Piloting a more inclusive governance innovation strategy for forest ecosystem services management in Primiero, Italy

Francesca Bussola, Enzo Falco* (Corresponding Author), Ewert J. Aukes, Peter Stegmaier, Stefan Sorge, Marco Ciolli, Caterina Gagliano, Davide Geneletti

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)
190 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Forests are increasingly recognized for their role, importance and multifunctionality in terms of provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services they provide. Even if timber production remains the most economically valuable provisioning service in Primiero, the importance of and need for multifunctionality of forests is acknowledged. This article analyses the development of Forest Ecosystem Services (FES) governance innovation strategies by the Provincial Forest Agency as a policy entrepreneur in the area of Primiero, in Trentino, northeast of Italy. Based on detailed case study material, we create the heuristic of Kingdon's three streams model in order to reconstruct the development of and negotiations around the introduction of innovative approaches to the problem, policy and politics levels and to identify the chosen or missed windows of opportunity to deliver innovation in FES management. Findings show that the main issues perceived by the local stakeholders concern loss of biodiversity, of cultural identity and historical landscape values. The policy-entrepreneurial initiatives undertaken by the Forest Agency represent a governance mix of direct project execution, financial incentives, organisational incentives and information-based activities. The results highlight its efforts to move beyond the traditional top-down approach based on widely available public funds and towards coordination and collaborations among stakeholders, contribution of private investments, bureaucracy simplification and interconnection between participatory and institutional processes.

Original languageEnglish
Article number101380
Number of pages17
JournalEcosystem services
Volume52
Early online date15 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2021

Keywords

  • 2022 OA procedure
  • Participation
  • Governance Innovation
  • Managing governance setbacks
  • Multifunctional forest management
  • Multiple stream approach
  • Policy entrepreneurship

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