Analysis of Financial Support for Forestry in the Czech Republic from the Perspective of Forest Bioeconomy

Abstract

The bioeconomy, as a new phenomenon using renewable resources, significantly affects the forestry sector in many countries. Individual countries have implemented forest policies by financially supporting forestry in different ways and for different reasons. The nature and targeting of this support vary from country to country. In a simplified way, it is possible to divide them into two categories: production support and environmental protection support (e.g., to ensure sustainable development). The aim of this article is to analyse the substantive focus of forestry subsidies from national sources in the Czech Republic and, subsequently, compare them with the Czech focus of a forest bioeconomy (FBE). The objective of this analysis is to analyse the financial support provided by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic (MoA) between 2018 and 2021. As the Czech Republic’s FBE is not clearly defined, it was analysed and described with the help of the relevant national strategic and political documents. Subsequently, the obtained results were compared with each other to see if the financial subsidies were in line with the Czech FBE. The focus of the subsidies in the years under review is influenced by the situation in Czech forestry, which has faced a severe bark beetle outbreak, causing the financial sources provided to forest owners to increase significantly due to the bark beetle outbreak, which has affected the whole forest sector. The results show that some types of support are provided in accordance with FBE, while others are not. The general conclusions are that the financial support for forestry does not fully represent the Czech FBE.