Concluding remarks

This work, and particularly the application of a theoretical framework to practical examples, produced several findings and raised a number questions. Firstly, that public policy from nearly all areas has impacts on forestry. It is therefore clear that forestry should engage with all relevant sectors and policy areas to achieve its goals. The lower number of examples of forestry policy affecting other areas resulted both from the fact that the impacts of forestry are often taken for granted, e.g. with respect to environmental services, and also because forestry policy less frequently impinges on other areas in a negative way. The balance of examples itself thus suggests that, at present, the 'revealed value' of other sectors and public policy areas is higher than that of forestry. Furthermore, many examples included policies with negative impacts on forestry and positive socio-economic impacts on forest users and local people but no examples of where the opposite was the case. As it is often the case that values attached to forestry do not include those associated with positive externalities and the 'revealed value' may therefore be inaccurate, a task for policy makers is to amend these deficiencies. However, many of the examples where public policy has negative impacts on forestry do not demonstrate policy failure, as such, and therefore the surrounding circumstances should be analysed in order to determine the best course of action.

The collated examples reveal several points of use in future efforts. Importantly, the results suggest that many policies are pursued with more or less full knowledge of the impacts they will have on forests and forestry. Under such circumstances more efficient policy making and better intersectoral co-ordination, as such, are unlikely to be efficient mechanisms with which to alter the situation (notwithstanding underlying changes in the value of forestry as expressed through public policy). In these cases the role of the forestry sector, in its broadest sense, is to increase awareness of the values of forestry where it is known or believed to be under valued in comparison with the replacement, i.e. where the change does not make long term economic sense. This may be assisted by analysis of the full of effects of the policies having impacts on forestry to locate allied sectors with whom a stronger case for expansion or alleviation of impacts can be made.

The results also suggest that one of the main factors determining the effects of public policy on forestry at the national level is the abundance of forest itself. This is supported by the observation that policies with negative impacts on forestry appear to be relatively more common than those with positive impacts, in high than in low forest cover countries regardless of income level. This is, again, a factor over which policy makers, in their role of reflecting stakeholder's values, will have only limited control and an area where increased awareness of the values of forestry can help, as outlined above.

Given these observations, the main area in which policy makers have room to manoeuvre in the short term, is in reduction of forestry policies with negative impacts and in expansion and creation of markets for positive internal and external outputs. It is therefore suggested that future work identify the cause of impacts, distinguishing between the cases outlined above and where policy making and cross-sectoral co-ordination is relevant.

With respect to the work here, examples where there are positive impacts both on the socio-economic situation of forest users and local people and on forestry included several that related to economic liberalisation and decentralisation where the values of forest are more easily realised. Other successes regarding these criteria included the effective marketing of benefits from forestry and forests and stabilisation of land tenure allowing more secure investment in forestry. Examples with negative effects on both areas were due either to policies created little or no without regard for either area or were simply poorly made policies. A wide and conceptually simple area, thus exists for policy improvement whereby the benefits of forestry can be more easily realised by society and negative effects minimalised.