The Forestry Association of Galicia begins creating a series of joint forest management groups to ensure sustainability.
The Forestry Association of Galicia (AFG) held its 36th General Assembly on Saturday 29 April at the Pazo de Mariñán (Bergondo, A Coruña), an event attended by forest owners and representatives of community woodlands from across Galicia.
The Assembly served to review the Association's activities over the past year, as well as its ongoing lines of work. One of the main issues addressed was the Galician Forestry Association's commitment to promoting a series of joint forest management groups, as a way of overcoming the problems caused by smallholdings, as well as guaranteeing sustainability.
The AFG has already begun creating five joint management projects in the provinces of A Coruña and Pontevedra, and has further initiatives in an early stage in the Lugo coast and the Coruña coast, the latter in collaboration with local associations of eucalyptus wood producers (Promas).
Context of the groups
Joint management groups are an instrument defined in Law 11/2021 on the recovery of agricultural land in Galicia. It is a figure aimed at promoting, on a voluntary basis, the joint management of forest areas of at least 10 hectares, without restructuring ownership.
This instrument aims to overcome problems arising from smallholdings, in order to ensure more sustainable woodlands, advance towards more professional forestry, with economies of scale and with forest and environmental planning of the territory.
For the implementation of the joint management groups to be fully effective, it is still necessary for the Government to specify both the administrative process to be followed and the grants it will call for to promote them.
On the other hand, the Forestry Association of Galicia once again stresses the need to rectify the numerous errors in the Cadastre, as these make it difficult to identify owners and plots, turning the creation of joint management groups into a titanic task.
Strategic needs of the sector
Another focus of the Assembly of the Galician Forestry Association was placed on the strategic needs of the sector, from the perspective of forest owners and partner community woodlands. Some of the main lines addressed, in which the Governments are urged to act, are as follows:
- Improve forest taxation and financing for silvicultural activities. Management of the forest by silviculturists is the best way to reduce the abandonment of stands and prevent forest fires. Therefore, it is necessary to incentivise this management by implementing support measures aimed at private forest owners who manage their woodland sustainably. This includes planning work such as clearings, pruning, thinning or the introduction of genetically improved plants, combined with more attractive forest tax legislation. All of this will encourage young people to get involved in forestry.
- Increase public support for forests in Natura 2000. Forests in Natura 2000 face a series of restrictions on uses and exploitation, and therefore should receive compensation. The Galician Forestry Association has for years been proposing measures such as the introduction of compensations for affected landowners, as well as an intensification of public forestry works on those territories, in close agreement with the landowners.
- Focus forest research on the needs of the sector. At times there is a perceived disconnect between publicly funded research lines and the sector's needs. Research lines are required that address the challenges faced by Galicia's main forest species in terms of forest health, genetic improvement and climate change.
- To adapt the wildfire regulations to the social and urban planning reality of Galicia, without imposing excessive penalties and burdens on forest owners, so that the cost of fire management and prevention is mutualised, that is, equitably distributed among the entire population.
