Financial analysis for sustainable management of private forests. Example of Aleppo pine.

1 Title, abstract and keywords

TITLE: Financial analysis for sustainable management of private forests. Example of Aleppo pine.

This paper presents a methodology for a financial and sustainable valuation of business forest management that also allows to improve the incentives to enhance public policies for prevention and conservation, with the Catalan case study of the Aleppo pine forests.

Every summer and more recently due to the long drought, the situation of Catalan forests is a bad news, with criticism for the results of public policies and for the abandonment or low intensity management of forests because there is a low proportion of this 41% of the Catalan area that are planned or certified for both environmental and economic sustainability, despite its economic and political importance.

A paradigmatic case could be the Aleppo pine forests, one of the most representative of Catalonia, both for being a Mediterranean variety and for its extension, since it spreads easily through the open areas and its pyrophilic characteristic makes the fire also facilitates its "colonization". It is a type of forest that tends to be unmanaged and unexploited, despite its representativeness (almost 30% of the Catalan private forest area), although there are studies to help the sustainable management of these forests [1] and detected its potential benefit [2, 3]. However, the economic conclusions of these studies and the private maximization of public subsidies have led to a preference for non-exploitation, with perverse effects on fire prevention policies and protection and conservation of mature forests.  However, with a broader view, especially from a financial analysis perspective [4], it is possible to show both the economic viability of its business management, not only in contexts of very favorable prices, as well as the improvement of the effectiveness of public policies with stimuli is feasible if it is not based on the concept of immediate economic utility and other elements linked to sustainable finance are considered [5]. However, the results could be more ambitious in the recommendations of public instruments if there were a greater detail of the type of private forest owners in Catalonia as in other European cases [6].

KEYWORDS: Sustainable finance, Forest management, Degenerate financial operation, Financial Analysis

2 The main text

1. INTRODUCTION

Every summer and more recently due to the long drought, the situation of Catalan forests is a bad news, with criticism for the results of public policies and for the abandonment or low intensity management of forests because there is a low proportion of this 41% of the Catalan area that are planned or certified for both environmental and economic sustainability, despite its economic and political importance.

In [4] we present an alternative model to analyse the financial return of the forest exploitation, applied to the case of Aleppo pine, that allows to detect a more efficient public policy in the subsidies for sustainable and prevention exploitation, considered additional returns different to immediate economic utility.

3 Bibliography

[1] Beltrán, M.; Piqué, M.; Vericat, P.; Cervera, T. 2011. Models de gestió per als boscos de pi blanc (Pinus halepensis L.): producció de fusta i prevenció d’incendis forestals. Sèrie: Orientacions de Gestió Forestal Sostenible per a Catalunya (ORGEST). Centre de la Propietat Forestal. Departament d’Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca, Alimentació i Medi Natural. Generalitat de Catalunya. [2] Melo, A.; Cunhab, J; Ferreira, P. 2017. “Business model for forest management”. Procedia Manufacturing 13 (2017), pp. 940–947. Manufacturing Engineering Society International Conference 2017, MESIC 2017, 28-30 June. [3] Institució Catalana d’Estudis Agraris (ICEA). Secció Forestal. 2018. Reflexions sobre les polítiques forestals del bosc privat a Catalunya. Grup de debat sobre polítiques forestals, Anys 2018-2019. [4] Ceballos, D; Perramon, J. 2021. THE PRIVATE FOREST: FINANCIAL TIME AND FOREST TIME. Review of the methodology of economic and financial analysis of logging and its implications in forestry policy. IX Conference of the Spanish-Portuguese Association of Resources and Environmental Economics. Lleida 2021. [5] Begemann, A.; Dolriis, C.; Winkel, G. 2023. "Rich forests, rich people? Sustainable finance and its links to forests". Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 326, Part B, 2023, 116808. [6] Ficko, A.; Lidestav, G.; Dhubháin, A.N.; Karppinen, H.; Zivojinovic, I.; Westin, K. 2019. "European private forest owner typologies: A review of methods and use". Forest Policy and Economics, Volume 99, 2019, pp.21-31.