More fodder for the oven? Dealing with forest-related conflicts arising from the production and use of energy wood in Europe

Results from the COOL project201

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

Decision support framework for evaluating the operational environment of forest bioenergy production and use: Case of four European countries

201

How Do Stakeholders Working on the Forest-Water Nexus Perceive Payments for Ecosystem Services?

Nowadays, great emphasis is placed on the relationship between forest and water because forests are considered as substantial sources of many water ecosystem services. The aim of this paper is to analyze the stakeholder opinions towards the relationship between forests and water and the potential development of water-related payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes. The study is developed in the context of COST Action CA15206-PESFOR-W (Forests for Water) aimed at synthesizing current knowledge about the PES schemes across Europe. The stakeholder opinions were mapped out using a structured questionnaire consisting of 20 questions divided into four thematic sections. The data were collected through an online survey. The results showed opinions of 142 stakeholders from 23 countries, mainly from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. In order to analyze the collected data, the stakeholders were grouped in buyers, sellers, intermediaries, and knowledge providers. The survey results indicated that the most important category of water ecosystem services according to our sample of stakeholders is regulating services followed by provisioning services. Further findings pointed out the highest importance that shared values and direct changes in land management can have when designing water-related PES schemes. The role of public authorities and collective collaboration of different stakeholders, with emphasis on local and expert knowledge, are also identified as of crucial importance. The results show that stakeholder opinions can serve as a starting point when designing PES schemes