Natural Resources Planning in Metsähallitus
General case description
Natural resources planning in Metsähallitus defines the strategic level decisions concerning seven large sub-areas: Kainuu, Eastern Lappland, Western Lappland, Upper Lapland, Western Finland, Eastern Finland and Ostrobothnia [1]. The planning started in 1.4.1995 from Kainuu region, and 2002 a new round was started. The latest planning process was carried out in Eastern Finland. These plans cover the whole area of state forests governed by Metsähallitus, i.e. about 9 million hectares.
The goal is to reconcile the possibilities offered by natural resources with the needs of different parties to form an effective whole. Different forms of use of state lands are, among others, nature conservation, forestry, recreation, eco-tourism, real estate development and the sale of soil resources. Particularly, economic, ecological and social sustainability is aimed for. Each plan is made for a ten-year period, and it is checked after 5 years.
Metsähallitus is carrying out the planning as a participatory process. The process is organized in the form of several working groups. They give their recommendation as to the plans, but Metsähallitus is the decision maker in the process. In addition, the Finnish government guides the decisions. Before the participatory planning mode was started, Metsähallitus had several conflicts with reindeer herders, environmentalists and in some cases also local inhabitants. Currently, there are no on-going conflicts between Metsähallitus and any stakeholder group.
Contents
Organization
The initiative for the participatory planning came from Metsähallitus.
Identifying the stakeholders
In the first process, the process lasted from spring 1995 to the end of November 1996. In the beginning around 400 potential stakeholder groups were notified of the process. Around 10 meetings were arranged, and 60 stakeholder groups were involved. The work was organized to eight regional working groups and one local working group. The regional working groups represented agriculture and forestry, provincial administration, tourism, forest industry, small enterprises,game husbandry, research and nature conservation. In addition, 600 members of general public gave 1600 statements (Pykäläinen et al. 1999).
In the latest process of Eastern Finland, the work was carried out in one working group of 21 members. The members of that group represented the main stakeholder groups of Metsähallitus (governmental and non-governmental environmental organizations, education, industry, recreation, personnel of Metsähallitus, municipalities). The group had 6 meetings from April 1007 until February 2008. In addition, seven meetings for general public were arranged, and altogether 133 persons were involved.
Role of the stakeholders
According to current guidelines, the chair person is elected among the representatives of the working group or an independent facilitating chair person is made available for the working group. The chair person must be unanimously approved by the working group. The meetings are arranged in neutral premises, not in the offices of Metsähallitus.
The working group makes recommendations to Metsähallitus. Based on the recommendations, Metsähallitus makes the decisions and in certain statutory issues conveys the recommendations to the decision making by the Finnish Parliament, e.g. in case of changed land-use allocations. Such decisions are beyond the mandate of Metsähallitus. All NRP’s are confirmed (final approval and decision) by the Board of Metsähallitus.[2]
Problem structuring
In the first process in Kainuu 1995, four main points of view (FPS`s business revenues in Kainuu, nature conservation, socioeconomic values and recreation) were taken as the basis of the process. Each of them were measured with several criteria and indicators. The indicators were required to be numerical and their development to be predictable. Four basic alternatives were formulated: one representing the current land use decisions, one promoting nature conservation, one promoting recreation and one promoting economic aspects. Later on, two new alternatives were included after the state decisions concerning old growth forest conservation areas.
In the Eastern Finland process, the working group in their first meeting discussed about their dreams about the state forest uses and about the process itself. In the second meeting, the goals were set that would enhance achieving those dreams. In the third meeting the group discussed about the possible future alternatives, and the suitable criteria and indicators to describe them.
The role of stakeholder groups in the problem structuring has increased from the first processes.
Intelligence
Stakeholders
At the starting point of each of the processes invitations are sent to all possible stakeholder groups. The working group is formed in the first meeting. In order to keep the number of participants reasonable, the stakeholder groups are classified into interest groups, and each of them selects their regional representative to the working group. Every representative in the working group has also a deputy member who receives all the same information as the main representative. In some case, a national level representative may be selected, or some interest group can have more than one representatives. These exceptions are possible if all other groups agree.[3]
Objectives
In the last processes, the general approach has been to involve four different viewpoints and two-three numerical criteria for each of them. These have been selected during the discussion with the stakeholders.
In Eastern Finland, the criteria and indicators were:
1) Nature conservation
- The area of ecological network (1000 ha)
- The proportion of rich sites conserved (%)
- The width of forests bordering lakes and rivers (m)
2) Economic
- The annual harvested volume (1000 cubic meters)
- Total net income from forestry and other commercial activities (million euros)
3) Recreation and tourism
- The area of forests suitable for recreation and tourism (1000 ha)
- The lake and rives shores in everyman use (km)
4) Regional economy
- The cost budget of Metsähallitus (million euros)
- Metsähallitus employment (person years)
In other regions, the process has been quite similar, but the criteria and indicators have changed somewhat. For instance, in Kainuu new process the criteria and indicators were (Hiltunen et al. 2008)
1) Biodiversity
- Area of the ecological network, 1000 ha
- Quality of the network, school grade given by specialists
2) Economy
- Total net income from forestry and other commercial activities, mill. € per year
- Sustainable (allowable) annual cut, 1000 m3 per year
3) Recreation and tourism
- Area of forests older than 80 years (hiking etc.), 1000 ha
- Area of forests younger than 20 years (game such as moose and hares), 1000 ha
4) Social impacts
- Metsähallitus employment, person years
- Gross turnover, € mill
Preferences
In different processes, different methods have been employed. In the first process, AHP (HIPRE software [4] was applied. It requires giving weight to different criteria.
After that, different voting methods such as Borda count and approval voting have been utilized. These have often been combined with more sophisticated methods such as utility functions (Pykäläinen et al. 2007).
In the last processes, MESTA software has been used. [[5]] It requires setting minimum acceptance borders for each criterion.
Information
The information used in the analysis is mostly basic forest inventory data. In addition, expert opinions concerning some criteria, like employment, are utilised.
Design
Alternatives
The alternatives are formulated after the discussion with stakeholders in the working group. It is recommended that at least the basic alternative (using current principles of land use), and alternatives increasing and decreasing the level of nature conservation, and alternatives weighting recreation are formulated.
The alternatives are formulated using forest DSS, such as MELA system
Choice
Usage of DSS
In choice phase, the same tools are used as in preference elicitation.
Typically, the working group first ranks the criteria from most important to least important.
In the next phase, each participant gives the weights or acceptance borders for the criteria in an hand-on experiment. Each participant can work on them interactively.
Later on, the group discusses about them, and tries to find an acceptable compromise solution. Thus, the MCDA methods are used as tools to explore the options, but the best alternative is selected after discussions.
Monitoring
The success of the plans are monitored after the first five years in a new participatory planning process. The checking process is, however, lighter than the original planning process, whit only a couple of organized meetings.
The process is evaluated based on the monitoring indicators agreed upon, and all the available information, including information on the working environment.
Based on this process, it is decided if the plan is still valid, of it it needs to be changed. In the latter case, the plan is re-formulated according to the needs.
The participation process in itself is not monitored.
References
Hiltunen , V., Kangas, J. & Pykäläinen, J. 2008. Voting methods in strategic forest planning — Experiences from Metsähallitus. Forest Policy and Economics 10:117-127.
Hiltunen, V., Kurttila, M., Leskinen, P., Pasanen, K. and Pykäläinen, J. 2009. Mesta - Internet application for supporting discrete choice situations in strategic level participatory natural resources planning. Forest Policy and Economics 11:1-9.
Pykäläinen, J., Kangas, J. & Loikkanen, T. 1999. Interactive decision analysis in participatory strategic forest planning: experiences from State owned boreal forests. Journal of Forest Economics 5:341-364.
Pykäläinen, J., Hiltunen, V., & Leskinen, P. 2007. Complementary use of voting methods and interactive utility analysis in participatory strategic forest planning: experiences gained from western Finland. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 37:853-865
