Private, Common or Socialistic Forestry under Globalization? Sustainability Transitions in Finland vs. Deforestation in Tropics

About this book

While deforestation continues at an alarming rate around the world, discussions on the range of underlying causes continue. With a view to pushing forward these discussions, a team of leading forest scientists from around the world have adopted a case study approach aimed identifying key features which can contribute to a successful transition to sustainable forestry. The premise is that studying successful transitions from deforestation to sustainable forestry ex post, can provide novel insights into how deforestation elsewhere might be reduced in the future.

Drawing on relevant economic, ecological and development theory, this book presents a novel framework within which this case study approach is developed. It goes on to present the empirical findings for one key case study - Finland - revealing two historical transitional phases within the Finnish forest sector. The first is the transition to sustained yields of timber in the first half of the 20th Century; the second is the more recent transition to sustainable forest management (SFM). Given Finland's position as the world's second largest net exporter of forest products, while maintaining the highest forest cover in Europe, then understanding the issues at play in this example could provide valuable understanding for successful transitions elsewhere.

The study reveals that the interaction of public policies and market institutions has appeared to be critical during this transition from open access to sustained yields of timber. The study's findings suggest that a continuous increase in the real value of forests has been a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for this transition. In a parallel way public policies have also proved to be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition in this transition. The conclusion is that open access forestry, along with corruption, are artificially maintaining too low values for some forests. The result is that the opportunity costs of sustainable forestry remain too high and deforestation therefore continues.

Contents

Foreword.- Preface.- Acknowledgements.- List of Tables.- List of Graphs.- List of Maps.- List of Photos.- Part I: INTRODUCTION AND FINDINGS. 1. Overview. 1.1. Rationale of the study. 1.2. Summary of findings.- Part I I: RESEARCH STRATEGY. 2. Theoretical frame for industrial forestry. 2.1. Why Ecological-Economics and New Institutional Economics? 2.2. Transition of policy objectives. 2.3. Institutional-Economics theory. 2.4. Forest-based development theory. 2.5. Synthesis: Ecological-Economics-Institutional system model.- 3. Method and data gathering. 3.1. Single case study method. 3.2. Choice of case study countries: Finland, Korea, Costa Rica and Japan. 3.3. Empirical data sources in Finland. 3.4. Forestry and society: coevolution approach.- Part III: FINLAND'S HISTORICALTRANSITION. 4. Transition to industrial forestry. 4.1. Preindustrial forestry. 4.2. De jure transition in 1917-1955. 4.3. De facto transition in 1905-1959. 4.4. Impacts of international factors. 4.5. Impacts of ecological-economics factors. 4.6 Impacts of institutional factors. 4.7. Coevolution of forestry and society.- Part IV: RECENT TRANSITION FAILURES IN THE TROPICS. 5. Findings from our deforestation and scenario modeling. 5.1. Roles of trade and poverty on deforestation in 62 tropical countries; M. Palo, E. Lehto. 5.2. Roles of corruption and elites on deforestation in 35 tropical countries; M. Palo, E. Lehto. 5.3. Deforestation modeling by 30 states of Mexico; M. Palo, E. Lehto. 5.4. Worldwide tragedy of socialistic forestry. 5.5. Tree plantations and globalization by Finnish corporations. 5.6. Globalization of forest politics.- Part V: TOWARDS POSTINDUSTRIAL FORESTRY. 6. Transition to postindustrial forestry in Finland. 6.1. Globalization theory for postindustrial forestry. 6.2. Pioneering in National Forestry Programs since 1960. 6.3. Towards multiple use forestry. 6.4. De jure transition since 1994. 6.5. De facto transition by 45 Indicators of six Criteria. 6.6. Evolution of power and impacts by NGOs; H. Valtanen. 6.7. Forest certification battle and impacts; H. Valtanen.68. Unique evolution of the forest cluster.- Part VI: CONCLUSIONS. 7. Discussion and policy implications. 7.1. Discussion. 7.2. Policy implications.- References.- Appendices.- Index.-

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