Owners will be able to apply easily and free of charge for membership and obtain various incentives and tax benefits and sustainable timber certification.

The sector welcomes this administrative simplification measure that facilitates the marketing of forest products.

Granada, August 22, 2023

The Department of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy of the Regional Government of Andalusia has recently approved a standard model of forest management for poplar groves that will simplify the planning and daily management of these forestry crops, at a time of growing interest in poplar wood and its new uses for sustainable construction.

In Andalusia there are currently some 6,000 hectares of poplar trees under cultivation, three quarters of which are in the province of Granada, where the LIFE Wood forFuture/Madera para el Futuro project, led by the University of Granada (UGR), is promoting an industry of structural wood products for building with a low carbon footprint.

The forest management model is a forest management tool that allows small landowners to plan, simply and free of charge, the actions to be carried out in their poplar groves in aspects such as planting, irrigation, pruning, cutting, use of phytosanitary products, fire prevention, etc.

They can request it to the administration and, once it is approved, they have different advantages. On the one hand, once their plan has been approved, the owners no longer need authorization to carry out the planned uses, exploitation and forestry improvements, but only prior notification. On the other hand, the managed forests have priority in obtaining subsidies and incentives, and various benefits and exemptions in IBI, transfer tax and personal income tax.

In addition, having this forest management instrument is a prerequisite for obtaining the sustainable management certification granted by independent entities (PEFC or FSC systems), which is essential when selling the timber produced.

The general director of Forestry Policy and Biodiversity, Juan Ramón Pérez Valenzuela, has highlighted that this new model-type for the management of poplar groves “responds to the demand of the sector to simplify the planning and daily management, in a scenario of growing interest in poplar wood and its new uses, particularly for sustainable construction through the design of new structural elements made with 100% Andalusian technical wood”.

Pérez Valenzuela stressed that this instrument, developed in collaboration with owners, foresters, professional associations and agricultural associations, is “one more step in the new forestry policy that, in the framework of the renewed Andalusian Forestry Plan, with the recent Management Instructions, and in the midst of the revision of the next Forestry Law of Andalusia, aims to stop the secular abandonment of rural areas and value our best renewable natural resources, ensuring the conservation and improvement of the Andalusian forests, and in the midst of the revision of the next Andalusian Forestry Law, aims to stop the secular abandonment of rural areas and to value our best renewable natural resources, guaranteeing the conservation and improvement of the Andalusian forests in the global process of Green Revolution led by the Government of Andalusia”.

Satisfaction in the sector

For her part, Victoria Carreras, president of the Agrupación de Propietarios Marjal Chopo, which brings together 73 owners with almost 1,300 hectares of poplar groves, mostly in Granada, has expressed her satisfaction with the measure, “key to the much sought-after professionalization of the sector that we are promoting”.

“We are very happy, because it gives us more management tools for the sector. It is a guide for forestry focused on obtaining quality and certified wood and also improves and simplifies communication with the administration,” said Carreras.

Also, the newly elected president of the Andalusian Forestry Association (AFA Profor), Llanos García López, has welcomed this measure, which represents “an opportunity to promote forestry and contribute to sustainable development and the revival of forest industries, so necessary in Andalusia”.

“The current situation of the forestry sector as a whole requires urgent measures to compensate for the traditional shortcomings of an activity suffocated by the demographic drain in the rural world, the aging of the population, the abandonment of agrosilvopastoral practices and the low value that is still given to the products of the forest,” said the president of this association of professionals, owners and forest entrepreneurs.

For his part, the UGR professor Antolino Gallego, coordinator of the LIFE Wood forFuture/Madera para el Futuro project, said that the approval of the model-type “meets one of the great challenges of European innovation projects, which is to influence policies and have a positive impact on the territory, environmentally, socially and economically”.

Forest management

The model-type of forest management of poplar groves, whose approval was published in the BOJA of last July 26, is the latest forest management instrument created by the General Directorate of Forestry Policy and Biodiversity of the Ministry of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy. Last year, the General Instructions for Forest Management of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia were published, defining the different types of forest management instruments: Forest Management Project (POM), for public forests of more than 400 hectares; and for private or public forests of less than 400 hectares, the Technical Forest Management Plan (PTOM): Free deed format; the simplified technical forest management plan (PTOS); and the adhesion to standard forest management models (AMGF), of which two have been prepared so far, those for eucalyptus and poplar plantations.