New forest-environmental policies in rural areas included in Natural Network 2000: an application to the Iberian Atlantic Region

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the agro-environmental measures applied in the Atlantic Region of Iberian Peninsula, taking as territorial reference mountainous rural spaces with forestry vocation that proposed to take part of the European Natural Network 2000. In order to do this evaluation, it has been done a Delphi analysis with a panel of experts composed by the presidents of different communities of communal ownership woodlands. The results of this analysis shows the opinion of the managers of the aforementioned natural spaces with relation to the quantity, duration and other aspects of the established aids in the examined agro-environmental programmes. One of the final conclusions are that the managers of these forests are disagree with duration and quantity of the aids. Therefore, their demands are not enclosed in the regional institutional framework. However, quantities demanded by managers for realizing several kind of forestry activities are f itted to European framework. Besides the analysis of the policies developed by the actual Common Agrarian Policy, it is analysed an hypothetical proposal of a new programme of conservation of autochthonous landscapes, what conforms a prevision exercise that, in the future, could be taken into account by the policy makers in the elaboration of the new management programmes of the mountainous rural spaces. In order to get that it is analysed how the quantities of the aids destined to promote this kind of actions are adapted to the social actor demands to whom are destined.