of Spain, Galicia's potential as a forest product producer is under-developed since both the amount and unit value of forest production could be greatly increased (Anonymous, 2001). Given that the Galician agriculture and fishery sectors (traditional bases for economic activity, especially in rural communities) are declining, a healthy forestry sector can be seen as an engine for regional and rural economic development.

One of the primary causes for forest sector under-development is the high degree of private forest ownership in small, scattered holdings. Private forests comprise approximately 97% of Galician forestlands, with about two thirds of those in holdings of less than 3 hectares (often in several non-contiguous parcels). Another 30% of private forests are owned by communities, but even these average only several hundred hectares.

Such an ownership pattern has made it difficult to promote sustainable forest management and the development of the sector. Only a small portion of the forested land is managed in a demonstrably sustainable manner, which does not bode well for the future of industrial forestry given the pressure for certifiably sustainable forest management (SFM) from governments, the general public and the forest product marketplace. This makes it difficult to justify public and private investment in forestry, which in turn impedes investment in forest industry modernization. If the industry is not modernized, the degree of "value-added" processing will remain low, with most raw production sent to other regions for processing.

Given the situation, the government department primarily responsible for forest management (Dirección Xeral de Montes e Industrias Forestais, or DXMIF) recognized that it was necessary to formulate new strategies, policies and processes aimed at the development of the forestry sector based upon the principles of sustainable forest management. This task was given to the newly-formed Observatorio para Xestión Forestal Sostible (OXFS).

Development of the Strategy

In order to develop the strategy, the OXFS began by identifying guiding principles and foundations of SFM based upon international, European Union (EU) and Spanish policies and agreements. Although a wide range of documents were reviewed, the following agreements and resolutions as being most relevant:

• The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992;
• Resolution H1 of the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests (MCPFE) in 1993;
• The Pan European Operational Level Guidelines developed at the MCPFE in 1998;
• The Proposal for Action of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel of Forests and Intergovernmental Forum of Forests, also in 1998.
• The EU Forestry Strategy from the Council Resolution. 1999/C56/01;
• The Spanish Forestry Strategy by the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente of Spain in 1999;
• The Sixth Environment Action Programme "Environment 2010: Our Future, Our Choice", decision #1600/2002/EC of the European Parliament and Council in 2002;
• The Draft Spanish Forestry Plan by the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente of Spain in 2002.

Furthermore, in order to ensure that a new strategy and its related programs would be consistent with forestry and environmental policy of the EU, the OXFS reviewed and summarized documentation concerning relevant Community programs and initiatives.

Further inspiration for the development of a new forest strategy was drawn from the concepts of hierarchical forest management and integrated forest management. Hierarchical forest management (HFM) is based upon the tenets of hierarchical production planning as described by such authors as Hax and Candea (1984). Explanations of the hierarchical approach to forest management can be found in various documents, but a paper by Weintraub and Davis (1996) is especially recommended.

The term integrated forest management (IFM) has been used to describe several distinct (though related) concepts, but in the case of the strategy development effort in Galicia, IFM is taken to mean the integration of management processes and systems to ensure that the objectives of HFM are achieved (see Robak, 1996 and Gallis and Robak, 1997 for a further elaboration of this view of IFM).

Based upon these foundations, a Strategy for Sustainable Forest Management for Galicia was developed and unveiled in the spring of 2002.

The SFM Strategy for Galicia

The SFM Strategy proposed by the Ministry of the Environment of Galicia represents a new approach to managing the forests of the autonomous region according to principles and norms of sustainable forestry. The eight lines of action to implement the Strategy are:

1) Development of the legal framework for sustainable forest management. SFM requires the formulation and enactment of integrated and coherent sets of policies, laws and regulations.
2) Establishment of integrated management structures and processes for sustainable forestry. Based on the principles of HFM, new integrated planning, monitoring and control structures will be implemented at the regional, district² and forest management unit levels to ensure the continuity of strategic, tactical and operational decision processes.
3) Development of the criteria and indicators of sustainability. Forest management processes in Galicia should be developed that are consistent with regional criteria and indicators of sustainability, which will be, in turn, based upon those affirmed in the 3^rd MCPFE in Lisbon.
4) Establishment of an accurate and reliable system of forestry information. Good information is essential for forest management planning, monitoring and control, and to evaluate and document actions and results in relation to accepted criteria.
5) Promote increased research into forest sustainability. Forest management should be based upon scientific knowledge, and research directed by management needs.
6)Foster public forestry education to facilitate understanding and participation. Informed participation of the public and the forestry sector of Galicia are critical to the success of the Strategy.
7) Foster and support the economic development of the forest sector of Galicia. Priorities include promoting timber and non-timber forest products as renewable resources, enhancing the role of the forestry sector in rural development, and supporting cooperation amongst forest owners and forest owners associations.
8) Promotion of forest certification. Forest certification initiatives that lend credibility and transparency to the forest management process will be fostered, especially those that enable certification by small forest owners.

The OXFS believes that a new, integrated forest management process is a critical component of the new strategy. The following sections of this paper focus on the new SFM process and supporting information infrastructure proposed by the OXFS.

The Proposed SFM Process in Galicia

While many actions and programs are required to implement the new strategy, a key component will involve the implementation of a new forest management process by the DXMIF. This new process, which is illustrated schematically in Figure 1, is aimed at the integration and coordination of management at the regional, district and forest ownership levels while at the same time fostering the active participation of forestry stakeholders and Galician society at all levels.

The following are brief descriptions of the three major sub-processes of the proposed new SFM process for Galicia, followed by a description of how they are to interact:

Regional Management Sub-Process The first major goal of Regional Management will be to develop a revision to the current PFG based upon principles of sustainability, input from the public and the forest sector, and the best current forestry knowledge. A Regional Committee for Sustainable Forestry representing all regional stakeholders will endorse a Declaration of Regional Principles of Sustainability based upon international, EU and Spanish principles of forest sustainability, but recognizing the specific goals and constraints of Galicia. The revised PFG, developed by regional technical staff within the integrated process described below, will make explicit the long-term forest management goals of the region, the actions required to achieve goals, and terms of the "co-responsibility contract" that define responsibilities of forest sector players with respect to actions.
The second goal involves the monitoring and control of results and actions to ensure that the specific objectives of SFM for Galicia are being achieved.

District Management Sub-Process Forest District Management Plans (FDMPs) are intended to bridge the gap between the PFG and the management plans and actions of Forest Management Units (FMUs). A Forest District in Galicia is a territory of relatively homogenous geographical, socioeconomic, ecological and cultural conditions. According to the most recent draft Plan Forestal de España, this is the level in the management hierarchy where it is most appropriate to accommodate strategic social and economic development objectives defined by local communities and group and also consider landscape-level environmental constraints and objectives that require planning across forest ownership boundaries.

Forest Management Unit Sub-Process Since most individual forests in Galicia are privately owned, the government does not have direct control of the forest management undertaken in them. This is particularly true of the very small ownerships that comprise almost 70% of Galician forests, where forest management (if there is any) is up to the individual owner. Even in the 30% of private forests owned by communities and managed by government foresters, community objectives may be at odds with those of the region or district. However, the government is not without tools to influence the management of private forests. The government controls subsidies for management activities and has the right to regulate some forest activities such as harvesting. Furthermore, the government is seen as the sole organization capable of implementing a management infrastructure (the planning and control mechanisms and Best Management Practice or BMP Codes) required for regional forest certification, which is seen as the most viable approach to certification given ownership patterns.
In the absence of clear regional and district plans, it has been difficult for the government to justify the use of such tools in any focused manner, and advancing credible forest certification is seen as difficult. With regional and district forest management guidelines and plans in place, the government will be able to give priority for subsidies and harvest approvals to forest owners who follow the district (and, thereby, regional) plans. As well, the implementation of the planning, monitoring and control systems envisioned in the new SFM process will facilitate the certification of even small forest ownerships, as long as they are managed in a way that conforms to the local FDMP and BMPs.

Management Integration Processes The application of hierarchical forest management requires that problems be decomposed and the various elements handled at the appropriate level of the management hierarchy. However, since it is usually impossible to solve all parts of the problem simultaneously, it is necessary to use an iterative approach to planning and control. This means that, although higher levels of the hierarchy give direction to (or constrain) the lower-level management processes, the lower-level processes should provide feedback to the upper levels so that the plans and decisions at higher levels can be refined and improved. Depending upon the complexity and importance of the problem and the time involved and available, several iterations of this process might occur. In the case of the proposed SFM process for Galicia, the main steps of this iterative approach are expected to be:


1) A draft regional plan (a real plan, not just a wish list) is developed by the regional DXMIF technical staff based upon the declaration of principles, state of the forest, knowledge of forest processes, forecasts of forest products markets and other economic data and forecasts. The draft plan will be generally aspatial (except for specific constraints related to such things as the preservation or enhancement of special areas of ecological or cultural value) and long-term, and will require special modeling and forecasting tools.

2) This rough first version of the plan is passed down to districts as (generally) aspatial guidelines and constraints to Forest District planners. It might indicate, for example, district targets related to reforestation, wildlife habitat, timber production, production of non-timber products over a long time horizon.

3) Initial district objectives and constraints are defined by the District Committees by way of the Declaration of Local Objectives of Sustainable Forestry through, but in conjunction with provincial and Forest District staff that will be able to provide data, information and guidance to ensure that regional guidelines are properly interpreted and that objectives are realistic given the geophysical and cultural characteristics of the district.

4) The provincial technical staff will develop a long-term, strategic, generally aspatial, multi-objective forest management plan for the entire district as if all of these forests were being managed by the forest service. Again, forecasting and modeling tools will be required that use knowledge and information concerning forests and economic and social factors in the district. These district plans must also take into account the expected probabilities of success in convincing forest owners to follow the district plan. While it is recognized that there is no assurance that individual forest owners will follow the plan, it should be possible to model the probability of compliance for given levels of incentives and regulation. It should be recognized that the process of objective setting and plan development will itself be iterative, since it is certain that the planning process will uncover problems or opportunities that require modification of the initial objectives and constraints. The goal is to produce a district plan indicating actions to be undertaken, results expected and resources (and policies) required for implementation. The district plan will also describe the actions and investments promised by other "co-responsible" parties involved in implementation, such as a community that promises to find investment for a value-added plant to process a certain kind of product that is or will be available from the forest.

5) Once a district plan that is acceptable to the entire district (and provincial staff) has been developed, it will be passed back up to the regional staff for evaluation and possible approval. The evaluation process will involve ensuring that the guidelines have been followed, the regional objectives have been met, and the resources (and policies) required by the district are appropriate. For example, although each individual district plan could be reasonable, the budget requirements of all the districts together might not be able to be satisfied. It will be up to the regional staff to use their own information and models, along with the information from the districts, to produce a rational distribution of resources. Thus, budget rationing may require that some district plans be revised, taking into account the budgetary constraints for that district. It is also certain that information from district plans will prompt revisions of the regional plan.

6) Once final versions of the district plans have been completed and approved, these can be used to produce a final version of the Plan Forestal de Galicia since most of the actions, results and resource requirements necessary to carry out the regional plan are in the district plans.

7) During the period of implementation of the regional and district plans, it will be necessary to monitor the actions and results in individual FMUs to ensure that the plans are being followed and that the results are as expected. Besides acting as a control mechanism, the monitoring processes will help to provide the data and information necessary for subsequent iterations of the planning cycle. Such a monitoring system, if properly designed, could also support regional forest certification for any forest owner who follows the district plans (and BMPs).

In order to implement the proposed SFM process for Galicia will require much greater availability of reliable data and information for planning, and much better monitoring systems than now exist. The following section of this paper gives a brief description of the IT infrastructure envisaged for the planning and control functions of the process.

Data and Information Infrastructure

A great deal of time and effort has gone into the design and documentation of the information systems and data structures required to support the new SFM strategy and process. For the purposes of this paper, these are summarized as:

• Network of Environmental Information (RIMAX, in Galician): RIMAX will supply basic spatial and attribute forestry data to be used by all levels of management and, eventually, the public. Based upon such concepts as Open GIS (promoted by the international Open GIS Consortium) and web-enabled designs, it will foster standardized gathering and storage of data required for planning and control of forest management, as well as for the development and evaluation of forest policies and programs.
• Integrated Forest Management System (IFMS): An integrated system of management tools will be required to ensure that plans at all levels of the management hierarchy are consistent, that actions and outcomes are monitored and controlled, and that decisions are justified and documented. These will consist of planning decision support systems (including forest modeling and forecasting tools to enable sensitivity and trade-off analysis) and monitoring and control tools that ensure that plans are being followed, and that objectives are being achieved.
• Monitoring and Control Systems: Although specific monitoring and control tools will be part of IFMS, others will be required to implement the SFM Strategy. In particular, these will include systems to compare outcomes to criteria and indicators of sustainability, to support regional forest certification initiatives, and to enable reporting of results to the public and to national, EU and international agencies.

Current Status

As can be imagined, the implementation of such a great change will not be without its problems. Perhaps the greatest obstacles to be overcome are the lack of knowledge concerning such new management processes on the part of key players, the lack of information concerning the forests and other key factors, and the great difficulty in coordinating the design, development and implementation of so many interrelated programs and actions. Up to this time (November, 2002), the following initiatives have been undertaken:

• Education sessions related to SFM, forest certification and information systems for forest management have been provided to forest service personnel;
• Presentations of the proposed SFM Strategy for Galicia have been made to a large percentage of the forest sector;
• RIMAX, which provides web access to forestry spatial and attribute data to forest service staff, is now in place;
• Preliminary designs for the integrated forest management system and monitoring and control systems have been developed;
• New instructions for forest management planning have been instituted that are more consistent with the principles of SFM as outlined in the Strategy;
• New guidelines for the submission of standardized forest management plan data (consistent with criteria and indicators of sustainability in the EU) have been developed and put in place.

Other initiatives that are expected to be initiated in the near future include the establishment of district-level planning pilot projects, the formation of district committees and the establishment of the Galician Council for Sustainable Forestry.

References

Anonymous, 2001. "O Monte Galego En Cifras". Dirección Xeral de Montes e Industrias Forestais, Consellería de Medio Ambiente, Xunta de Galicia.

Hax, A.C. and D. Candea. 1984. Production and Inventory Management, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 513 pp.

Gallis, C., and E.W. Robak. 1997. "The Proposed Design for an Integrated Forest Management System for Greek Forestry", Proceedings of the IUFRO 3.04 conference on Planning and Control of Forest Operations for Sustainable Forest Management, Madrid. ETSI de Montes. Fundación Conde del Valle de Salazar. P. 213.

Robak, E.W. 1996. " IFMS Designs for North American Forest Product Companies", Proceedings of Planning and Implementing Forest Operations to Achieve Sustainable Forests, Joint Meeting of COFE/IUFRO, Marquette, Michigan (August, 1996). USDA General Technical Report NC-186.

Weintraub, A. and L. S. Davis. 1996. "Hierarchical planning in forest resource management: Defining the dimensions of the subject area", Hierarchical Approaches to Forest Management in public and private organizations. Petawawa National Forestry Institute Information Report PI-X-124: Canadian Forest Service. Edited by Martell, D., Davis, L.S, Weintraub, A.

¹ Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, University of New Brunswick, BSN 44555, Fredericton, NB, E3B 6C2, Canada. [email protected]; Website: www.unb.ca

² Galicia is divided into 19 Forest Districts that have common physical, biological, economic and social characteristics. It can be argued that it is only at the level of the Forest District that it is possible to manage for critical landscape, territorial and community objectives and constraints.