Governing the forest: the challenge of an under-resourced private forestry model

BarcelonaMore than half of Catalonia is forest. These are forest areas that over the last century have grown where there were once fields, crops, and agricultural activity that, over time, has been abandoned. And nature has reclaimed the land. These are young and dense forests that have occupied the space left by rural exodus and agricultural abandonment, which over the last century have pushed the population of villages towards cities.

Catalonia now has double the forest area it had in the 1950s. In the last 70 years, the forest has gone from 35% of the territory to the current 64%, according to the latest data from the General Plan for Forest Policy. We have more forest than ever before – which has grown quite uncontrollably – and also a more extreme climate, with waves of fires like last week's, which often exceed the extinction capacity of the Generalitat Firefighters, one of the best-prepared corps in the world, according to experts.

But Catalonia also has more scientific and technological knowledge than ever before. This is one of the great paradoxes: if we know what needs to be done and have the best teams, why is it so hard to implement it? ARA has brought together experts from the sector to understand what the forest is like, who owns it, how it should be worked on, and what barriers prevent better management.

Managing a forest area means intervening in it: carrying out thinning, selective logging – even tree by tree –, clearing, and pruning; introducing other species; restoring extensive livestock farming to clear the undergrowth, or creating axes and protection strips around urban areas so that firefighters can work on extinctions. These are some of the actions that make forests more resilient to fire. There are government plans, research centers, and a lot of science and technology available. However, just over 30% of forests – public and private – are managed, meaning they have a technical plan and a roadmap that is regularly applied.

The reason? The public research center CREAF points to three main causes, beyond decades of abandonment: the lack of economic incentives, administrative hurdles, and low social acceptance. It is a thesis shared by the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) and by the sector as a whole. "The center of gravity of society, of the economy, is not in the territory, it is in the cities," states Antoni Trasobares, director of the CTFC and former Director General of Natural Environment of the Generalitat (2013-2016). "When solutions based on oil began to arrive, coal, wood... stopped being produced. And vegetation does not stop: it has taken over land, and now we have a map of landscapes with a continuity of fuels that, when two or three weeks reach 35 degrees, like now, generate the perfect storm," continues Trasobares, who admits that climate change has "run us over".

Forest expert and Bosquerols partner Marc Garfella agrees. "In the fifties we had fields, pastures and meadows, a structure that, to prevent fires, was wonderful," he points out. Now, he says, we have "young and dense" forests, extremely sensitive to drought, pests, and fires. He warns that we have gone from a fragmented landscape, which stopped fire, to a continuous forest landscape that acts as a large fuel deposit.

A divided forest that "does not pay off"

And whose are these forests? 76% are privately owned and 24% are publicly owned. Of the just over 2 million hectares of forest mass in Catalonia, 1.5 million are in the hands of individuals. White pine, Scots pine, and Austrian pine forests predominate here, but also holm oak forests, oak forests, cork oak forests, chestnut groves, and mixed forests, according to the Forest Observatory.

The president of the Consorci Forestal de Catalunya – which brings together 1,500 forest owners – Rosendo Castelló, provides more data on this fragmentation. "There is a lot of talk about atomized properties, and that is not entirely true either," he qualifies. "In Catalonia there are 237,000 forest owners. Well, 10%, that is to say, about 23,000, own 90% of the forest area," he details. "Let's assume that, of these, there are 7,000, 8,000 or 10,000 who are really active, involved and motivated silviculturists. That's not so many anymore, is it? And why are we leaving them so abandoned?" he laments.

Castelló argues that the image of the "large landowner" is very far from reality. "A large property like these is worth less than an apartment in Barcelona's Eixample. Before, they did live well, because wood, cork, charcoal were exploited a lot... But now these properties are worth nothing; they are worth what the house inside is worth, if there is one," he adds. The owners' spokesperson puts figures on it. He assures that one hectare of forest costs 1,200 euros, while managing it costs between 1,500 and 2,500: "The land is no longer worth it," he summarizes. CREAF also concludes that economic incentives are lacking, because the cost of preventive actions often exceeds the value of the product extracted from it or even that of the land itself.

There are European aids, public investment –the Generalitat wants to allocate 75 million to forest management in five years– and some incentives. But the sector demands more: tax benefits, VAT reductions, tax credits for foresters who contribute to reducing emissions and generating more water or biodiversity, forest insurance, more value for forest products, promotion of local wood, and quality seals.

These are measures that are not only demanded by owners, but also generate consensus in the sector. "We have to pour money into it, because we don't have a forest from which to obtain a yield," summarizes Helena Ballart, head of the resilient landscapes and societies area at the Pau Costa Foundation, an entity dedicated to forest fire risk management. "Here we don't have forests like those in Northern Europe, which are much more productive, and that is a total handicap," she values.

CREAF's study also identifies bureaucracy as another major barrier. Administrative hurdles are the second major obstacle, and the perception of being blocked in Catalonia is higher than the average in the European regions analyzed. "We need a one-stop shop, because right now the departments are very divided and don't solve anything; they just pass the buck," says Garfella, who battles paperwork daily. "We've encountered contradictory cases, like a town hall saying it will only issue a favorable management license if it has a report from the natural park, and the natural park saying it will only issue its report if it has the town hall's license," he continues. Castelló also denounces hyper-regulation. "We can't clean or cut down a tree without a permit. No economic activity, not even metallurgy, the agri-food sector, or construction, is as closely monitored as forestry," he points out.

The debate opens another question: who should be responsible for maintaining forest landscapes? A few months ago Parliament removed the obligation for owners to manage forests. "I believe responsibility must be shared. There are minimum obligations [for owners], but at the same time, there must be real help and compensation for farmers, forest owners, and the people who are helping to maintain this mosaic, because it's not just for them, it's for everyone," values Trasobares.

Social misunderstanding

Another aspect that concerns the sector is social misunderstanding. Forestry professionals assure that there is "a part of the population" that is still reluctant to felling. A hostility that the CREAF study also identifies as a stumbling block for managing the territory. "It has happened to us that we were working near urban areas and they called us arboricides, that is, tree murderers –explains Garfella–. Or that we were working and people from the big city punctured our vehicle tires. This happens: they are a minority, but they make a lot of noise". The forestry expert maintains that, after these actions, biodiversity improves. Castelló also recalls the case of a neighbor who reproached him for felling some trees because they "took away her shade". "They were trees that my own grandfather had planted, 60 years ago, but a pest had entered them and they had to be felled", he argues.

Experts emphasize that thinning and selective felling remain necessary, but recall that it is also necessary to introduce other species, recover extensive livestock farming to clear the undergrowth and correctly remove the extracted material. This management, they assure, also contributes to maintaining a landscape that is better valued by mountain visitors.

But maintaining everything "is impossible", which is why efforts must be focused. Ballart, from the Pau Costa Foundation, emphasizes "confinement axes", that is, the areas located between the forest and the fields and urban developments, which prevent a large fire from "jumping" from one massif to another. "It is about investing money in the most efficient way, and it is very important to invest with the idea that the agroforestry mosaic does not spread the fire," he explains. From the Forest Science and Technology Centre, Trasobares also believes that "it is not necessary to manage 100%", but considers that "we should reach 60% or 70% of the forest area" to ensure that the most sensitive areas remain protected.

Fire as an ally

In this regard, a more naturalistic view also gains strength: the so-called fire ecology. CSIC-CREAF researcher Lluís Brotons proposes valuing flames as accomplices. It is a paradigm shift in our relationship with fire, he says. Brotons suggests that society must learn to "live with fire" – a natural element of Mediterranean landscapes, he recalls – just as it coexists with other natural processes, such as precipitation.

Thus, Brotons proposes that, instead of trying to eliminate it, we must learn to direct fire to extract "the positive part" from it. "We know that if a forest that is not very mature burns, for many years that area has less risk of fire, has more biodiversity richness and generates a mosaic," says the researcher, who maintains that fire is another way of managing the territory and that wanting to avoid it is to eliminate a central part of its functioning.

However, the sector concludes that governing the forest is a balancing act played at two speeds: a nature that grows slowly and climate change that accelerates many processes. In this scenario, human intervention requires summing efforts, removing obstacles and rethinking – as happens in many other sectors – what productive model we have and where it is leading us.