A property rights-based analysis of the illegal logging for fuelwood in Kosovo

The increased demand for fuelwood may have the side-effect of unsustainable use of forest resource. The case of Kosovo fuelwood production is of a peculiar relevance to studying the drivers of the unsustainable patterns of forest biomass use in a post-war and poor economic context. The domestic market demand for fuelwood in Kosovo is estimated at more than 1.5 hm3, while the legal supply, including imports, is slightly higher than 0.3 hm3. Illegal logging for satisfying Kosovo population fuelwood needs is therefore widespread. The annual illegal fuelwood harvesting represents a market of up to 21.6 million euro and is done mostly by well organised groups of individuals, with market-oriented behaviour, acting rather in State than in private forests. After identifying the drivers of illegal logging for fuelwood, the paper provides an analysis of fuelwood extraction in relation with property rights distribution, structured along two lines: a) which was the evolution of the management and exclusion rights over the forest resource during the latest decades; b) which are the current enforcement mechanisms of the property rights and how are they performing. The paper describes a decades-long history of mismatching economic property rights arrangements. Thus, the dispute between the central agency and municipalities in performing exclusion rights on timber extraction definitely weakened the Kosovo system of law enforcement. Currently, the enforcement mechanism proved to be unhelpful in controlling illegal logging. As result, most of the Kosovo fuelwood production is based on an de facto open-access regime.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Two decades of forest-related legislation changes in European countries analysed from a property rights perspective

The study was conducted in the framework of the FP1201 FACESMAP COST Action (Forest Land Ownership Change in Europe: Significance for Management and Policy) which is supported by the EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020. BJT acknowledges the support of the Danish National Research Foundation for the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (DNRF96). MH and VJ were supported by NAZV (QK1820041) and grant EVA4.0, No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000803 financed by OPRDE. ZS and ZD have been supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract no. APVV-15-0715. JN and DN were supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. SPM was financed by the Research Programs P4 – 0059 of the Slovenian Research Agency. DF acknowledges to Rosario Alves (FORESTIS). SKO acknowledges the Croatian Union of Private Forest Owners' Associations. TS acknowledges Mr. Oikonomou, president of the Greek Private Owners' Association. Open Access for this article was provided by the Estonian University of Life Sciences; Forest Research Institute (IBL, Poland); Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research; Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; University of Copenhagen; University of Eastern Finland; University of Ljubljana; and University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Governance of private forests in Eastern and Central Europe: An analysis of forest harvesting and management rights

A property rights-based approach is proposed in the paper to underlinethe common characteristics of the forest property rights specificationin ten ECE countries, the specific patterns governing the harvesting of timber in private forestry and the role of the forest management planning in determining the content of the property rights. The analysis deals with the private forests of the individuals (non industrial ownership) from ten countries, covering 7.3 million ha and producing yearly some 25 million timber. The study shows that the forest management rights in private forests belong to the State and that the withdrawal rights on timber, yet recognized in the forest management plans, are in reality strongly restricted from aneconomic viewpoint. The forest management planning is the key instrument of the current forest governance system, based on top-down, hierarchically imposed and enforced set of compulsory rules on timber harvesting. With few exceptions, the forest owners’ have little influence in the forest planning and harvesting. The rational and State-lead approach of the private forest management has serious implications not only on the economic content of the property rights, but also on the learning and adaptive capacity of private forestry to cope with current challenges such the climate change, the increased industry needs for wood as raw material, or the marketingof innovative non wood forest products and services. The study highlights that understanding and comparing the regime of the forest ownership require a special analysis of the economic rights attached to each forest attribute; and that the evolution towards more participatory decision-making in the local forest governance can not be accurately assessed in ECE region without a proper understanding of the forest management planning process

Two decades of forest-related legislation changes in European countries analysed from a property rights perspective

In the last two decades, attention on forests and ownership rights has increased in different domains of international policy, particularly in relation to achieving the global sustainable development goals. This paper looks at the changes in forest-specific legislation applicable to regular productive forests, across 28 European countries. We compare the legal framework applicable in the mid-1990s with that applicable in 2015, using the Property Rights Index in Forestry (PRIF) to measure changes across time and space. The paper shows that forest owners in most western European countries already had high decision-making power in the mid-1990s, following deregulation trends from the 1980s; and for the next two decades, distribution of rights remained largely stable. For these countries, the content and direction of changes indicate that the main pressure on forest-focused legislation comes from environmental discourses (e.g. biodiversity and climate change policies). In contrast, former socialist countries in the mid-1990s gave lower decision-making powers to forest owners than in any of the Western Europe countries; over the next 20 years these show remarkable changes in management, exclusion and withdrawal rights. As a result of these changes, there is no longer a clear line between western and former socialist countries with respect to the national governance systems used to address private forest ownership. Nevertheless, with the exception of Baltic countries which have moved towards the western forest governance system, most of the former socialist countries still maintain a state-centred approach in private forest management. Overall, most of the changes we identified in the last two decades across Europe were recorded in the categories of management rights and exclusion rights. These changes reflect the general trend in European forest policies to expand and reinforce the landowners' individual rights, while preserving minimal rights for other categories of forest users; and to promote the use of financial instruments when targeting policy goals related to the environmental discourse

Forest owners' attitudes towards the implementation of multi-functional forest management principles in the district of Suceava, Romania

The paper explores the importance of formal and informal institutionsin setting attitudes of private owners in respect to responsible forest management. Using a qualitative approach, in form of a case study at the level of Suceava County, the study identifies intrinsic values assigned to the forestland leading to attitudes and motivations in the use of the forest resource. The interviewed forest owners have identified the regulatory framework as highly restrictive having as a result various patterns of behaviours from strict compliance with the rules to illegal activities. Several patternsof self-reported attitudes are discussed in respect to relevant forestowners' typologies and lead to deduced hypotheses about the attitudes and behaviour of Romanian forest owners towards multi-funcionality. The study concludes that, an assessment of the identified patterns at a larger scale are needed as to adapt the financial, regulatory and informational instruments to the diversity of attitudes in respect to multi-functional forest management in small scale forestry

Evaluarea eficienţei economice a comercializării masei lemnoase prin contracte pe termen lung, cu o aplicaţie la fag [ Evaluation of economic efficiency of marketing timber by long-term contracts, with an application to beech]

In Romania long term contracts for the selling of timber from public forests have been implemented in 2002 for a period of 10 years as a support for investments in wood processing companies. Currently there is a public debate about their efficiency considering their impact on the concentration of timber demand in the hands of the companies which have accessed such contracts. In this context the paper analysis the economic efficiency of the implementation of long term contracts in the Forest Department Suceava considering the transactions of a processing company specialized on beech timber. Methodologically the paper uses two sets of data: 167 stands sold based on long-term contracts in the period 2009-2013 and 1725 stands sold in public actions from 2009 to 2011. The second set of data has been used for a regression analysis as to identify the relation between the stumpage prices obtain in public auctions and the stand characteristics seen as explanatory variables. The resulted regression model was employed to predict the stumpage value for those stands sold via long-term contracts in the scenario they have been sold by public auction. The results show that for the analysed period the prices obtained from long-term contracts have been 32% higher compared with the prices from public auction. Nevertheless the results are interpreted in the particular context provided by the limited competition on the beech market and the decrease of the timber prices brought by the 2009 financial crises. The findings have policy implications for the future development and use of long-term contracts

Analiza rolului serviciilor ecosistemice ale pădurii în strategia de marketing turistic a regiunii Bucovina [The role of forest ecosystem services in the tourism marketing strategy of region Bucovina]

The paper provides an analysis of the use of ecosystem services in the marketing strategies of accommodation facilities and tourism agencies promoting nature based tourism in Bucovina region. The territorial marketing of goods and services provided by forests is a marketing tool which links the local natural and cultural resources to a specific territory. Bucovina region is well known for its cultural world heritages, the painted monasteries, but are also tourism attraction of the region natural landscapes and the traditional gastronomic products. The study uses a qualitative analysis based on two online marketing surveys which have targeted 214 managers of accommodation facilities and 95 tourism agencies. Given the reduced rate of responses, the results of the study are interpreted from an exploratory perspective resulting in hypotheses which have to be further validated. The study indentifies that for the majority of the respondents the nature based tourism is perceived as a complementary form of tourism to the classical cultural one, even though its promotion potential is identified as very high. The natural “portfolio” of Bucovina region is not promoted using an integrated strategy, but rather as individual cases. The study also derives as a research hypothesis the fact that the visible degradation of the forest landscapes is likely to negatively impact the promotion of Bucovina as an eco-region

Abordarea serviciilor ecosistemice în certificarea forestieră FSC: studiu de caz pentru pădurile cu valoare ridicată de conservare din ocoale silvice de regim

Articolul prezintă o analiză a importanței procesului de certificare forestieră în identificarea și gestionarea serviciilor ecosistemice furnizate de Pădurile cu Valoare Ridicată de Conservare (PVRC). Datele au fost colectate din 13 rapoarte PVRC disponibile publicului larg care acoperă o suprafață totală de pădure de 117.507 ha. Procesul de identificare a PVRC a presupus cartarea a 28.882 ha de pădure care furnizează valori de conservare. Analiza datelor calitative ale rapoartelor s-a axat pe sursele de date folosite în procesul de identificare a PVRC, grupate în cinci categorii: (i) amenajamente silvice; (ii) planuri de management ale ariilor naturale protejate; (iii) alte surse de date disponibile; (iv) consultări publice cu factorii interesați și (v) implicarea personalului silvic. Rezultate au arătat că 80% din zonele identificate ca PVRC provin din informațiile obținute din amenajamentele silvice. Acestea fac referire la serviciile ecosistemice de reglare (protecția apelor, eroziunea solului și calitatea aerului) și la pădurile încadrate în zona de protecție strictă a ariilor naturale protejate. Procesul de identificare PVRC ajută la armonizarea între planurile de management Natura 2000 și amenajamentele silvice, în special, prin cartarea prezenței speciilor rare și amenințate și a habitatelor. O valoare adăugată de procesul PVRC este identificarea serviciilor culturale prin consultări publice cu factorii interesați și implicarea personalului de teren. Serviciile adiționale identificate în procesul de certificare oferă exemple pentru măsuri financiare prin care statul ar putea să recompenseze proprietarii de păduri pentru furnizarea de servicii ecosistemice peste limita cerută legal de amenajamente. În concluzie, analiza subliniază faptul ca amenajarea pădurilor oferă un cadru riguros de identificare a serviciilor ecosistemice forestiere, certificarea forestieră adăugând însă cerințe suplimentare de gestionare și de monitorizare a gradului de furnizarea a serviciilor ecosistemice