The extent to which government policies and legislation impact on forestry plantations will relate both to the greater goals of government, and to the particular circumstances in that country.
The goals of governments can be broadly classified into three broad domains - the economic, the social and the environmental (Buck 1995, Ruitenbeek and Cartier 1998) which broadly relate to policy instruments of market modifiers, institutions and laws (Buck 1995). These goals are linked such that a policy pertaining to, say, social equity may affect sustainability of economic efficiency either positively or adversely (Ruitenbeek and Cartier 1998).
For the plantation policy making environment, additional complications are that:
In essence, forests have multiple uses and multiple users (D’Silva et al. 1994). The interrelated environmental, social and economic domains also highlight the need to consider policies in parallel (Klooster 1999) with some understanding of the linkages and potential distortions that can result. Identical policy and legislative frameworks in countries with different environmental, social and economic advantages will achieve very different results.
Government policies affecting forestry plantations may direct or through some indirect effect from outside the forestry sector (Ruitenbeek & Cartier 1998), which may be unintended, or even undesirable. Conversely, government decisions directly relating to plantations may have unintended effects outside those intended, depending on other variables particular to a given situation.
This analysis of the impact of forestry policies and legislation on forestry plantations is not, therefore, likely to provide a set of universal principles for how particular governments can influence plantation development, with the possible exception of issues relating to land tenure and forest management institutions. The aim is to identify the possible policy options that can affect plantation forestry, and to discuss alternative outcomes and the wider context influencing the outcome.
