Elsevier, Forest Policy and Economics, 2(13), p. 104-112
DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2010.04.002
Full text: Download
The evident shift from government to governance in the approaches to forest policy formulation and related decision-making procedures, which is taking place at global level, is up to now only marginally affecting Italy. As proved also by the last National Congress on Silviculture held in Taormina (Sicily) in September 2008, the arena of the Italian forestry world is still marked by latent internal conflicts and substantial incapacity of dialoguing amongst academics and high-level forest officials on one side, and land owners, practitioners, forestry workers, and other representatives of the civil society like environmentalists, on the other side. Even in such an unhelpful intellectual and political context, policy-makers and other actors traditionally involved in forestry-related decision-making have to face and to apply new concepts and tools like public participation approaches, interaction and networking and governance mechanisms. These new ideas and instruments are slowly entering the forest policy arena for a number of reasons, mainly related to international driving forces like the global dialogue on forestry and some specific European regulations, and to the growing demand for responsible behaviours and transparency. Some local factors, like the long-time existence of community-based institutions in mountain areas, are creating a favourable environment for the development of new concepts and tools. The political willingness, a pro-active vs. a passive attitude of the forest public authority with respect to changes, strong command and control vs. voluntary forest-based policy instruments, the lack of expertise in communication and stakeholders involvement are amongst the challenges in Italy, where there are serious risks of failures and of “participatory washing” initiatives. These issues are taken into consideration by the paper, using a research approach based on six explicatory-exploratory case-studies. Case studies are analyzed considering two main types of decision-making processes (one based on conventional – hierarchical/government approach and one based on innovative-networking/governance approach), the position and role of different stakeholders, the special role of forest public authorities, the efficacy and efficiency of (eventual) negotiation and adaptation processes. Three case studies have been selected in order to represent the “unsuccessful examples” of governance as a collective learning process carried out so far in Italy, at three different scales (national, regional, local). These inlcude the EU FLEGT Action Plan implementation at national level; the EU Plan for Rural Development 2007-2013 developed in Veneto at regional level; and a camping-site in a forest area in the Dolomites at local level. Three other case-studies have been selected with the aim to try and identify also some “encouraging examples” for developing successful governance processes in forestry. These include the Strategic Framework Programme for Forests at national level, the afforestation/reforestation programme to create forests in plain areas in Lumbardy at regional level and, finally, the creation of a per-urban forest close in the Mestre – Venezia area (Bosco di Mestre) at local level. Two main scenarios are likely in terms of changes deriving from a collective learning process due to adoption of governance approaches in the Italian forestry context: i) “no real changes”, which mainly occurs when national-level policies and actors are involved and when a conservative approach is prevailing (limited or no interactions among different actors); and ii) “slight changes”, which usually occurs when local-level policies and actors are involved, and when a tentative-innovative approach is prevailing, sometimes with the specific goal of improving governance. Key-factors to establish more favourable conditions for starting-up or consolidating positive examples for governance as a collective learning process in Italy are presented and discussed in the final recommendations.