Governance in Ukrainian forestry: trends, impacts and remedies

In this paper, we address governance by analysing the relevant institutions and investigating their impact on economic and environmental performance in Ukrainian forestry. The research questions are: how does the transition to a market economy affect the forest institutions and what are the trends, impacts and remedies for promoting sustainable forestry? The combination of past exploitation of forest resources with the slow pace of economic and political reform is a major obstacle to implementing sustainable forestry policy decisions. The way towards sustainability goes through changing institutions. The human dimension of institutional change investigated in this paper plays an important role in the process of transition. Given the right forest policies and appropriate economic incentives, it may still be possible for the country to improve its future timber supply whilst enjoying environmental benefits from the forests. The paper draws on the state of affairs in forestry-in-transition, examining failures and new incentives in economic and institutional reform.