F O R ES T S

Who Owns the Forests? A new international studyAnna Lawrence

Institute of Chartered ForestersNational Conference 2019

10 April 2019

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owners management

UNECE and FACESMAP

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FORESTS

UNECE: the Economic Commission for EuropeThe ECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section supports developing evidence-based policies for sustainable forest management.

FACESMAP: “Forest Land Ownership Change in Europe: Significance for Management and Policy”A Cost Action led by BOKU, ViennaFunded by European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)

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Data now available at: https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb2015/pxweb/en/STAT/STAT__26-TMSTAT1__080-FO17_FO

What is ‘forest ownership’?

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FAO Forest Resources Assessment definition: “the legal right to freely and exclusively use, control, transfer, or otherwise benefit from a forest.”

But: most owners don’t have all those rights:

1. Access rights (rights to enter forest land); 2. Withdrawal rights (rights to harvest or remove timber, firewood and NWFPs); 3. Management rights (rights to plan internal forest activities and transform the forest);

4. Exclusion rights (rights to prevent others from accessing and harvesting wood or NWFPs); 5. Alienation rights (rights to sell forestland and forest products as well as to lease or sell

management and exclusion rights)

(Schlager and Ostrom, 1992)

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Forest owners

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An overview

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FORESTS

Public ownership in more detail

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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Russian FederationCroatia

LithuaniafyR Macedonia*

IrelandCyprus

IsraelTurkeyPolandLatvia*

SwedenSloveniaFinland

Greece*BulgariaAustria

SlovakiaNorway

Czech RepublicRomania*

United StatesGeorgia

NetherlandsSerbiaFranceIceland

PortugalAlbania

LuxembourgSpain*

GermanySwitzerland

CanadaUnited Kingdom

Belgium

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FORESTS

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

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Proportion of total area of private land owned by different types of private owners

individuals / families private businesses private institutions tribal / indigenous other private common

Private ownership in more detail

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Changing ownership

Changing ownership

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FORESTS

0%

100%

200%

300%

PUBLIC % change1990-2015

PRIVATE % change1990-2015

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Reasons for change:• Restitution• Privatisation• New planting

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Forest condition and utilisation

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Public forest

Private forest Comparison of net annual increment per volume of growing stock, in public and private forests

Forest utilisation rate

• Red line: harvest = net annual increment

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Forest administration and organisation

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Parcel size in public and private forests

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FORESTS

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Size of forest holding (ha)

Private - Area

Public - Area

Private - Numbers

Public numbers

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Private forest managementFORESTS

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10

20

30

40

50

60

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Individuals & families Business entities Institutions Tribal & indigenous communities Other common ownership

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Owner Others Unknown

5 trends in forest advisory systems

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FORESTS

• from regulatory control to incentive and persuasion

• from a focus on timber production to wider ecosystem services (now plus biomass)

• more democratic, participatory and negotiated - peer-to-peer knowledge sharing

• from public to private sector• new communication tools complementing

face-to-face

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F O R E S T S

Professor Anna Lawrence anna.lawrence.ic@uhi.ac.ukUniversity of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland10 April 2019 Institute of Chartered Foresters, Oxford

Thank you to:

Roman Michalak, Gerhard Weiss – co-leaders

Safia Aggarwal, Filip Aggestam, Philippe Deuffic, Diana Feliciano, Teppo Hujala, Max Krott, Gun Lidestav, Didier Marchal, Liviu Nichiforel, Sonia Quiroga, Dominique Reeb, Zuzana Sarvašová, Mirjana Stevanov, Jenny Wong, Ivana Živojinović - co-authors and photographers