Forest Owner Associations are essential for communicating rural development policies
Uniquely, this conference brought together participants from administration bodies and private forest owners from around 15 different EU and future EU countries. The process of forming the new rural development (RD) policy and its implementation at national level was intensively discussed during a two days conference. The conference “Forestry in the future CAP/rural development policy – from policy to practice - Exchange of national experiences with a view to the implementation of forestry measures” took place in Budapest and was organised by CEPF and co-financed by the EU.
Surprisingly, the participants coming from two different angles – from governments and from the private sector – came to interesting and common conclusions. The unique forestry network exploited the potential for input from a multitude of different perspectives during comprehensive workshop exercises. In these workshops, gaps in the current EU and national RD programmes were analysed and new steps for improvement were identified, which could be taken into account in the next review in 2010.
One main outcome was the lack of communication within the implementation process and the need for further improvement. The forest owner associations were commonly seen as the major instrument when it comes to the transfer of knowledge and information to the private forest owners in Europe. However, the support for forest owners associations through the RD regulation was put at risk in the new regulation. This conference, by exchanging information, developed a lot of significant ideas which endorse the vital importance of that support. It became obvious that the implementation of forestry measures from the RD regulation is very much dependent on interpreting the EU regulation in a favourable way to forestry.
Satisfied and full of new ideas for their own RD programming and lobbying at national level the participants took important information about the new RD policy back home. To conclude, the conference was definitely an exercise to repeat!