Propiedad, cooperación

Vlada Republike Hrvatske je u suradnji s Ministarstvom poljoprivrede razvila bazu podataka prerade drva i proizvodnje namještaja u Hrvatskoj. Razvoj baze podataka je prvo prioritetno područje Strategije razvoja Prerade drva i proizvodnje namještaja Republike Hrvatske 2017. - 2020. Svrha baze je povezati proizvođače cjelokupnog lanca vrijednosti kao i druge ključne dionike: gospodarski i javni sektor, znanstvenu zajednicu, krajnje potrošače kao i širu javnost.  

The platform "Je me forme pour mes bois" was initiated by CNPF in association with Fransylva and the training program FOGEFOR. The aim is to provide online pedagogical content and a training offer (field workshops, day events, videos, etc) to the forest owners and forest teachers. The pedagogical content is divided by themes, in order to cover all the tasks that forest owners must go through: assess the forest production potential, protect it and manage it via cuttings and other forestry works, sell wood, develop new services in the forest, carry out administrative tasks. The content is also divided into three levels of difficulty, depending on the user's profile and experience with forest ("discover", "learn", and "take action"). The site also contains videos and forest owners interview videos, as well as additional resources (books, journals, etc) to go further on certain topics.

The aim of the project is to propose a simple tool, free to use, with adapted services for the novice forest owners and allow the mobilization of wood from small private forests. Professionals in the forest and wood sector will also be able to access this tool in order to find information on the legislation and manage forest worksites by completing online procedures. The tool is used to facilitate forest management between forest owners and enterprises. Owners can locate their forest plots on an online map with a cadastre and then describe their stand using a question and answer system. They can also contact neighbouring owners using a form. An owner can request a quote online for forestry work from information on their stands. Professionals have the possibility to carry out their administrative procedures online. The owner follows the progress of his forest worksite on the platform. The module for estimating wood prices has an educational purpose in order to explain price formation. Finally it is possible to access a directory of professionals and publish an ad to sell or buy plots. All these services are on a national scale, but specific and regional information is provided to the forest owner. At the end of 2020, more than 3300 accounts had been created.

The main purpose of Lignum is to strengthen the regional wood value-chain in central Switzerland thereby enhancing the regionally potential added value. A focus is the initiation and expansion of networks between the forest and wood industry, and enhancing the consciousness in the society and politics for the wood provenance and field of application. Through its various projects, Lignum is increasing competitiveness throughout the wood value-chain. This inlcude measures to improve the usage of wood as a construction and raw material as well as for energy production. Lignum also gives out awards for outstanding projects in the wood sector, especially in the wood construction sector to provide a great visibility to a large number of stakeholders. It has a close collaboration with the school of higher education of Lucerne. Lignum also participates in the law overworking process with clear written statements at a national level. Every player of the wood value chain from the forest owner to the end consumer is an important factor in the work flow and plays a crucial role for overall success and positive development. The actors in the wood value chain need to know as much as possible from the upstream and downstream actors (ex. stock, products, delivery times, facility possibilities). The close cooperation between partners is needed to facilitate interaction and enhance the efficiency of internal processes and the whole process chain. Supporting policy development is essential for having a clear strategic positioning to boost the development of the wood sector. 

Virtual forest 2.0 is a research and development project that has developed a digital application to enable the visualization of forest resources and spatial data in 3D. A virtual forest is software that can be utilized in participatory land use planning, advising forest owners, and taking into account the goals of user and interest groups in the areas.The virtual forest can be used to increase citizens' understanding of different forest management options and to illustrate the landscape effects of a forest plan. The virtual forest can be used to visualize the holdings of any forest owner, and the application is compatible with various information systems in the forest industry.The virtual forest 2.0 uses open QGIS geographic information system to generate changes in forest patterns or tree data, habitat data and terrain data in a virtual 3D-visualization.  The free downloadable Virtual Forest 2.0 application was released in October 2020.

Small-size private-owned forest areas are common in Portugal in particular North of the Tagus River. Small patches of forest hinder proper forest management, often leading to increased unmanaged areas more prone to wildfires, pests and diseases. The Baixo Vouga Forest owners association has developed a program of forest area aggregation to tackle this problem by grouping of contiguous areas with the overall aim of facilitating management operations. This will consequently reduce the occurrence of hazards, improve and increase well-managed areas, increase return and motivate investment. To implement the program, at least 5 forest owners with at least 5 properties, summing-up no less than 10 hectares are rquired. Then a GPS-based inventory is carried out and a forest management plan is developed. The program is based on quota-based investments and revenues that will be distributed among those involved with the aim of increasing the engagement, motivation and appreciation of all the agents involved. So far, several areas have been aggregated covering different number of forest owners (e.g. Panasqueira, Águeda, 15 properties belonging to 12 forest owners were aggregated resulting in c.a. 11 thousand ha of forest planted and managed under the same forest management plan) and there are other, more ambitious, still ongoing (e.g. in Lavandeira, Vagos, 211 properties belonging to 138 forest owners were aggregated resulting in c.a. 73 thousand ha).

As described in §15 BWaldG forestry associations are “renowned forest management cooperatives, forest management federations and renowned forestry unions”. Also, forest owner associations and forest farmer associations are rated among forestry associations.
Associations are supposed to improve the management in the affiliated forest areas and in the estates selected for afforestation. Especially they should help to overcome the disadvantages of small areas, unfortunate area shapes of ownership fragmentation, conflict situations, insufficient forest development or other lacks of structure (§16 BWaldG).

 Due to the changing structure in forest ownership, a growing demand for wood and the effects of climate change, forestry associations have to face new challenges.
More personnel with expertise is needed to implement the growing amount of forestry measures needed due to climate change
Forestry association need to improve their competitiveness on the market and their ability to establish a working network for timber harvest and marketing of the affiliated forests. Especially, this is important to support forest owners with very small forests, whose transaction costs are usually too high to make harvesting profitable

A forestry association needs to enable a considerable improvement in the management of the affiliated estates regarding size, location and connection (§18 subsection 1 BWaldG).
Forest owner assocations in Bavaria are leading in whole Germany in terms of high educated staff, organization, IT-systems and efficiency.

The ownership of the forests is shared by the stockholders as an historically rooted legal framework. Due to different backgrounds in formation, there is no relation between the size of community forests and the number of stockholders.
The four cornerstones of the community forest law from 1975 are:
All stockholders are part of a public corporation, the forest cooperative
It is forbidden so dissolve forest areas which are part of a community forest
Consistent management policies for all kinds of community forests
The possibility to merge forest cooperatives or create new ones

For the creation of the community forest law in 1975, an advisory board with participants from all existing forms of community forests was formed. Because if this involvement the framework is well accepted and has proved its practicability. Since the implementation of the community forest law until 2002 only two new forest cooperatives have been founded. It is not easy to convince private forest owners to make this step

There are several advantages of community forests compared to small private forests:  
a chairman can decide for all members how to manage the forest, especially after calamities such as a storm
merger of forest cooperatives and newly founded cooperatives improve the forest ownership structure

Forest consolidation is seen as a solution instrument for the fragmentation of small private forests in Bavaria. The focus of this project: perspectives for the involved authorities, professionals, communities and forest owners. Furthermore, the establishment and development processes as well as the evaluation of the forest consolidations from the perspective of the involved stakeholders was qualitatively analyzed in thee case studies

 For forest consolidations the following actions are recommended:
If possible: increased implementation of the voluntary exchange of land
Use of successful examples in structural improvement activities as role models when new forest consolidations are initiated
Keep the duration of the procedure as short as possible
Intensive cooperation of the involved authorities
Planning and implementation of the forest consolidation adjusted to the situation and with special attention on key activities

Regarding the effect of forest consolidation on the mobilization of wood the following conclusions are drawn:
The effect of forest consolidation on the size of the property is only limited
Forest consolidation can help forest owners with strong forest owner motives to manage their forests how they want to and thereby increase the use of wood and intensify marketing activities
Relationships to the forestry communication network (becoming a member of forestry associations, getting advice from forest administration) are being intensified or created
Forest administration and forestry associations need to get connected to forest owners and support them throughout the forest consolidation to create trust

In 2008, Regional Forest Owner Days were held in 7 different locations, namely Kempten, Grub/Bamberg, Lohr, Ansbach, Traunstein, Bad Kötzting and Röhrnbach.
The events consisted of three conceptionally independent parts. Except from scientific speeches concerning the topic forest management, in nearly all locations there was also a professional exhibition. The target group of the forest owners therefore was addressed in a multidimensional way: with knowledge, experiences and leisure offerings.

·         Owners of very small forests could be interested in the regional forest owner days with personal invitations in cooperation with agricultural associations
The success rate of the invitations to the event altogether was 15 %
The visitors of the event most prominently remembered the exhibition, these memories exceeded the memories of the stage play and the speeches

Concerning the impact of the forest owner days on the changes in taking action of the forest owners, a dissertation found that those forest owners who were already organized in forestry associations engaged a little more in their forests after the event than those who were not members of forestry associations. They reacted faster after the event, followed contacts straight forward, took action faster in their forests and were generally more active.