National Forest Policy Research Articles

Governing Sustainable Forest Management Issues in Polycentric Governance

This article provides the overall view of the international regulatory context for good forest governance (GFG) and sustainable forest management (SFM). It starts by giving a brief overview of the international forestry regime, trade agreements, the Rio conventions, and forestry principles. Subsequently, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) tools for forest assessment and the World Bank Forestry Strategy are discussed. Further, timelines for various regional and international Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for SFM and trade in forest products are highlighted. Finally the leading international voluntary programmes for forest certification are described. From this review, it is clear there is a gap in the international forestry regime, there is an urgent need for an international legally binding forest convention which will guide Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) programmes at the local, national, regional and international/global scale. Here, we argue that FLEGT can catalyse these fragmented elements of an international regime as the EU FLEGT action plan provides a framework to catalyse all dedicated and cross-cutting issue instruments in national forest policy.

A qualitative and quantitative analysis of Turkish forest policy documents in the rural development scope

ABSTRACT: The interaction between forest resources and forest villagers has made rural development a privileged component of Turkish forest policy. In this context the main aim of the study was to investigate the framing of rural development issues in national forest policy by using content analysis method. The economic aspect is the most prominent dimension regarding rural development in the context of national forest policy, environmental and socio-cultural factors follow it respectively. Also, the main approach depends on supporting the forest villagers and its development is seen as an essential tool to protect the forest resources.

Development of Economic Forest Plantation Management in Thailand

Economic Forest as a forest plantation in private land is the target area of the government forest policy to increase forest area. Such target not only increase forest area, but also timber consumption within the country and export. Consequently, the Royal Thai Government (RTG) by Royal Forest Department (RFD) have to encourage the private companies, individual farmers and other sectors participate in increasing economic forest plantation area. At the same time, the government sector, needs to develop the economic forest plantation management, namely; improve the law due to the problem of verifying the timber source as forest plantation or natural forest for confident of the rights and benefits of the forest plantation, support of economic forest plantation is still in operate concurrently with improve the process of regulations and technology for service to facilitate the several stakeholders according to levels of production, and the RFD have projects to promote an individual farmer to plant forest plantation by supporting subsidy and conditioned planting long rotation trees and planting short rotation trees which are worthwhile investment and give high benefit. Nevertheless, in terms of the government management had taken the growing timber demand into account by combining with sustainable management of natural forests and development of efficient production from forest plantations in order to increase forest area according to the National Forest Policy.

Critical Observations on National CAMPA Bill, 2016

According to the India State of Forests Report 2015, forest cover comprises 21.34% of India's total geographical area. This is significantly less than the 33% forest and tree cover envisaged under the National Forest Policy 1988 (ref. 2). In addition to providing vital ecosystem services, these forests support the livelihoods of people in nearly 173,000 'forest fringe villages'. Industrial and developmental projects in these forest areas, such as building of dams, mining and construction of roads, may have environmental impacts, including threats to the long-term sustenance of forest cover.

Impacts of Finnish cooperation in the Mexican policy making process: From the community forest management to the liberalization of forest services

The aim of this paper is highlight how Mexican-Finnish forestry cooperation (1982–1994) supported major shifts in Mexican national forest policy, by identifying the policy changes and relating these to the strategy taken by the cooperation program. We based our analyses in two proposals: four pathways of influence as well as context-specific impact study. The methodology was carried out through a context-specific impact study; it consisted of describing changes in Mexican society and the history of the forest policy with the aim of understand the contribution of the Finnish-Mexican cooperation. The information was collected following 3 steps: 1) collecting historical data in Mexico and from the archive of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland; 2) interviews with Finnish and Mexican forestry experts involved in the cooperation interventions and 3) validating by contrasting sources. In conclusion, we found that Finnish cooperation had direct effects on Mexican forestry policy in terms of helping the incorporation of CFM in national forestry planning. At the same time, the cooperation program went deeper and shaped wider objectives, mainly through training and the mutual learning of Mexican and Finnish participants.

Potential of agroforestry systems in carbon sequestration in India

Various institutions are working for lowering the CO2 concentration through different strategies like reduction in energy use, developing low or no-carbon fuel technologies, CO2 sequestration by forestry/agroforestry and engineering techniques. Among all the techniques, agroforestry was recognized as one of the important means to reduce CO2 emissions as well as enhancing carbon sinks. Agroforestry provides unique opportunity to combine the twin objectives of climate change adaptation and mitigation. In India, area under agroforestry was estimated at 25.3 m ha, which can further be increased up to a considerable level. Recent studies under various agroforestry systems in diverse ecological conditions emphasized that agroforestry systems increase and store carbon stocks in above ground biomass and in soil and also has an important role in increasing livelihood security and reducing vulnerability to climate change. In India carbon sequestration potential of agroforestry systems is estimated between 0.25 - 76.55 and 0.01 to 0.60 Mg C/ha/yr for tree and crop component, respectively. The contribution of agroforestry in soil carbon sequestration varied between 0.003 to 3.98 Mg C/ha/yr. The total C sequestered in each component differs greatly depending on region, types of -species, -system, -site quality, and previous land-use. The review indicates that agroforestry systems in addition to accumulate and sequester carbon, provide an excellent opportunity to increase the tree cover to a level of 33% of the total geographical area of the country as desired by the National Forest Policy.

Short Communication. Resin tapping activity as a contribution to the management of maritime pine forest

Aim of the study: In this work potential resin yield in a region of high forest ability where maritime pine is the main species was estimated in order to understand the viability of promoting resin exploitation.Area of study: This study was conducted in Castro Daire County in central region of Portugal.Material and methods: To quantify the resin yield of trees tapped for the first time two plots were installed in a maritime pine stand with average tree age 65 years. Before the beginning of the resin tapping, dendrometric tree variables were measured. Also, in a neighbouring stand, 25 trees were selected to check the relation between tree dbh and resin yield. Gum resin from every tree was weighted during the season. Estimates of potential resin yield in Castro Daire County were made based on data from National Forest Inventory plots, resin tapping legislation and resin yield values obtained in the field. Two scenarios were considered: high and low resin yield. To understand the intentions of forest owners towards restarting resin tapping activity 16 maritime pine forest owners were interviewed.Main results: The results point out a high yield potential capacity for gum resin production in the County: values between 2,025 and 5,873 tons were obtained.Research highlights: Results may highlight the important socio-economical role of the resin tapping activity and can be used to support national forest policies to the resin sector and give forest owners motivation to reactivate resin tapping activity.Keywords: non-wood forest product; resin yield potential; forest owner.

Impact of forest policies on timber production in India: a review

Until the 20th century, forest policies across the globe focused primarily on effective forest utilization for timber production. Subsequent loss of forest land prompted many countries to review and amend such policies, in an attempt to incorporate the principles of conservation and sustainable forest management. One of the countries to implement such changes was India, which introduced new policies, acts and programmes to regulate forest conversion and degradation, beginning in the 1980s. These policies, acts, and programmes included the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, the National Forest Policy of 1988 and the Hon. Supreme Court Order of 1996. All of these regulations affected the timber supply from government forest areas, and created a huge gap in timber supply and demand. Currently, this deficit is met through imports and trees outside forests (TOFs). Timber production from government forest areas is abysmally low (3.35% of total demand) compared to potential timber production from TOFs, which fulfil 45% of the total timber demand in India. This implies that TOFs have immense potential in meeting the growing timber demand; however, they have not been fully utilized due to discrepancies in state level TOFs’ policies. The present paper provides a review of different forest policies, acts and guidelines in relation to timber production in India, and provides specific recommendations in order to maximize timber production in the context of increasing demand for timber products.

Forest governance and sustainability pathways in the absence of a comprehensive national forest policy — The case of New Zealand

A ‘pathways’ and ‘framings’ approach derived from Leach et al. (2010) is used to examine forest sustainability policy in New Zealand. The country has had no comprehensive forest policy since the 1990s and indeed no longer a forest service or its equivalent. Instead ‘forest’ preservation, policy, and monitoring functions are carried out by the Department of Conservation, Ministry of Primary Industry and Ministry of Environment. Exotic plantation forests have themselves been sold off to the private sector and some aspects of planting and harvesting are regulated by the Resource Management Act. Even in this Neo-Liberal setting, and similar to Leach et al.'s work in completely different contexts, policy responses have tended to be oriented towards ‘stability’ and ‘resilience’ types of forest sustainability. Three forest sustainability pathways are evident, directed towards preservation of indigenous biodiversity, economic development without adverse environmental impacts, and monitoring of environmental quality. In some ways the current ‘New Zealand forest governance model’ is an improvement on its predecessor but it seems unlikely to be mobile in a policy sense, resting as it does on the existence a relatively large area of indigenous forest and a large exotic plantation resource where the latter provides all timber needs.

Financial and economic mechanism of national forest policy implementation

Approaches to understanding the essence of the notion of 'forest policy' are systematized. The contents of the state policy is covered from the view point of forest exploitation, control, protection and reproduction in the Russian Federation on the basis of concept, principles, strategic and tactical purposes of forest management. The features of the financial and economic mechanism are revealed in the field of forest relations under the conditions of federal property on forest plots in the structure of forestry fund lands and private-entrepreneurial form of forest exploitation. A fundamental law of forest exploitation in Russia is rent of forest plots, therefore the financial and economic mechanism of national forest policy implementation should be based on coordination of interests of the state (the proprietor of forest fund), business (in forest exploitation) and the population living on forested territories or near the forests. The conceptual scheme of financial and economic mechanism in the field of forest exploitation, control, protection and reproduction is developed. Such instruments of forest policy as forest planning, price system in the forest sector of economic activity, subventions on the execution of powers transferred to subjects of the Russian Federation in the field of forest relations, subsidies for a state (municipal) establishment to perform the state task services in the sphere of natural resources reproduction and exploitation are considered. The basic trends of the state industrial and national forest policies aimed at the development of the forest sector of the economics of Russia are generalized.

群落演替对夏蜡梅种群分布和数量的影响

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 群落演替对夏蜡梅种群分布和数量的影响 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201405221054 作者: 作者单位: 浙江农林大学 风景园林与建筑学院,浙江农林大学 风景园林与建筑学院,浙江农林大学 风景园林与建筑学院,浙江农林大学园林学院,浙江农林大学 风景园林与建筑学院;浙江农林大学亚热带森林培育国家重点实验室培育基地 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金项目(31101571, 31401902); 浙江省重大科技专项项目(2012C12909-9, 2012C12909-19) Effects of community succession on population distribution and size of Sinocalycanthus chinensis(Cheng et S.Y. Chang) Cheng et S.Y. Chang Author: Affiliation: School of Landscape Architecture, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University,,,,School of Landscape Architecture, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:对夏蜡梅(Sinocalycanthus chinensis (Cheng et S.Y. Chang) Cheng et S.Y. Chang)所有分布地(浙江临安、天台和安徽绩溪)进行了详细调查,分析夏蜡梅种群面积、密度、结构和群落特征等,并与前人调查结果对比,阐明群落演替对夏蜡梅种群的影响。10余年来,由于国家相关政策的实施(退耕还林、天然林保护以及自然保护区的建立等)以及夏蜡梅分布地林地经营模式的改变,不同夏蜡梅群落呈现发展演替的不同状态,从而对夏蜡梅种群产生了显著影响。从群落类型来看,较为稳定的种群为大明山、西坑、白水坞、捣臼孔种群,种群结构为增长型或稳定型,群落处于乔木或顶级乔木阶段,原生植被保存较好,生境相对稳定,各物种在长期竞争中趋于稳定;直源种群为严重衰退的种群,群落经历了从灌丛阶段向灌乔阶段演化,原来同层次的常绿乔木逐渐形成密集的乔木层,郁闭度高,造成夏蜡梅生长不良甚至死亡,幼苗缺少或数量少,更新困难,此区域的夏蜡梅呈逐渐退化消亡趋势;而溪古坪、龙塘山种群所处群落正是属于这种群落演替的早期阶段,处于衰退过程中种群,不加人工干预也会逐渐退化;而双石边、经过坪等种群虽目前数量多,分布集中,更新良好,但变数最大,一旦人工干扰加剧或消除,则种群结构将快速发生变化,走向消亡的几率极大。该研究结果可为夏蜡梅保护提供科学依据。 Abstract:We aimed to evaluate the effects changes in national forest policy and woodland management regulations on community succession, and population size, density and structure of Sinocalycanthus chinensis (Cheng et S.Y. Chang) Cheng et S.Y. Chang. Population structure and community characteristics were recorded over the whole distribution of the species and compared with previous studies. Due to the implementation of new national forestry policies (Grain for Green, Natural Forest Conservation, the establishment of nature reserves, etc.), as well as changes in woodland management in the past two decades, S. chinensis communities vary in their state of succession. These differences among communities have significant effects on the maintenance and development of natural populations of S. chinensis. Populations DMS (Daming Shan), XK (Xikeng), BSW (Baishui Wu), and DJK (Daojiu Kou) are relatively stable in terms of age composition and habitat. These communities have been at the tree stage or climax stage for a long time and are relatively stable, having achieved a balance in interspecific competition. Population ZY (Ziyuan) appears to be in serious decline. This community has undergone succession from shrub stage to shrub-tree stage and growth of evergreen trees, which previously belonged to the same shrub layer as S. chinensis, gradually resulted in formation of a canopy that limits growth and reproduction of S. chinensis, even causing death of some individuals. In this region, S. chinensis populations will gradually decline and eventually become locally extinct. LTS (Longtang Shan) and XGP (Xigu Ping) populations are located in communities at the early tree stage of community succession, and these populations are at risk of extinction due to the gradual disappearance of suitable habitat. Although SSB (Shuangshibian) and JGP (Jingguo Ping) populations are compose of abundant, densely distributed individuals and are reproducing well, they are most sensitive to human disturbance. If human disturbances increase, the structure of these populations will change dramatically and they face significant risk of extinction. As is the case with many other species with the specialized habitat requirements, community succession has a large influence on the fate of populations. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Obituary

Dr Geoffrey (Geoff) Lee Miller, AO, FAICD, MAIAS, was born 26 January 1942, in Grafton, and died on 10 October 2014 in Bellingen, NSW. He lived his too short life to the full and well. It is said, that when a boy his interest in raising bantams and growing lettuce convinced his father to send him to Farrer Agricultural High School in Tamworth. Geoff was to go on to be awarded First Class Honours in a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics degree from the University of New England, Armidale. He was later awarded an MA and a PhD in Applied Economics from the Food Research Institute, Stanford University, USA. He had a powerful mind and a persuasive manner. During his life in the Australian Public Service (APS) Geoff was a member of ten government boards, councils and task forces, such as the Australian Wheat Board, the Australian Wool Corporation and the Cabinet's Task Force on Long Term Economic Growth. His professional expertise was in the field of applied industry economics, which had been reflected in his academic studies and achievements. His career highlights were many, including Director of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), 1977–1981; Director of the Economic Planning Advisory Council, 1983-86; Secretary of Department of Primary Industry, 1986–87 and Secretary of the Department of Primary Industries and Energy 1988–93. He was named Man of the Year in Australian Agriculture in 1978. Over his career Geoff was responsible for an enormous amount of agricultural reform and restructuring. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s all Commonwealth agricultural commodity statutory marketing authorities were reformed, (including two wheat plans), as were agricultural research and development arrangements and expenditure by way of corporatisation, to put them on a more secure funding basis. Major policy changes were carried out in meat, dairy, wool and horticultural policy. The National Disaster Relief Arrangements for drought were changed and the Rural Adjustment Scheme was adapted to meet the farm adjustment needs of the day. Accent was placed on fisheries management, Australia wide, following the signing of the Offshore Constitutional Settlement, prior to the formation of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. More attention was paid to the social dimension of rural as well as agricultural Australia, including the establishment of the Rural Counselling Service, the funding of Rural Women's Access Grants and Farmsafe. The importance of trade reform was highlighted under Geoff's leadership, as was the need to adapt to the needs of the customers of Australia's commodity exports. Other institutional change included the establishment of the Bureau of Rural Resources and the Australian Registration Authority (now AVPMA) for the registration of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. Also, Plant Variety Rights were introduced. The portfolio was active in fisheries, land water and forest management with the introduction of a National Soil Conservation Programme, (followed by Landcare), a National Forest Policy, the National Resource Information Centre and early progress on water reforms. On retiring from the APS in 1994 Geoff Miller applied his experience and depth of understanding through a range of appointments in Australian business and statutory authorities and in international institutions. Before this he had already been a member of the Policy Advisory Council, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, 1982-83 and had chaired OECD's Committee on Commodity markets, based in Paris. In 1998-2003 he chaired the Food and Agribusiness Investment Fund of Gresham Rabo Management Ltd. He chaired the Trade and Economic Sessions of the International Forum on the Indian Ocean in 1995. He chaired the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Washington D.C., 1997–2003, probably his most prestigious international agricultural leadership role. Geoff was a warm, loving, considerate man with a great sense of humour. Geoff first married Helen, nee Elliott, in 1964, and they had three children: Astrid, Ben and Andrew. Helen passed away in 1977. Geoff and Cynthia were married in 1983 – Cynthia being the mother of Nick and Kate and who became part of the melded family.

Can community forestry contribute to household income and sustainable forestry practices in rural area? A case study from Tshapey and Zariphensum in Bhutan

Community forestry is an emerging success model of state–community partnership for forest management and poverty reduction. Bhutan's initial experience of forest management by user group is promising, but merits further study on how community forests have experienced with harvesting and income generation consistent with national forest policy. This study quantifies whether community forestry contribute to household income with equitable products and income distribution and gender inclusive participation; and community forests are managed applying the principles of sustainable harvest without compromising regeneration and productivity. We applied a combination of social and ecological methods using household interview and forest sampling plots. Our findings revealed that community forestry contributes to household income through harvesting and marketing of large trees, and non-wood forest products where markets are accessible. Household income, however, vary widely between rich and poor households with former capitalizing on commercial and latter on subsistence products. Timber harvesting is consistent with the principles of sustainable harvest without altering species composition, regeneration and productivity. To narrow income inequality, pro-poor approach to community forestry needs to target poor households with income diversification activities and market accessibility. The promising results are context-driven and warrant consolidation from other community forests experiencing harvest in Bhutan.

Sustainable Forest Management in Portugal: transition from global policies to local participatory strategies

SUMMARY This paper investigates how sustainable forest management is addressed within the legal tools and the institutional framework in Portugal, and proposes a methodology for enhancing stakeholder participation in forest management. Portuguese forest policy is dealt with at the national level, incorporating the international and European guidelines. Based on a review of relevant policy documents and legislation, three key-principles towards sustainability were identified according to the national context: the prevention and mitigation of forest resources threats; the enhancement of the full value of forests; and the promotion of stakeholder participation in forest policy-making. The analysis demonstrated that most of the principles coming from the supra-national agenda are already included in the national forest policy. Nevertheless, stakeholder participation in forest policy-making in Portugal has been very limited. This is reflected in a poor implementation of forest policies, leading to the need for...

Namibia’s National Forest Policy on Rural Development – A Case Study of Uukolonkadhi Community Forest

Abstract Forest resources still play a major role in sustaining livelihoods in rural communities, most especially in developing countries. Namibia’s community forests have much potential to combat rural poverty and contribute to rural development. Keeping the balance between the two chief objectives of the national forest policy; conservation and socio-economic development is of vital importance in combating both deforestation and rural poverty. Thus, this study primarily aimed to investigate the influence of Namibia’s national forest policy on forest resources contribution in rural development from 2009-2013. Forestry and environmental experts and local residents were interviewed. The results show that the lack of full governmental involvement in the management of community forests resources, low, erratic and irregular rainfall are the main challenges community forestry economy is facing. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis indicates that good institutional arrangement of community forestry and active community participatory are some of the pillar strengths of the community forestry programme. The study concludes that there are several research gaps such as statistical information of forest conditions and the degree of poverty within rural communities. Motivating and supporting rural community forests management in any possible manners to give a ground to alleviate rural poverty and combat deforestation is the essential next step.

Forest-based bioenergy policies in five European countries: An explorative study of interactions with national and EU policies

In this explorative study, we compare national policies affecting production and use of forest-based bioenergy in five European countries: Finland, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Spain. Our methodological approach combines horizontal and vertical policy interaction with three policy layers: policy objectives, policy instruments and thematic elements in implementation. Great variations are found in national bioenergy policies, with complex interlinkages revealed to national renewable energy and forest policies (horizontal dimension) and to EU policies (vertical dimension). Horizontally, the national bioenergy objectives are closely linked to forest policy objectives and, in Finland, also to renewable energy objectives. Policy instruments promoting bioenergy demand interact to various degrees with both renewable energy and forest policies, while supply side instruments, as well as implementation aspects, interact most closely with forest policies. Vertically, highest degree of interactions with EU polices are in this study revealed for policy objectives and instruments, less so for implementation. It is concluded that consideration of policy layers are useful for increasing the understanding of the complexity in horizontal and vertical policy interactions, and thus an important basis for understanding how to minimize conflicts and enhancing synergies among multiple forest objectives. We argue that the chosen analytical framework can enhance the understanding of complex interlinkages between bioenergy and broader policy and market developments. Identifying these complex interactions can contribute to facilitate policy developments promoting and regulating future production and use of forest-based bioenergy, while taking other forest objectives into consideration.

National forest policy between change and resistance

Over the previous decades, forest policy has been affected by social, ecological and economic changes. Traditionally forest policy is understood as addressing forest and forest management issues st...

Towards service-dominant thinking in the Finnish forestry service market

Forests offer various, sometimes contradictory utilities to their owners and all other users on the global societal and ecological levels. In Finland, meeting the industrial requirements for a stable roundwood supply has defined the forestry service market, as it has been widely supported by the forest owners, the industrial buyers, and the national forest policy. Along with the changes among the owners themselves, demand for forestry services has fragmented. Recently, by introducing the new Forest Act, which gives more freedom for forest owners to choose between management practices, Finnish government has triggered a change that aims at the creation of more market-oriented distribution of forestry services. Based on the concepts of institutional transition at the market level, service-orientation as value-creation logic change, and business model thinking as the unit-level logic, the theoretical objective of the thesis is to define the ongoing renewal of the forestry service market. Using public and private owners as customers and the current forestry service organizations as service providers, the practical aim of this dissertation is to identify potential opportunities and barriers with respect to creating new services in the forestry service market. Methodologically both qualitative interview studies on forestry service organizations (n=22 and n=17) and quantitative multivariate analysis based on survey data with private (n=557) and public (n=139) forest owners are used. According to the results, there is a growing tension in the market environment accelerated by institutional transition: private forest owners are fragmented into multifaceted groups with various needs, while public owners (such as municipalities) are facing versatile user pressures on their publicly owned forests. Therefore, it seems that the traditional “roundwood supply” approach may no longer match the needs of versatile customer groups. From structural perspective, the established service market dominated by a small number of players is limiting the successful entry of new enterprises. The lack of dynamic middle-sized companies in the Finnish forest sector coupled with difficulties in adopting a more cooperative mind set is proving to be hindrance for renewal of the forestry service market despite the development of information technology, which can facilitate the use of participative methods in forest management and service marketing.

Illusions of empowerment? Questioning policy and practice of community forestry in Kenya

The extent to which community forestry (CF) contributes to empowerment of local communities remains hotly contested. We develop a unified theory of empowerment at the intersection of asset-based agency and institution-based opportunity and apply it to examine the extent to which the implementation of CF has led to local empowerment. Our empirical data are drawn from review of national level policies and a field study of Ngare Ndare Community Forest Association (CFA) in Kenya. We investigated what types of powers were transferred to the local level, how representative the local institution was of the local community, and how its formation and composition affected the empowerment of socially and economically differentiated groups, with competing claims over the forest resource. We found that national forest policies and actors transferred minimal powers that enabled local communities to execute forest protection and conservation roles, while maintaining legislative powers and control of economic benefits centrally; and, that representation within the CFA was highly skewed in favor of small and already powerful local elites. We discuss the findings in the light of the literature on empowerment to develop insights about how to more effectively manage processes to empower local communities through appropriately representative institutions.

SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management: a Greek case study

A survey was carried out during a workshop of the Greek National Forest Governance Council to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for sustainable forest management assessment in Greece. The National Forest Governance Council was established within the frame of the INFORM project financed through LIFE. Its main role is to support the development process of a knowledge base for development of national forest policy on sustainable forest management assessment and monitoring. This paper presents the important internal and external factors for sustainable forest management assessment identified in the four groups: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, for the forests of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region, in Northern Greece. It also discusses the strategies for this area resulting in a good fit between the internal and external factors. SWOT provides a basic frame within which an analysis of the strategic forest planning environment towards sustainable forest management assessment can be performed.