Wildfires in Galicia: causality, forest policy and risk in forest management

Abstract

Forestlands are one of the most important environmental resources. If a better conservation and management was achieved, then the social welfare and economic wealth would be higher. To obtain a better forest conservation, wildfires can be prevented by public policies. The first chapter of this thesis is focused on providing suggestions to improve the current public policies in order to reduce the wildfire occurrence. In this chapter spatial econometric models are developed in order to analyse the relations between socioeconomics, environmental and climatic variables with wildfires occurrence. In particular, Chap. I studies the heterogeneous behaviour of wildfire patterns within the Galician Forest Districts. The main results of this chapter highlight the importance of the role of socioeconomic factors in explaining wildfire occurrence. Based on these results, some policy guidelines are suggested. Chaps. II and III study the forest insurance as a tool for reducing the economic risk and guarantee the production of environmental services. The proposed insurance model includes the coverage of restoration costs and timber damages after wildfires. Hence, the production of environmental services will be guaranteed and the forest investment will reduce their volatility. Thus, in Chap. II the influence of forest insurance is analysed by employing Net Present Value model (NPV). In the Chap. III, forest insurance is studied as a tool to incentive the landowner to produce environmental services. Therefore, private and social forest valuation is conditioned by this incentive; so that the optimal forest rotation considers the valuation of environmental goods and services. In the last chapter, Chapter IV, the demand for forest insurance contracts is studied. A survey is conducted among 210 landowners and forest managers. A choice experiment of some possible insurance policies is included in this survey. The proposed insurance attributes contain both timber and restoration cost coverage; and forest certification, included as a requirement. The insurance demand according to landowners or forest managers’ preferences and their socioeconomic features is estimated. From these results, the willingness to pay for the forest insurance program is obtained (3.64 €/Ha). Finally, it can be concluded that the insurance demand is affected by both, insurance attributes and socioeconomic features of the forest managers.