Implementation of the regulation in Natural Resource Planning

50 % weight and hence played a major role for the outcome of the total utility function (Hiltunen 998, 5–5.). Metsähallitus put double the emphasis on economic goals than on any of the other goals (Table ). It also emphasised the economic goals more than any of the different stakeholder groups did. This – not the preferences of the stakeholders – is the factor explaining why the Business scenario received the highest total utility function with Business as usual ranking second, Recreation as third and Conservation as the last one.

In fact, one of the interviewed NHS staff members maintained that Recreation, not Business, would have been the most preferred scenario by Kainuu people in the first Natural Resource Planning process. This is supported by the figures above. Another NHS representative pointed out that the problem in the voting system in the first NRP was that a vote for recreation was a vote against the other alternatives, which, according to the interviewee, created unnecessary and artificial divisions particularly between conservation and recreation, and was likely to give a skewed impression of the preferences of the involved groups.

A Forestry Division staff member explained the end result of the decision analysis and the role of the participants in the process vis-à-vis Metsähallitus in the following way:

“…this participatory planning, it just gave, in my understanding, these stakeholders outside the house a channel to affect things, but the final decision-making power is always with Metsähallitus and if something does not go right for Metsähallitus, then it is decided so that is goes right. But the idea is that somebody gets to influence. And I guess it needs to be understood that when it’s about human interaction talk, and whatnot, always has an impact.”(FDK)

The fact that Metsähallitus’ leadership gave the economic targets double the weight over the other goals, and nature conservation, was not highlighted in any way, indicates that whoever formulated the official preferences of Metsähallitus and wrote the Plan, either did not consider it likely or desirable to have an increase in the amount of nature conservation, despite the on-going old-growth forest inventories. Once the political decision about the Protection Programme had been made, it was referred to in the plan as a “national level

Economic goals Nature Conservation goals

Recreation

goals Socio-economic goals

Regional

working group 0. 0. 0. 0.0

Working groups

in municipalities 0.9 0.7 0.9 0.6

Citizens 0. 0. 0.50 0.5

Metsähallitus

management 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Table 11. Preferences of the different participants and Metsähallitus during the first NRP process (Hiltunen 998, 5, 5)

political decision by the owner”(Hiltunen 998, 5). It was pointed out in the plan that the Protection Program meant a significant emphasis on nature conservation in the use of Kainuu’s forests, in comparison to the alternatives that had ranked highest in the NRP process (Hiltunen 998, 5) In other words, the Protection Programme was indirectly described as being against the will of both Metsähallitus and the local people.

The second round of Natural Resource Planning took place in a rather different situation. With the Old-growth Forest Protection Programs adopted and the Landscape Ecological Plans ready, the allocation of forests to conservation vis-à-vis commercial forestry had changed considerably. This time around, there were more alternative scenarios which again were assessed from four different perspectives, this time called conservation, recreation, economy and regional economy. Again, ‘economy’ was understood as Metsähallitus’ business economy, and ‘regional economy’ as the amount of jobs and turnover Metsähallitus produced in Kainuu, despite the fact that (nature-based) tourism was recognised in the plan as a rapidly going branch in economy. While tourism in many parts of Kainuu is heavily dependent on using state forests, the income or jobs it generates are only minimally visible within Metsähallitus’ balance sheet or list of employees. Restricting the attention to Metsähallitus staff meant that majority of the benefits produced by forest-dependent tourism were ignored.

In contrast to the first round of NRP, during the second round Metsähallitus chose the alternative scenario that gained the widest support amongst the stakeholders in the Stakeholder Working Group, namely Increased Recreation, despite the fact that it was not supported by the Advisory Board in Oulu Province, or by the Municipal Councils in Kainuu. (Hiltunen & Väisänen 00, –, .) The reviewed plan did not outline the preferences of Metsähallitus or the State the same way as the first plan did, so it is difficult to assess to what extent the choice was due to the fact that the preferences of the stakeholders matched best those of Metsähallitus’ management. The differences between the alternatives were not very significant. For example, the total amount of protected areas and ecologically valuable commercial forests varied in the first plan between 0 to 0 % of the productive forestland, where in the second plan the variation was between 7 and %. The harvest levels varied in 996 between 500 000 and 000 000 m a year, whereas in 00 the variation was considerably smaller, between 866 000 and 000 000 cubic meters. (Hiltunen 998, 8,; Hiltunen & Väisänen 00, .) Even with a scenario with increased emphasis on recreation, the harvest levels and the turnover in Kainuu would in fact increase during the coming 0 years. This is in part due to the age structure of the forests, where the areas clear-cut in the 950s and 960s are now ready for thinning and provide large amounts of timber for pulp.

The analysis shows that the role given to the stakeholder input was different in the two NRP processes, and its weight depended on the views Metsähallitus itself had on the future of the state forests in Kainuu. Due to the 50 % weight given to Metsähallitus’

own preferences during the first NRP process, the views of both individual citizens and organised stakeholder groups would have had limited impact on the final result, even if the Protection Program had not been adopted. The preferences of Metsähallitus’ leadership, on the other hand, clearly demonstrated an almost opposite order of preferences than the ones expressed in the objectives of Metsähallitus Act, since business economic goals were given double the weight of any of the social obligations (although all social and ecological goals together did account for 60 % of the weights). During the second round, on the other hand, the alternative preferred by the Stakeholder Working group was selected but it remains unclear how it related to the goals of Metsähallitus’ leadership.

What the both NRP processes have in common is an informal institution that has guided the decision-making but which cannot be found in the legislation regarding state forestry. This is discussed further in the following section.