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Romania’s forest policy is based on a long tradition in establishing and implementing the principles of sustainable management of forestry resources, based on a sound scientific and technical foundation. This resulted in a rigorous forestry regime, designed to operate efficiently under the conditions of state ownership over all forests. Over the past 30 years, Romania has gone through a period of transition towards a market economy with major institutional changes that took place in the forest sector through the restitution of forests and the privatisation of the administration, logging and forest industry sector. In this context, the regulatory system did not have the expected efficiency, which is reflectedin a clear social tension, involving all stakeholders interested in and affected by the management of forests: private owners, public and private forest administration, loggingand wood processing companies, environmental protection organisations, civil society, etc. The paper presents the process of elaborating a vision for sustainable forest management that would underlie a new public forest policy, in accordance with the international strategic documents and with the current challenges faced by the Romanian forest sector. The dialogue platform used in the elaboration of the vision has been coordinated by auniversity, precisely to ensure a unitary methodological approach to involve relevant experts and stakeholders in the process. The development of the vision used a stepwise participatory process based on the activity of a core group of experts followed by an extension of the group of experts, a public consultation process and a public debate. The result of the process is materialised in a set of eight sustainable forest management principles and four good governance principles. The implementation of the principles requires theidentification, through an efficient and constructive communication between all stakeholders, of specific directions of action that have to be integrated in a new regulatory system that needs to be clear, easily monitored and effective in terms of practical results.

Articolul prezintă o analiză a importanței procesului de certificare forestieră în identificarea și gestionarea serviciilor ecosistemice furnizate de Pădurile cu Valoare Ridicată de Conservare (PVRC). Datele au fost colectate din 13 rapoarte PVRC disponibile publicului larg care acoperă o suprafață totală de pădure de 117.507 ha. Procesul de identificare a PVRC a presupus cartarea a 28.882 ha de pădure care furnizează valori de conservare. Analiza datelor calitative ale rapoartelor s-a axat pe sursele de date folosite în procesul de identificare a PVRC, grupate în cinci categorii: (i) amenajamente silvice; (ii) planuri de management ale ariilor naturale protejate; (iii) alte surse de date disponibile; (iv) consultări publice cu factorii interesați și (v) implicarea personalului silvic. Rezultate au arătat că 80% din zonele identificate ca PVRC provin din informațiile obținute din amenajamentele silvice. Acestea fac referire la serviciile ecosistemice de reglare (protecția apelor, eroziunea solului și calitatea aerului) și la pădurile încadrate în zona de protecție strictă a ariilor naturale protejate. Procesul de identificare PVRC ajută la armonizarea între planurile de management Natura 2000 și amenajamentele silvice, în special, prin cartarea prezenței speciilor rare și amenințate și a habitatelor. O valoare adăugată de procesul PVRC este identificarea serviciilor culturale prin consultări publice cu factorii interesați și implicarea personalului de teren. Serviciile adiționale identificate în procesul de certificare oferă exemple pentru măsuri financiare prin care statul ar putea să recompenseze proprietarii de păduri pentru furnizarea de servicii ecosistemice peste limita cerută legal de amenajamente. În concluzie, analiza subliniază faptul ca amenajarea pădurilor oferă un cadru riguros de identificare a serviciilor ecosistemice forestiere, certificarea forestieră adăugând însă cerințe suplimentare de gestionare și de monitorizare a gradului de furnizarea a serviciilor ecosistemice.

Over the last 25 years, the post-communist countries have encompassed important changes in ownership because of the transition from a centralised regime to an open market economy. Following the implementation of three different land restitution laws, almost 51% of the Romanian forestlands are currently in non-state ownership. The paper uses the DPSIR (Driving Forces-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses) framework to analyse the forest restitution governance process and its impact on resource management outcomes. We have analysed the social and political environment of the forest restitution (Driving forces), the current and the past structure of the private forests (State), the ecological, economic and social effects of restitution (Impacts) and the institutional tools used in private forests (Responses). Data collection techniques combined the scrutiny of literature on forest privatisation with a case study analysis based on remote sensing, field work inventory and questionnaires. The study analyses the situation of small scale forest tenures (less than 1 ha) given back to the former owners per the first law of land restitution (Law 18/1991). The results show that the forest restitution has been used as a trade-off between politicians' interest in winning political capital and owner's interest in getting short-term benefits from the forest. Despite the highly regulatory setting aiming to preserve the traditional rules of forest management, anthropic disturbances have affected on a large scale the private managed forests, while the policy responses were not able to encompass the new challenges brought by the changing ownership structure. The analysis concludes that the current policy responses are strengthening even more the regulatory framework but as reaction to a new policy goal: to limit the law infringements and the corruption created by the failure of enforcing the command and control instruments.

Forest ownership is changing in Europe. Reasons include recent institutional changes in Eastern Europe, changing lifestyles of non-agricultural owners and afforestation. At present, there is little comparative analysis across Europe, and the implications that these changes have for forest management and for the fulfilment and redefinition of policy objectives have not been addressed systematically. This paper has been developed in the framework of a European research network on forest ownership change, based on conceptual work, literature reviews and empirical evidence from 28 European countries. It aims to provide an overview of the state of knowledge, to discuss relevant issues and provide conceptual and practical foundations for future research, forest management approaches, and policy making. In particular, it discusses possible approaches for classifying forest ownership types and understandings of “new” forest ownership. One important insight is that the division into public and private forests is not as clear as often assumed and that an additional category of semi-public (or semi-private) forms of forest ownership would be desirable. Another recommendation is that the concepts of “new forest owners” vs. “new forest owner types” should be differentiated more consciously. We observe that, in research and policy practice, the mutual relations between forest ownership structure and policies are often neglected, for instance, how policies may directly and indirectly influence ownership development, and what different ownership categories mean for the fulfilment of policy goals. Finally, we propose that better support should be provided for the development of new, adapted forest management approaches for emerging forest owner types. Forest ownership deserves greater attention in studies dealing with forest policy or forest management.

Sustainable forest biomass production is receiving particular attention in bioeconomy policies. This results in an intensified pressure on the companies in the forest-based industry to improve their social and environmental management practices. To address this issue, country-specific governance frameworks are used; these frameworks involve a mix of mandatory or voluntary, public or private regulatory systems. A stringent legal system puts a strong emphasis on command and control instruments, a situation common to many of the post-socialist countries in Europe. As a response to insufficient governmental activities, private-market-based instruments, such as certification standards, are employed to demonstrate the sustainability of timber biomass-based supply chains. This trend is also visible in Romania, where despite the stringent legal framework, a large number of owners and companies have opted for voluntary certification. We evaluated how much of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) standard used for forest management certification is contingent on legal rules, and we concluded that 69% of the standard requirements are de jure addressed. We also evaluated, from a legal perspective, the non-conformities identified between 2008 and 2017 in the 108 FSC audit reports. We document that de facto, the implementation of the legal system faces essential enforcement problems since 54% of the identified non-conformities represent a violation of laws. The three main non-compliances with the legal requirements are related to harvesting operations, a key activity to be addressed in supply chain management. Hence, the empirical evidences of this research highlight that the Romanian exhaustive legal frameworks with no flexibility in terms of compliance coupled with the governmental enforcement failures create a risky business environment for the companies operating in the forest industry.

International audience; The decisions and actions of private forest owners are important for the delivery of forest goods and services. Both forest ownership, and policies related to forest owners, are changing. Traditionally in most countries, government extension officers have advised and instructed forest owners, but this is evolving, with greater importance given to a range of actors, objectives, and knowledge types. Drawing on literature and mixed data from 10 countries in Europe, this paper explores how forestry advisory systems can be conceptualized, and describes their current situation in Europe. Drawing parallels with the concept of AKIS (Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems), we propose the term FOKIS (FOrestry Knowledge and Information Systems), as both a system (a purposeful and interdependent group of bodies) and a method for understanding such systems. We define four dimensions for describing FOKIS: owners, policy goals, advice providers, and tools. We find different roles for extension in countries with centrally controlled, highly regulated forest management, and advisors in regions where forest owners have more freedom to choose how to manage their forest. We find five trends across Europe: increasing flexibility, openness and participation of owners as sources of information; increasing reliance on information and persuasion rather than enforced compliance; a shift of attention from timber to a wider range of ecosystem services such as biodiversity and recreation; a shift of funding and providers from public to private sector; emergence of new virtual communication tools. The approach provides a way to make sense of comparisons and change in FOKIS, and opens up an important research field.

When analyzing the structure of the ownership in a country, usually two forms of ownership are mentioned, the public and the private forest ownership. However, due to the cultural, historical and political meaning of ownership in each country, the reference to only the form of ownership is not informative enough to understanding forest-related practices in different countries. To enlighten the content of the private ownership on forests, the paper implements an analytical frame combining both the legal and the economic approach of ownership and property rights. Using a qualitative approach, harvesting and management rights over forests are analyzed in a strong regulatory context of policies for sustainable forest management in Romania. The results show that legal constrains from forest laws may determine an alteration of the economic content of the ownership at the point that the management and decision system turned into collectivechoice decision system. Therefore forest owners share their management rights on timber harvesting with the State, the main instrument for this joint decision-making being the forest management plan. The findings indicate that the forest owners are those who bear the costs of institutional re-organization and long learning processes.

The importance of green spaces in urban areas is a concept more and more discussed and included in the political agenda. Investments in green infrastructure can change the perception of residents, visitors or future investors about the attractiveness of a city. However, such investments are not easy to be achieved. Besides the human and financial capital necessary for the physical realization of the investments, an essential aspect is the perception of the inhabitants or visitors about the possible alternatives to combine the recreation facilities with the forest-specific natural landscapes. The object of this study is represented by the forest surrounding the Suceava citadel, named Șipote Dendrological Park. The area is a public owned forest and currently has recreational and soil protection functions assigned. In this context, the main purpose of the research is to identify the perception of the local community regarding alternatives of transforming this urban forest into a forest park. The specific objective of the research are: 1) the identification of community’s preferences for alternative strategies involving cutting of different sizes of forest to create recreational facilities; 2) the identification of preferences regarding the recreational facilities desired in an urban forest; 3) the identification of the willingness to pay for the investments nedeed to create a forest park. To assess the value of ecosystem services that are preferred by the local community we have used the contingent valuation method that helps identify consumers’ preferences over a range of alternatives. The method was based on the creation of three credible scenarios to test the alternatives for setting up different recreational facilities in the urban forest. The scenarios are identified based on a list of recreational facilities which imply interventions in cutting the forest as: S1-no forest cuts, S2-a cut of less than 30% of the forest area and S3-a cut of more than 30% of the forest area. In total, 305 questionnaires have been applied to identify citizens’ preferences which assures a confidence interval of 5.6%. The results show that the local community wants to retain the recreational function offered by the presence of the forest and desires in addition investments involving the creation of facilities for outdoor activities. Most of the surveyed participants are in favour of the second scenario and will like to have investments in cycling trails, kids’ playgrounds, fountains and an artificial lake. Nevertheless, the majority of the respondents are not willing to pay an entrance fee to compensate the value of additional facilities.

Forest restitution was a common process for former communist countries in Eastern Europe. The way this process was conducted in Romania, corroborated with inadequate legislation and lack of enforcement mechanisms, constituted the reason for improper forest management in many regions. The study is assessing, in a comparative manner, the effects of forest management in state and private forests over the structure of the growing stock and over the wood production sustainability. The private forests were managed without a forest management plan while the forests owned by state were managed according to forest management plans prescriptions. It was found that, in the case of private forests, the growing stock structure against age classes, analysed in respect to forest composition and density, was seriously affected by the anthropogenic interventions directed by no management rule. The simulations of the growing stock evolution revealed that in the case of private forests, the optimization of current growing stock will be possible after more than 180 years. In the scenario when their management would have been ruled according to the provisions of a forest management plan, the growing stock optimization would have been possible in about 120 years. In addition, the analysis of the economic efficiency of the practiced forest management in the private forests shows that the net yearly income per hectare is less than 13% from the income that could have been achieved if the forests would have been managed according to the original forest management plan.

In the framework of a broader political economics approach, this paper intends to enhance the understanding of the role of rent-seeking practices in the delineation of clear property rights in forestry. The research background is provided by the institutional changes occurring in the Romanian forestry sector as a consequence of the transition period and the accession to the European Union. The entrepreneurial approach to rent-seeking requires clarifications of the perspective under which private forest owners are analysed in order to position this study within ongoing discussions regarding the role of rent-seeking and its social impact. The conceptual framework employed distinguishes between rents resulting from entrepreneurship in conventional production functions and rents resulting from institutional entrepreneurship. A typology of entrepreneurial rent-seeking is developed for further understanding of the effects resulting from changes in the institutional setting of property rights. Using a qualitative approach, in the form of a case study, the research reveals perspectives of Romanian forest owners regarding barriers to production inherent in the current distribution of rights. Despite the extent of perceived profit-seeking barriers, owners’ entrepreneurial rent-seeking actions intended to change property rights in their favour appear limited and constrained. Hence, identified hypotheses regarding the institutional context dependency of entrepreneurial rent-seeking provide the basis for the future empirical identification of the role of institutional entrepreneurship within the forest production system.

The increased demand for fuelwood may have the side-effect of unsustainable use of forest resource. The case of Kosovo fuelwood production is of a peculiar relevance to studying the drivers of the unsustainable patterns of forest biomass use in a post-war and poor economic context. The domestic market demand for fuelwood in Kosovo is estimated at more than 1.5 hm3, while the legal supply, including imports, is slightly higher than 0.3 hm3. Illegal logging for satisfying Kosovo population fuelwood needs is therefore widespread. The annual illegal fuelwood harvesting represents a market of up to 21.6 million euro and is done mostly by well organised groups of individuals, with market-oriented behaviour, acting rather in State than in private forests. After identifying the drivers of illegal logging for fuelwood, the paper provides an analysis of fuelwood extraction in relation with property rights distribution, structured along two lines: a) which was the evolution of the management and exclusion rights over the forest resource during the latest decades; b) which are the current enforcement mechanisms of the property rights and how are they performing. The paper describes a decades-long history of mismatching economic property rights arrangements. Thus, the dispute between the central agency and municipalities in performing exclusion rights on timber extraction definitely weakened the Kosovo system of law enforcement. Currently, the enforcement mechanism proved to be unhelpful in controlling illegal logging. As result, most of the Kosovo fuelwood production is based on an de facto open-access regime. LB acknowledges funding from Twinning project Further support to sustainable forestry management in Kosovo, KS09IBEN02, European Commission Liaison Office to Kosovo. All statements of the present paper are the authors' sole responsibility. 1 4 10 67 DE/NEM Biomass and Bioenergy

Lander Baeten [et al.], One of the current advances in functional biodiversity research is the move away from short-lived test systems towards the exploration of diversity-ecosystem functioning relationships in structurally more complex ecosystems. In forests, assumptions about the functional significance of tree species diversity have only recently produced a new generation of research on ecosystem processes and services. Novel experimental designs have now replaced traditional forestry trials, but these comparatively young experimental plots suffer from specific difficulties that are mainly related to the tree size and longevity. Tree species diversity experiments therefore need to be complemented with comparative observational studies in existing forests. Here we present the design and implementation of a new network of forest plots along tree species diversity gradients in six major European forest types: the FunDivEUROPE Exploratory Platform. Based on a review of the deficiencies of existing observational approaches and of unresolved research questions and hypotheses, we discuss the fundamental criteria that shaped the design of our platform. Key features include the extent of the species diversity gradient with mixtures up to five species, strict avoidance of a dilution gradient, special attention to community evenness and minimal covariation with other environmental factors. The new European research platform permits the most comprehensive assessment of tree species diversity effects on forest ecosystem functioning to date since it offers a common set of research plots to groups of researchers from very different disciplines and uses the same methodological approach in contrasting forest types along an extensive environmental gradient. © 2013 Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics., AcknowledgementsThe research leading to these results has received fund-ing from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme(FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement n◦265171.

The emergence and development of organizations of private forest owners in situations where they were not previously collectively organized is a relevant institutional innovation in forestry. This chapter looks at the factors that may have contributed to this institutional change in the following countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The conceptual framework used to present and discuss these country cases considers the following types of factors: (i) the structural changes in the social and economic environment of private forestry when forest owners' organizations emerged, and the needs for collective action of private forest owners triggered by those changes; (ii) the factors contributing to cope with the 'free riding' problems involved in collective action; (iii) the mechanisms leveraging the capacities of forest owners' associations beyond the initial domain where they emerged and contributing to give them the 'critical mass' needed for having substantial impact on forestry economic conditions; and (iv) the possible existence of 'path dependence' phenomena, where the conditions prevailing when forest owners' organizations emerged have a lasting influence throughout their lifetime. With different specifications according to the characteristics of each country, these four sets of factors appear to be useful as a common framework for organizing the explanation of how forest owners' associations emerged and developed in the countries considered here.

Romania has traditionally dealt with forest ecosystem services (FES) using a regulatory process of designing forest management plans (FMPs). We set an analytical framework to assess the integrated approach between FMPs, Natura 2000 biodiversity conservation network, and the forest certification system. The results show that, despite some relevant additional inputs, the delivery of FES remains strongly related to the normative FMP process. The specific presence of protected species and habitats of community interest has been identified on 18% of the Natura 2000 area included in the analysis. The Natura 2000 management plans are largely conveyed in elusive and precautionary terms of reference, so adding opportunity and administrative costs supported by forest owners. The participatory approach used in the forest certification process resulted in the identification of additional cultural, regulating and habitat ecosystem services on 1.6% of the analysed area. Considering the discrepancies between de jure normative planning and de facto implementation, we discuss the need for adapting the regulatory FES governance framework by making use of e.g. e.g. bottom-up participatory approaches, monitoring indicators for the effectiveness of management measures, and valuation techniques that would make beneficiaries and civil society to consider the opportunity costs for the delivery of FES.