Goals and priorities of the 'National Forest Policy' in the light of the Forest Europe (formerly MCPFE) commitments

The 'National Forest Policy' (PLP), adopted by the Council of Ministers in 1997, is the main document setting out directions of forestry development in Poland. It defines goals and priorities of forest policy, describes organizational, economic and legal conditions of its implementation and specifies expected results. While the natural, social, economic, institutional and legal environment has significantly changed over the last 20 years, the PLP has not been revised and updated, also in terms of Poland's international commitments resulting from the MCPFE (currently Forest Europe) process. The aim of the paper is to analyse directions of forest policy development under the Forest Europe after 1997, i.e. when the PLP came into force, and to indicate needs to update the issues contained in this document. The study focuses on goals and priorities of the MCPFE defined in resolutions and decisions adopted on conferences held from 1998 (Lisbon) to 2015 (Madrid). Overall 15 main directions on forest policy development were identified (tab. 2). They were then compared with the priorities defined in the PLP to identify issues to be updated in the context of the European forest policy change. The study shows that many of the priorities of European forest policy has not been reflected in the PLP (tab. 2). These include, among others, adapting forests to climate change and enhancing their mitigation potential, enhancing economic contribution of the sustainable forest management (SFM) into rural development, enhancing the role of the SFM in a green economy, securing participation of all stakeholders in forest-related decision-making process, improving communication in forestry and developing cross-sectoral cooperation of forestry. Many of the forest-related issues have been, however, included in numerous strategic documents of environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, rural development, economic development or energy policies after 1997. In that way many goals and priorities defined under the Forest Europe are very dispersed in Polish policy documents of different forest-related sectors and it raises reasonable concern that some inconsistencies and contradictions between them may occur. It may also indicate that the forest sector is getting more and more marginalized in socioeconomic and political space, as forest policy goals are defined and achieved within other areas. We therefore recommend to continue efforts to adopt the National Forest Programme and launch a participatory, holistic, inter-sectoral and iterative process of forest policy planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.