Forest policy

Editor's note 3Jul14: Sources D142-3 and D242-4.

The object of forest policy is the conservation, development, and improvement of forests and forest land (other wooded land). Forests and forest land are constitutionally defined as national capital and the exercise of any private right, deemed to be against general protection clauses, may only be instituted by law. At the heart of the legal and institutional framework is the broad and inclusive definition of forests covering Mediterranean maquis.

The overall goal of forest policy is the “conservation and improvement of the natural environment of the country”. This fairly clear-cut objective is complemented by further, often conflicting, objectives:

• To set out specific protection measures for the conservation, development and improvement of forests and forest lands.
• To define the terms and preconditions under which forest and forest land-use may be modified or made to serve other uses, for reasons imposed by the national interest.

In the absence of spatial planning at the regional or national level, prior to 2000, forest policy instruments have de facto served as spatial planning instruments.

The main actors in forest policy are primarily state agencies, as 80% of forests and forest lands are state property. “Traditional” actors in forest policy are forest workers and cooperatives, the wood-based industries, and forest dependent rural communities (mainly in mountainous regions), whose size and influence is declining steadily. Other forest owners, including the Church and municipalities also form part of forest policy.

The General Directorates for Forests (local forest services) of the devolved authorities are responsible for forest policy implementation on the ground, local forest management and wood-production, issuing of administrative acts etc. It is important to note that at local forest services can be seen as having policy formulation powers: forest management plans, where they exist, are legally binding. In devolved forest directorates and their sub-divisions have wide investigative and policing powers.

As a result of the lack of cadastre and planning, a large influence on forest policy is exerted by state agencies and several organized groups and interests seeking to modify land-uses or to influence the terms of use/lease of public forest land.

Policy instruments & procedures include forest management plans and licenses (logging, resin extraction, herb collection, grazing etc). Furthermore, in the absence of a formal administrative land-classification schemes and cadastre, one of the main instruments of forest policy has been the forest designation act: at the request of a third party (public or private), the local forest service issues an act specifying whether the land is forest or not.

For forest land, the forest service may issue an approval of operations. This approval is based on the list of permissible operations (derogations) in Law 998 and its amendments.

Financing for forest policy has taken place through the Central Fund for Agriculture and Forests of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Green Fund of the Ministry of Environment, while EU rural development funds are a complementary source of investment.

With regard to the study sites (Asteroussia, Messara) the policy is characterised by non-implementation: private fears of having land designated as a forest (leading to potential difficulties in land-use change and/or development) has led to the general tendency of removing woody species/wild shrub. Indicative of the general mistrust between local populations and the forest services is the fact that attempts at aforestation by public authorities have been generally sabotaged by local grazers (cutting fences, diverting irrigations, letting animals graze on saplings).

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