Is commercial forestry sustainable in South Africa? The changing institutional and policy needs

Abstract

Commercial forestry is an important industry in South Africa, generating considerable employment and foreign exchange. The industry has grown rapidly since World War II with active government support. However, since the beginning of the transition to democracy in 1991, there have been increasingly vociferous attacks on the industry regarding its urban and big-business bias and its role in damaging the environment. The transition to democracy has brought a change in the structure or make-up of its stakeholders/actor constellations and the dynamics of policy change. As a result, a new network of actors, or coalition, who have different and diverse expectations from the industry, has emerged. This network's primary goal is to monitor and control the environmental functions of commercial forestry, as opposed to the old network whose actors have believed, and continue to do so, that commercial forestry's primary goal is profit maximization. The tension between the two has generated conflicts and the need for a change in the policy and institutions to ensure the sustainability of the industry. In this article, this process of policy change is explained with the help of an advocacy coalition framework; and a set of policy guidelines that might defuse the tension between the two coalitions and set the industry on a sustainable path is briefly discussed.