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Forest Policy

Donald W. Floyd
University of New Brunswick

Forest Policy Defined

Forest policy is what governments choose to do or not do about forests within their jurisdiction1.  Forests are often the subject of government action because they provide a mix of public goods (for example ecosystem services) and private goods such as fibre, mast and forage.  Local, regional and national governments and international bodies have a wide range of choices with regard to forests.   These range from defining land tenure arrangements to creating incentives, disincentives and markets for producing or conserving multiple values and products.

Almost all forest policy is based on a combination of approaches or “policy levers” which governments use to affect human behavior.   These include (1) defining property rights and responsibilities, (2) regulating uses, users and professions associated with the forest with civil or criminal sanctions, (3) requiring submission of management information, (4) taxing or subsidizing products and services, (5) providing technical information, research and education, and (6) creating markets for public goods and common pool resources.

Among the most fundamental forest policy issues is defining forest tenure which allocates rights of use, ownership and responsibilities among individual owners, groups and governments.  For example, in many nations associated with the western tradition, much of the forest is owned by federal, state or provincial governments and managed for a variety of values from preservation of wildlife habitat and provision of ecological services to economic development through intensive fibre production. In many nations post-colonial tenure schemes conflict with aboriginal rights and traditional uses.

In most developed nations, governments regulate the uses of public and private forests through a system of civil and criminal sanctions.  Forest harvesting is often regulated by specifying which management activities may be applied or proscribed.  Some jurisdictions define harvest seasons and hours of the day when harvesting may occur.  Regulations for the protection of wetlands and water quality are common as are regeneration requirements. 

Increasingly, governments regulate trade in forest products across regional and international boundaries, either to protect local industry or to reduce the effects of introduced pests. Many governments regulate who may use the forest through a system of licenses and user fees.  In many developed nations, governments regulate the professions associated with forest management including foresters, wildlife and fisheries biologists and hydrologists.  In some jurisdictions only licensed or registered professional foresters may implement timber harvests.  In most cases these systems for regulating uses and users are implemented through a systems of administrative fees and permits. Civil and criminal sanctions are less often employed.

Many governments implement forest policy by requiring users to report their activities.  These data typically include harvest and regeneration information, boundary surveys, detection and treatment of forest pests and pathogens.  Many governments conduct periodic inventories to detect changes in forest cover, land use change, changes in species and volume distributions.  These management information systems are increasingly important for modeling changes in the role of forests in ameliorating global climate change and providing fibre in international markets.

Many governments tax or subsidize forests, forest products and the facilities that process them.  Privately owned forests are often subject to property taxes by state, provincial and local taxing jurisdictions. Other common forest taxes include forest-related capital gains and severance taxes.  In interjurisdictional trade, import or export taxes are often used to encourage domestic forest production and facilities expansion.  Subsidies to private forest owners are nearly as ubiquitous as forest taxes.  Some governments pay some or all of the costs for preparation of management plans and reforestation.  Subsidization of wildlife habitat and wetlands conservation is also common.  In many nations, governments form direct or indirect partnerships with forest products companies to stimulate resource development and rural employment.

Many developed nations provide a system of publicly funded forest research, technology transfer and educational services for landowners and professional resource managers.  Many governments fund a variety of forestry research organizations either directly as government agencies or through grants to universities.  In addition, many governments fund technology transfer and extension programs aimed at forest industries, private woodlot owners and resource management professionals.

An emerging public policy tool for governments is the development of markets for pollution credits as part of “cap and trade” programs.  In this approach, a government “caps” the volume of a pollutant that may be emitted and assigns initial allocations to existing polluters.  Facilities that use less than their allocation may sell the difference through a market to purchasers who want to expand emissions.  While still in early stages of development, a market for carbon sequestration using forestry projects exists in several regions.

Forest Policy as a Process

For many years, forestry students studied forest policy by learning the history of government regulation of forests2.  A chronological approach from medieval European history to the modern conservation and environmental movements demonstrated the evolution of forest policy to meet new social demands from protection of the sacred to production of fibre as a strategic material and key component of economic development to provision of ecosystem services.

Beginning in the 20^th century, political scientists began to describe public policy as a complex system of actors and institutions.  Just as ecology provided a new paradigm for understanding energy and nutrient flows in complex biophysical systems compared with the species by species descriptions of natural history,  “policy as process3” began to replace “policy as history.”

Today forest policy is often thought of as a process that proceeds from 1) setting a policy agenda to 2) formulating policy alternatives to 3) adoption of policy choices to 4) implementation of programs and finally to 5) policy assessment.  While this process is often oversimplified and portrayed as linear, many parts occur simultaneously within a complex array of interactions among interest groups, administrative agencies, legislatures, courts, presidents, prime ministers, premiers, governors, tribal councils, county commissioners and the media.  The relative importance of each of these actors varies considerably based on the structure of the government.  In the United States, interest groups are relatively more powerful than in many other nations because of ease of access to the court system. 

In the agenda setting phase, gatekeepers who are usually elected or appointed officials place a problem on the formal agenda.  For example, suppose in a Westminster style government, the premier or prime minister decides to reduce the export of raw logs in an effort to boost domestic sawn lumber production and local employment.  It is likely that before tabling the bill, there will have been extensive discussions with forest landowners, forest products firms, senior civil servants and influential members of the governing party. This is often characterized as moving an issue from the “informal” to the “formal” agenda.  In most governments, the ruling party controls which issues will be acted upon. There may be many other forest policy issues that concern the forestry community that are not placed on the formal agenda.

As the government moves forward with the concept of limiting raw log exports, it must formulate a method for affecting the change. In our hypothetical example, the government could tax exports directly or provide subsidies for investment in new sawmills.  It could require all exporters to report the relevant data to the Ministry of Natural Resources.  Or it could do all of these things in combination. 

Adoption occurs when the proposal is finally agreed to in a legislative or administrative action.  Formal adoption usually implies that the proposal has the support of a majority in the legislature or an administrative council.

Successful implementation requires organizing and committing the necessary fiscal, human and technological resources to actualize the policy.  Implementation often occurs across several organizations operating at multiple scales.  In our example it could require action by customs and border services, an economic development agency and a natural resources management agency working at local, regional and national scales.

Policy assessment is often carried out by an internal auditing agency that attempts to determine whether or not the implementing agencies are diligently administering the statue or executive order and whether or not the policy has the intended effect.  Most governments have some capability for policy analysis within their natural resource or finance agencies.  In many cases, interest groups conduct policy analysis as a way to further their role as advocates for a particular policy approach.

Recent trends

Over the last 40 years, forest policy has been shaped by at least four important trends, all of which point to an erosion of public confidence in the ability of governments to conserve forest resources.  These trends include the development of criteria and indicators of forest sustainability, certification of well-managed forests by non-governmental organizations, the growing influence of environmental groups using marketing campaigns to affect consumer behavior and the increasing role of public participation in public forest management decisions. Each of these trends is given fuller treatment in other entries in this series.

Summary

Forest policy is what governments choose to do and not to do about forests within their jurisdiction.  Governments employ a combination of policy tools to affect behavior. These include (1) defining property rights and responsibilities, (2) regulating uses, users and professions associated with the forest with civil or criminal sanctions, (3) requiring submission of management information, (4) taxing or subsidizing products and services, (5) providing technical information, research and education, and (6) creating markets for public goods and common pool resources.  Forest policy is usefully conceived as a non-linear five-step process that includes agenda setting, formulation, adoption, implementation and assessment.  Over the last 40 years there has been a general erosion of public confidence in the ability of governments to implement forest conservation policies.  As a result, the influence of criteria and indicator approaches and non-governmental forest certification programs has increased.

Posted 4 September 2007