SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management: a Greek case study

Transcription

1 32 Int. J. Information and Decision Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2015 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management: a Greek case study Vassiliki Kazana* Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management, Laboratory of Forest Management and Economics, Kavala Institute of Technology (TEI KAVALAS), 1st km Drama-Mikrohori, Drama, Greece Fax: vkazana@teikav.edu.gr *Corresponding author Angelos Kazaklis OLYMPOS, Centre for Integrated Environmental Management, 39 AndroutsouStr., Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, Greece kazaklis@otenet.gr Christos Stamatiou, Paraskevi Koutsona, Anastasia Boutsimea and Dimitrios Fotakis Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management, Laboratory of Forest Management and Economics, Kavala Institute of Technology (TEI KAVALAS), 1st km Drama-Mikrohori, Drama, Greece stamatiou@gmail.com ekoutsona@yahoo.gr aboutsimea@gmail.com jfotakis@topo.auth.gr Abstract: A survey was carried out during a workshop of the Greek National Forest Governance Council to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for sustainable forest management assessment in Greece. The National Forest Governance Council was established within the frame of the INFORM project financed through LIFE. Its main role is to support the development process of a knowledge base for development of national forest policy on sustainable forest management assessment and monitoring. This paper presents the important internal and external factors for sustainable forest management assessment identified in the four groups: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, for the forests of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region, in Northern Greece. It also discusses the strategies for this area resulting in a good fit between the internal and external factors. SWOT provides a basic frame within which an analysis of the strategic forest planning environment towards sustainable forest management assessment can be performed. Copyright 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

2 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management 33 Keywords: SWOT analysis; strengths; weaknesses; opportunities; threats; sustainable forest management assessment; forest governance; strategic forest planning; forest sustainability. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kazana, V., Kazaklis, A., Stamatiou, C., Koutsona, P., Boutsimea, A. and Fotakis, D. (2015) SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management: a Greek case study, Int. J. Information and Decision Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp Biographical notes: Vassiliki Kazana is an Associate Professor on Forest Resource Management and Economics at the Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management of Kavala Institute of Technology at Drama and Director of the Forest Management and Economics Laboratory. She holds a BSc in Forestry from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and PhD in Forest Management from the University of Ediburgh, UK. She has worked as a Teaching and Research Associate at University of Edinburgh, at Cranfield Institute of Technology, UK and at MAI.Ch CIHEAM, Chania, Crete. She has over 25 years of experience in research and teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She has coordinated many EU and national funded projects, joint research and technology projects and sectoral study programmes. Her work experience is mainly on development of decision support systems and multi-criteria analysis for integrated mountain planning and management, project evaluation tools, mountain and rural development, economic valuation of non-market benefits, social participation modelling with multi-national stakeholders and networking issues. Angelos Kazaklis is the Director of the non-profit OLYMPOS Center for Integrated Environmental Management and Research Associate at the Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management of Kavala Institute of Technology. He holds a BSc in Forestry from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and MSc from the Ohio State University, USA. He has worked as a Teaching and Research Associate at the Ohio State University and Research Associate at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Cranfield Institute of Technology and MAI.Ch-CIHEAM. He has participated in leading positions in many international and national funded projects and coordinated several development study projects. His main work interests include suitability models for environmental impact assessment, landscape ecology and management, integrated mountain and rural development and sustainability assessments. Christos Stamatiou is a Research Associate at the Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management of Kavala Institute of Technology at Drama. He holds a BSc in Forestry and an MSc in Forest Constructions from the Democritus University of Thrace at Orestiada. His current research work is on forest sustainability assessment and monitoring tools. Paraskevi Koutsona is a Research Associate at the Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management of Kavala Institute of Technology at Drama. She holds a BSc in Forestry and an MSc in Urban Forestry from the Democritus University of Thrace at Orestiada. Her current research work focuses on forest policy and sustainable management assessment. Anastasia Boutsimea is a Research Associate at the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources of Kavala Institute of Technology at Drama, Greece. She holds a BSc in Forest Technology from Kavala Institute of Technology and an MSc in Spatial Analysis, from Department of Planning and Regional

3 34 V. Kazana et al. Development of the University of Thessaly. She has participated in several EU and national funded projects. Her current work involves sustainable forest policy and management assessments. Dimitrios Fotakis is a Teaching and Research Associate at the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Management of Kavala Institute of Technology at Drama. He holds a BSc in Forestry from the School of Forestry of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, MSc on Geographical Information Systems and Water Resources Management and PhD on Decision Support Systems and Spatial Water Allocation from the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has worked as a Forester on Private Forest Project Assignments, Evaluator of Forestry Projects at the Region of Kentriki Makedonia and Forest Manager at the Botanic Garden of Krousia in Northern Greece. His current research work involves sustainable forest management assessment and monitoring. This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled SWOT analysis on sustainable forest policy and management. The Eastern Macedonia- Thrace case presented at the 12th Special Conference of Multiple Criteria Decision Aid, Kavala, Greece, October Introduction SWOT analysis is a participatory tool widely applied in strategic decision support (Kurttila et al., 2000; Kangas et al., 2001; Kajanus et al., 2003, 2012). Typically, through SWOT analysis the most important internal and external factors for the business environment are grouped in four categories: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and opportunities are considered positive attributes, while weaknesses and threats negative ones. In strategic planning the aim of SWOT is to formulate and adopt a strategy in good fit between the internal and external factors. SWOT applications in forestry and natural resources issues started to be published particularly since the 80 s, when FAO (1989) officially recognised the SWOT analysis as an important tool for gathering, synthesising and analysing qualitative forest related information. A wide range of applications have been already reported on fynbos industry in South Africa (Coetzee and Middelmann, 1997), forest sector development in Australia, Finland, Wales, Philippines and other places (Kurttila et al., 2000; Piggin, 2003; Harrison and Herbohn, 2004; Suh and Emtage, 2004; Wong, 2005) and water resources management (Diamantopoulou and Voudouris, 2008; Diputacion de Granada, 2011). This paper presents a SWOT application integrated with k-means clustering and the TOPSIS approach aimed to analyse the strategic forest planning environment in Greece towards sustainable forest management (SFM) assessment and monitoring of the country s forests and forest lands. More specifically, it attempts to

4 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management 35 1 identify the most important internal and external factors for sustainable management assessment and monitoring in the four groups: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats 2 identify alternative forest strategies on the basis of those internal and external factors 3 use these s to prioritise the alternatives. The paper is organised as follows. The SFM concept, its operational content, the country s commitments in relation to it and the ongoing actions related to the SWOT analysis are presented first. Then, the description of the SWOT method and the SWOT results through k-means clustering and the TOPSIS approach for the forest areas of the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (EMT) Region in Northern Greece follow. Finally, a discussion and conclusions of the SWOT results and the integrated multiple criteria decision making methods are presented. 2 SFM assessment and monitoring SFM according to MCPFE (1993) is defined as the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfil, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local, national, and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems. At the current state of art, several planning and evaluation tools particularly in the form of criteria and indicators have been developed to address aspects of assessing SFM. In the EU territory the best known such tools have been expressed through the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) criteria and indicators. The Member States have been committed to fulfil the resolutions of all the Ministerial Conferences on the Protection of Forests in Europe, as well as their working programme. The commitments involve better cross-sectoral integration and inter-sectoral collaboration, the interactions between forests and other biome/habitat types within a landscape, and issues of biodiversity conservation, in particular through continued development of criteria, indicators and programmes of forest management certification, including and protected areas. In this context, Greece in order to fulfil the MCPFE commitments should 1 establish a national forest policy framework for sustainable management of the country s forests and forest lands 2 create a knowledge base for assessment and monitoring of forest management sustainability 3 formulate and evaluate alternative forest management strategies using assessment tools of environmental, socio-economic and institutional impacts to measure forest sustainability

5 36 V. Kazana et al. 4 improve transparency in decision making for sustainable development and management of forest resources 5 disseminate information and increase awareness of the public on issues related to sustainable management of forests and forest lands. These aims and relevant actions are currently being pursued through INFORM, an ongoing project, which is financed through LIFE and the Special Secretariat for forests of the Hellenic Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change ( To help establishing a national forest policy framework for sustainable management of the country s forests and forest lands, the National Forest Governance Council (NFGC) an innovative forest governance structure, has been set up through INFORM and put into operation. The main aim of the NFGC is to establish a network of interested stakeholders in sustainable forest and forest lands management and promote their active participation in the evaluation process of forest sustainability nationwide. The essence of the NFGC lies on the active and continuous participation of its members mainly on a voluntary basis, as well as the integration of the necessary information to assess forest sustainability at different scales, local, regional and national. The NFGC structure is open to new members and it can obtain legal cover in the future. The NFGC consists of a moderating team, forest service top-level staff from forest district offices or forest directorates all over the country, scientists of different expertise related to the management of forests and forest land and representatives of opinion influencing stakeholders in fields of concern to sustainable forest and forest lands management (NGOs, Hunting Association, Forest Cooperatives, Forest Owners Association). A series of workshops have been already organised through the NFGC function to set up and analyse the strategic forest planning environment for policy formulation regarding assessment of the country s forest management sustainability. SWOT analysis combined with k-means clustering were the first tools the authors used to systematically analyse the strategic forest planning environment and formulate alternative forest strategies towards achieving forest sustainability. The most important internal and external s were used then within the TOPSIS approach to rank these alternative strategies. 3 The SWOT method SWOT analysis is typically carried out in group meetings, although it is not unlikely to be used with single individuals (Suh and Emtage, 2004; Ghorbani et al., 2011). Oral discussions of the group are moderated and participants are encouraged to express their views on the issues at hand without weighting the importance of anyone s comments and observations, as long as the stated opinions are part of the issues under concern. The moderators need to explain the SWOT concepts before group discussions commence. During the discussion sessions the moderators solicit and record the participants comments under the four SWOT groups: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It is quite typical to go through in order, that is, all strengths first, weaknesses then, opportunities and threats.

6 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management 37 In some SWOT applications open-ended questionnaire surveys are conducted. It has been advocated (Suh and Emtage, 2004) that these are faster, prevent the data from being biased by a few potentially dominant participants and allow for calculation of frequencies. SWOT analysis in many cases has been also combined with other techniques, such as the DELPHI technique, AHP, TOPSIS and fuzzy logic (Kurttila et al., 2000; Kangas et al., 2001; Ghorbani et al., 2011; Kajanus et al., 2003; Punkka, 2012; Kajanus et al., 2012) in order to incorporate the advantages of both qualitative and quantitative methods. In our study reported in this paper, an open-ended questionnaire was designed by the authors, who are the moderators of the NFGC, with internal and external factors relevant to SFM assessment and monitoring in the four SWOT groups. The questionnaire was handed out to the Forest Service NFGC members during a workshop. The moderators explained in the beginning of the SWOT process the SWOT concepts and the Forest Service NFGC members were asked to record whether each factor, internal or external was of relevance to the area under their forest administrative responsibility. The members could also add any other factor not included in the list in any of the four SWOT groups. They were also asked to rank in ordinal way all the factors, internal and external in each of the four SWOT groups. This approach was selected to minimise time requirement, as the Forest Service NFGC is fairly large consisting of 80 members. Then k-means clustering was used to cluster the s on the basis of the agreement levels of the NFGC members regarding importance of the internal and external s. The k-means clustering was performed with the STATISTICA software. The cluster means and the distances of each within each group and the analysis of variance were used to identify the most important internal and external factors. The Results of the SWOT analysis and the k-means clustering are presented in the following section of this paper for the forests of one of the 13Regions of the country, the Region of EMT in Northern Greece. 4 Results from the SWOT analysis the case of the EMT region Forests in Northern Greece 4.1 Strengths of the forest sector in EMT region for SFM assessment and monitoring All the responses of the NFGC members, who are responsible for forests and forest lands of the EMT region classified into the strengths group were separated from the national pool of responses and are presented under the Strengths section in Table 1. A total of 18 internal factors constitute the Strengths of the EMT region forest sector for SFM assessment and monitoring. All the strengths factors, which were recorded even once, were included in Table 1. The distribution of the strength s expressed as the response percentage of the number of EMT/ NFGC members is shown in Figure 1. The k-means clustering results, that is the cluster means and the distances of each SWOT factor of the strengths group from the cluster centre of each identified cluster are depicted in Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4. The top 5 strength factors of the EMT Region s forests are the firewood production (S2), technical wood production (S1), the natural and cultural attractions of the Region s forests (S7), the income opportunities for the local population (S8) and the employment opportunities of the local population (S9).

7 38 V. Kazana et al. Table 1 SWOT Analysis for SFM assessment and monitoring in the Region of EMT, in Northern Greece Positive Internal factors Strengths Weaknesses Technical wood production Degraded wood stock Firewood production Personnel shortage Pulp wood production Lack of funds for investments Forage production Lack of funds for management plan Mammalian game species studies Avian game species Forest land tenure problems Water quality of watersheds Lack of tools for sustainable forest management assessment and integration Sightseeing of natural and cultural attractions in forest management plans Income generation for the local population of the mountain area Employment of local population in forest works Forest contribution to GDP Infrastructure Staff expertise Forest cadastre Wild flora biodiversity Wild fauna biodiversity Groundwater and spring water Water fauna biodiversity Opportunities Updated forest management plan standards Expansion of forest lands Wood stock improvement Production of non-wood products Game improvement Rangelands improvement Forest recreation/ecotourism development Forest income improvement (income from production of non-wood products) Support of mountainous population employment Income support of mountainous population Participation in projects Environmental awareness on sustainable forest management issues Capacity building Biodiversity conservation/protection Natural disasters prevention Infrastructure Training staff in new technologies for sustainable forest management External factors Exploitation system of public forests Lack of know-how (new technologies and tools for sustainable forest management) Outdated forest management plan standards Difficulties to enforce the law Resistance to change Threats Wildfires Flooding Diseases Insects Climate change Landslides Endangered plant species Endangered mammalian species Endangered avian species Endangered water wild fauna Illegal logging Illegal hunting Forest land encroachment Mining activities Land use change Negative

8 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management 39 Figure 1 Response percentage (%) of the EMT/NFGC members for the five most important factors of the strengths group (see online version for colours) Notes: S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 Technical wood production Firewood production Pulpwood production Forage production Mammalian game species Water quality of watersheds Sightseeing of natural and cultural attractions (mountains, natural parks, aesthetic forests, caves, etc.) Income generation for the local population of the mountain area Employment of local population in forest works Infrastructure (forest roads, constructions for flood and soil erosion control, recreation facilities etc.) Forest cadastre Groundwater and Spring Water Honey production

9 40 V. Kazana et al K-means clustering results for the s of the strengths group Table 2 Cluster means of the strengths s Cluster means Cluster no. 1 Cluster no. 2 S S S S S S S S S S S S S Table 3 Distances of Cluster 1 s of the strengths group Members of Cluster number 1 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance S S S S S S S S Table 4 Distances of Cluster 1 s of the strengths group from cluster centre Members of Cluster number 2 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance S S S S S

10 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management 41 Figure 2 Response percentage (%) of the EMT/NFGC members for the five most important factors of the weaknesses group (see online version for colours) Notes: W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 Degraded wood stock Personnel shortage Lack of funds for investments Lack of funds for management plan studies Forest land tenure problems Bureaucracy Forest legislation Lack of tools for SFM assessment and integration in forest management plans Lack of know-how (new technologies and tools for SFM) Outdated forest management plan standards 4.2 Weaknesses of the forest sector in EMT region for SFM assessment and monitoring The responses of the EMT/NFGC members classified into the weaknesses group were separated from the national pool of responses and it is shown under the Weaknesses section in Table 1. A total of 11 internal factors were recorded as Weaknesses of the

11 42 V. Kazana et al. EMT Region Forest Sector for SFM assessment and monitoring. All the weaknesses factors, which were recorded even once, were included in Table 1. The distribution of the top 5 s expressed as the response percentage of the number of EMT/ NFGC members is shown in Figure 2. The k-means clustering results, that is the cluster means and the distances of each of the weaknesses group from the cluster centre of each identified cluster are depicted in Tables 5, 6 and 7. The most important weakness factors of the EMT Region s forests are the personnel shortage (W2) and lack of funds for forest investment (W3). Figure 3 Response percentage (%) of the EMT/NFGC members for the five most important factors of the opportunities group (see online version for colours) Notes: Ο1 Ο2 Ο3 Ο4 Ο5 Ο6 Ο7 Ο8 Ο9 Ο10 Ο11 Ο12 Ο13 Updated forest management plan standards Expansion of forest lands Wood stock improvement Production of non-wood products Game improvement Rangelands improvement Forest recreation/ecotourism development Forest income improvement (income from production of non-wood products e.g. honey, mushrooms, forest fruits, herbs, etc.) Support of mountainous population employment Income support of mountainous population Environmental awareness on SFM issues Natural disasters prevention Infrastructure

12 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management Opportunities of the forest sector in EMT region for SFM assessment and monitoring The responses of the EMT/NFGC members classified into the opportunities group were separated from the national pool of responses and it is shown under the Opportunities section in Table 1. A total of 15 external factors were recorded as Opportunities of the EMT Region Forest Sector for SFM assessment and monitoring. All the opportunities factors, which were recorded even once, were included in Table 1. The distribution of the top 5 factors expressed as the response percentage of the number of EMT/ NFGC members is shown in Figure 3. Thirteen of the 17 external factors appeared as top 5 factors in the opportunities group. The k-means clustering results, that is the cluster means and the distances of each of the opportunities group from the cluster centre of each identified cluster are depicted in Table 8, Table 9 and Table 10. The most important opportunities factors of the EMT Region s forests are the update of forest management plan standards (O1), Woodstock improvement (O3), employment opportunities (O9) and income opportunities (O10) for the local population K-means clustering results for the s of the weaknesses group Table 5 Cluster means of the weaknesses s Cluster means Cluster no. 1 Cluster no. 2 W W W W W W W W W W Table 6 Distances of Cluster 1 s of the weaknesses group Members of Cluster number 1 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance W W W W W W W W

13 44 V. Kazana et al. Table 7 Distances of Cluster 2 s of the weaknesses group Members of Cluster number 2 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance W W Figure 4 Response percentage (%) of the EMT/NFGC members for the five most important factors of the threats group (see online version for colours) Notes: T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10 T11 T12 T13 Wildfires Flooding Diseases Insects Landslides Endangered plant species Endangered mammalian species Endangered water wild fauna Illegal logging Illegal hunting Forest land encroachment Mining activities Land use change

14 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management Threats of the forest sector in EMT region for SFM assessment and monitoring The responses of the EMT/NFGC members classified into the threats group were separated from the national pool of responses and it is shown under the threats section in Table 1. A total of 17 external factors were recorded as Threats of the EMT Region Forest Sector for SFM assessment and monitoring. All the threats factors, which were recorded even once, were included in Table 1. The distribution of the top 5 factors expressed as the response percentage of the number of EMT/ NFGC members is shown in Figure 4. The k-means clustering results, that is the cluster means and the distances of each of the weaknesses group from the cluster centre of each identified cluster are depicted in Table 11, Table 12 and Table 13. The most important threat factors of the EMT Region s forests are wildfires (T1), illegal logging (T9), illegal hunting (T10), forest land encroachment (T11) and land use change (T13) K-means clustering results for the s of the opportunities group Table 8 Cluster means of the opportunities s Cluster means Cluster no. 1 Cluster no. 2 O O O O O O O O O O O O O Table 9 Distances of Cluster 1 s of the opportunities group Members of Cluster number 1 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance O O O O

15 46 V. Kazana et al. Table 10 Distances of Cluster 2 s of the opportunities group Members of Cluster number 2 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance O O O O O O O O O Table 11 Cluster means of the threats s Cluster means Cluster no. 1 Cluster no. 2 T T T T T T T T T T T T T Table 12 Distances of Cluster 1 s of the threats group Members of Cluster number 1 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance T T T T T T T T

16 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management 47 Table 13 Distances of Cluster 1 s of the threats group Members of Cluster number 2 and distances from respective cluster centre Distance T1 0, T9 0, T10 0, T11 0, T13 0, Following the preceding analysis the current strategic forestry decision making situation for the forests of the EMT Region is shown in Table 14. Table 14 Sustainable forest policy and management, NFGC, EMT region, Greece SWOT group Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats s Processes of technical wood production well established (S1) Processes of firewood production well established (S2) Many natural and cultural attractions in the region s forests (S7) Income opportunities for the local population from the Region s forests (S8) Job opportunities for the local population in the Region s forests (S9) Personnel shortage (W2) Lack of funds for investments in the Region s forests (W3) Update of forest management plan standards (O1) Improve Woodstock for firewood and technical wood production (O3) Increase job opportunities in the Region s forests (O9) Increase income opportunities from the Region s forests (O10) Wildfires (T1) Illegal logging (T9) Illegal hunting (T10) Forest land encroachment (T11) Land use change (T13) Alternative forest strategies ranking the TOPSIS approach On the basis of the SWOT analysis and the k-means clustering of the most important internal and external factors for the forests of the EMT Region, the following strategies were generated as alternatives towards achieving forest sustainability. Alternative 1 (A1) improve wood stock for better quantity and quality firewood and technical wood Alternative 2 (A2) forest recreation/ecotourism in the region s forests Alternative 3 (A3) protect the region s forests from a biotic factors (particularly wildfires)

17 48 V. Kazana et al. Alternative 4 (A4) protect the region s forests from biotic factors (particularly, illegal logging, illegal hunting, forest land encroachment and land use change) Alternative 5 (A5) develop processes for non-wood products and services. The s from Table 14 were used as criteria for ranking the above alternative forest strategies. The assessment values were set on the Saaty scale by the moderating experts of the NFGC taking into account the SWOT analysis and the ordinal ranking of the internal and external factors that were provided by the NFGC members during the SWOT workshop. These values were normalised and the TOPSIS approach was performed as follows: 1 the ideal and negative-ideal solution was first determined 2 the separation measure for each criterion was calculated 3 the relative closeness of each alternative strategy to the ideal solution was calculated 4 The alternative strategies were ranked on the basis of the relative closeness indicators. Table 15 portrays the TOPSIS calculations for each alternative strategy Table 15 SWOT criteria Ranking of alternative forest strategies through TOPSIS Alternative forest strategies A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 S S S S S W W O O O O T T T T T Relative closeness to the ideal solution According to the relative closeness to the ideal solution therefore the recommended order of importance ranking is as follows: A5, A3, A1, A2 and A4.

18 SWOT analysis for sustainable forest policy and management 49 5 Discussion conclusions SWOT Analysis in combination with the k-means clustering method and the TOPSIS approach were applied to analyse the strategic forest planning environment in the frame of forest management sustainability assessment and monitoring in Greece. The results however presented in this paper concern only the forests and forest lands of the EMT Region in Northern Greece. The most important processes identified in the strengths category to be assessed and monitored in the frame of forest management sustainability involve the well established production processes of firewood and technical wood, employment of the local mountainous population in forest works, income generation from the forests, as well as the many natural and cultural attractions of the region s forests. Production of non-wood products, honey in particular, aromatic plants, forest fruits and other services was finally included as an alternative strategy for increasing employment and income opportunities for the local population following extensive post workshop discussions with the NFGC members. On the other hand the most important internal factors under the weaknesses category for the EMT Region forests included mainly institutional type of processes, most probably related to the financial crisis the country is currently undergoing, such as lack of funds for investments, including lack of funds for forest management plan studies, complicated forest legislation, forest land tenure problems and personnel shortage. Important is also the degraded wood stock rated by half of the EMT/NFGC members. The external factors grouped under the opportunities category involved processes related to improvement of main strength factors, such as wood stock improvement, forest income improvement through production of new non-wood products and employment and income support opportunities for the local mountainous population. Finally, the most important external factors grouped under the threats category are mainly processes associated with abiotic factors, such as wildfires, or biotic, such as illegal logging, illegal hunting, forest land encroachment and land use change. Some potential threats, such as endangered plant species and mining activities were rated as most important by a smaller number of EMT/ NFGC members. Therefore, these processes should be taken into consideration in terms of forest management sustainability assessment at finer spatial aggregation scales. The analysis of internal and external factors classified under the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats categories and particularly those identified in the clusters with distances that indicate greater agreement levels between the NFGC members provided a basic frame for strategic forest planning towards assessing and monitoring forest management sustainability and led to the formulation of the five alternative decision strategies recorded in the previous section. Pursuing improvement of wood stock, as well as forest recreation/ecotourism and production of non-wood products can provide opportunities for employment and income support. On the application side of the SWOT Analysis the open-ended questionnaire as a SWOT survey method was well received by the NFGC members, as it helped them identify easier the internal and external factors relevant to each category, without limiting their ability to add any other factor they thought it was important according to their experience. However, some inconsistencies need to be reported, as some factors were at the same time recorded and rated by some NFGC members in two categories. The

19 50 V. Kazana et al. relevant corrections were made under the discretion of the authors. Also, although explanations were given to the NFGC members before the SWOT Analysis began, some members still needed more time to understand the SWOT concepts. Overall, the SWOT analysis was proved a helpful frame to analyse the strategic forest planning environment towards assessing and monitoring forest management sustainability. Application of k-means clustering and the TOPSIS approach provided information on the most important processes to be included in the forest sustainability assessments and helped identify and prioritise alternative strategies towards achieving forest sustainability. References Coetzee, J.H. and Middelmann, M.C. (1997) SWOT analysis of the fynbos industry in South Africa with special reference to research, ACTA Horticulturae, Vol. 453, pp Diamantopoulou, P. and Voudouris, K. (2008) Optimization of water resources management using SWOT analysis: the case of Zakynthos Island, Ionian Sea, Greece, Environmental Geology, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp Diputacion de Granada (2011) Analysis on Water Management in High Genil Lower River Basin, Waterincore, 1G-MED [online] 03_01_04_en.pdf (accessed 11/11/2013). FAO (1989) Community Forestry Participatory Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation, Community Forestry Note 2, FAO Forestry Department, Rome. Ghorbani, M., Velayati, R. and Ghorbani, M.M. (2011) Using fuzzy TOPSIS to determine strategy priorities by SWOT analysis, International Conference on Financial Management and Economics, Vol. 11, pp , IPEDR, IACSIT Press, Singapore. Harrison, S.R. and Herbohn, J.L. (2004) SWOT analysis of forest industry development in north Queensland, Proceedings of the North Queensland Forest Industry Development Workshop, Cairns, Australia. Kajanus, M., Kangas, J. and Kurtilla, M. (2003) The use of value focused thinking and AWOT hybrid method in tourism management, Tourism Management, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp Kajanus, M., Leskinen, P., Kurtilla, M. and Kangas, J. (2012) Making use of MCDS methods in SWOT Analysis-Lessons learnt in strategic natural resources management, Forest Policy and Economics, Vol. 20, No. 7, pp.1 9. Kangas, J., Pesonen, M., Kurttila, M. and Kajanus, M. (2001) A WOT: Integrating the AHP with SWOT analysis, Proceedings, 6th ISAHP 2001, pp , Berne, Switzerland. Kurttila, M., Pesonen, M., Kangas, J. and Kajanus, M. (2000) Utilizing the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) in SWOT analysis a hybrid method and its application to a forest-certification case, Forest Policy and Economics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp MCPFE (1993) [online] (accessed 8/11/2013). Piggin, C. (2003) Working group SWOT analysis on agricultural development in East Timor, ACIAR Proceedings, No. 113, pp Punkka, A. (2012) Rank-Based Information in Multi-Attribute Decision and Efficiency Analysis, p.160, Aalto University publication series, Doctoral dissertations, Helsinki, Finland. Suh, J. and Emtage, N.F. (2004) Identification of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the Community-Based Forest Management Program, pp , ACIAR Smallholder Forestry Project Report. Wong, J. (2005) ROBINWOOD: SWOT Analysis of the forestry sector in Wales, Wild Resources Ltd, Bangor.