Participation in forest planning in southern Italy
General case description
Brief overview
The participatory process was conducted in the frame of the forest landscape management plan "Comunità Montana Collina Materana" that was realized in the frame of the activities established with the Agreement between the Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura (C.R.A.) and INEA-Headquarter of Potenza (planning organization). This research was supported by MIPAF (Ministry for agriculture and forestry policy) - National Research Project Ri.Selv.Italia (Subproject 4.2 – Forest Planning - Task: 4.2.6 Study on the implementation of a territory forest planning with participatory approach). The Comunità Montana is the Italian administrative body that coordinates the municipalities located in the mountainous areas and is responsible for administration and economic development. The Comunità Montana Collina Materana, located in the Basiliata region, southern Italy, was chosen as the study area. The territory of the Comunità Montana occupies about 60,784 ha, divided into seven municipalities. The forest areas (12,304 ha) comprise 19,8% of the territory. The large diversity of forest formations is to be attributed to the great variability in morphology, altimetry and lithology of the area. The demographic density is low, 22.2 people/km², against a national average of 200.1 people/km². The rural sector covers an important role in the economic structure of the Comunità Montana, employing 24% of the active population (national average 8%, European average 4-5%). Conversely, the industrial sector is extremely weak as well as the tourist sector.
The decision makers were Regional Government and Comunità Montana Officials
The aims of the project were:
- to perform reflections on the causes and the consequences of the change in the man-forest relationship and on the opportunity to acknowledge new expectations and needs arisen from society towards the forestry sector through participation;
- to perform, through study cases, a procedure capable of integrating participation into territory forest planning and to develop a method suitable for all different situations present in Italy.
The aims of the participation process in the project were:
- to evaluate the perception of forest and of forest management among the local communities,
- to integrate between traditional knowledge and the technical content of the plan
- to make aware the population of the planning process,
- to carry out the mapping of the stakeholders,
- to involve, through a targeted reach out, stakeholders that would have something to say but would hardly be able express themselves increasing acceptance of decisions.
Contents
Organization
- Who started the process?
- What influence did the participation have in the decision process? (for instance compared to Arnstein levels of participation)
- How is the participation process organized?
- What was the time frame for participation?
- What was the time frame related to the project time frame?
- What was the budget of project/participation (for example in money, workdays etc.)?
Problem structuring
- How was the problem defined?
- Who defined the problem? Was participation used in problem definition phase?
- What tools or methods were used in problem structuring, if any?
Intelligence
Stakeholders
- who were the stakeholders?
- how were they selected?
Objectives
- what were the criteria?
- how were they selected?
Preferences
- how were the preferences of the decision makers and stakeholders elicited?
Information
- what information was collected?
- what tools were used for data collection?
Design
Alternatives
- What kind of alternatives were considered?
- How were they defined?
- Who defined them?
- What tools and methods (if any) were used to define them?
Choice
Usage of DSS
- What kind of DSS was used (if any)?
- How was the DSS used in the process?
Usage of models, methods and tools
- What kind of decision support tools (models, methods) were used, if any?
- How were the decision support tools used? (for instance, through internet, with the help of a facilitator, with hands-on experiments)
- Was the use of decision support tools interactive?
Monitoring
- Was the success of the project monitored?
- How was the success of the project monitored? (both process and product)
- Who monitored the success?
- Were the decisions/plans implemented?
- Was the implementation monitored?
- Were the goals set for participation achieved?
References
Cited references
