Anarf workshop: forest framework program

The workshop organized by Anarf (Associazione Nazionale Aziende Regionali Foreste) and by the Italian observatory of the forest product and services market of Cnel, held in Rome on 18 September 2007, was attended by representatives of the Italian wood industry, who discussed with officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry for the Protection of the Environment and Sea, and representatives of the regions responsible for forestry issues. For the first time in this new nation-wide planning stage, the different actors of forest policy have gathered around the same table to start a series of possibly fruitful meetings.

The discussion highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of Italian forest policy and the resulting need to formulate shared and viable directions and measures to allow the primary actors of Italian forestry to meet the demands of civil society as relates to territorial and environmental safeguard, eco-compatible production, work, sustainable forest management, research and professional education.

The participants offered several topics of discussion, including the fact that the new forest plan should be a proper synthesis of the rural development plans drafted by the Regions and under approval by the European Commission; but most of all, it should identify which strategic goals a national forest policy wants to achieve and which role should be played by Italian forests in this respect. It is necessary to link all forest-related decisions to agricultural, environmental, mountain, soil protection, territory and landscape policies.

Forestry and the entire wood industry should be supported as a priority, much more than they are today. It is also essential to create, within Mipaf (Ministry of agricultural and forest policy), a specific structure to deal with forest policy and planning, currently absent. An ad hoc structure that is a reference for Regions and the production industry.