The formulation of the National Forest Programme in the Czech Republic: A qualitative survey Jessica Balest a,d, ⁎, Michal Hrib b , Zuzana Dobšinská c , Alessandro Paletto a a Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Forest Monitoring and Planning Research Unit, Trento, Italy b Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic c Forestry Faculty, Technical University in Zvolen, Slovakia d Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Italy abstract article info Article history: Received 8 February 2016 Received in revised form 5 October 2016 Accepted 16 February 2017 Available online xxxx National Forest Programme (NFP) is a comprehensive social and political framework to achieve an effective sus- tainable forest management developing a spirit of cooperation among national and sub-national social actors. In this study, the participatory process adopted in the formulation of the second NFP in Czech Republic (NFPII) was analysed considering four aspects: (1) structure of the participatory process; (2) level of participation and social actors involved; (3) role of facilitator; (4) skills and knowledge of participants. The data were collected through in-depth interviews to a sample of stakeholders (44% of total stakeholders involved in the decision-making pro- cess). The results of this study show that the participatory process for Czech NFPII was designed considering rep- resentativeness, early involvement, independency, influence, transparency, and resource accessibility criterion. The participatory process was structured in two stages: in the first stage the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of the Environment identified 17 experts to involve in the definition of a first draft of NFPII; in the second stage the two Ministries identified and involved 18 organized groups of stakeholders in order to discuss the key issues previously identified by experts. The main weakness of participatory process in the formulation of NFPII in Czech Republic is the low level of participation of citizens and the different level of skills and knowledge among participants. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Forest policy Participation Stakeholders Representativeness Independency 1. Introduction The National Forest Programme (NFP) is a comprehensive social and political framework to achieve a sustainable forest management (SFM) in a country in accordance with their respective national conditions, ob- jectives and priorities (MCPFE, 2000). The cooperation among national and sub-national social actors is fundamental in the formulation and implementation of NFPs (Egestad, 1999; Winkel and Sotirov, 2011). In the Pan-European process, several political documents have established the rules of NFPs. The first European Union (EU) Forestry Strategy (1998) considers the national and sub-national forest programmes as an instrument to implement international commit- ments, principles and recommendations in a country (Hogl, 2002). As a consequence, the new EU Forestry Strategy (2013) emphasizes the role played by the stakeholders in addressing and integrating the envi- ronmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainable development (Balest et al., 2016). The Ministerial Conferences on the Protection of Forests (MCPFE) have repeatedly focused on the importance of NFPs. In particular, the fourth MCPFE - held in Vienna in 2003 - formalized the principles of NFPs (MCPFE, 2003). The fifth MCPFE - held in Warsaw in 2007 - emphasized the importance of NFPs in coordinating forest and water resources, while the sixth MCPFE considered the devel- opment and implementation of NFPs in all European counties as the first goal of forestry for the year 2020 (Lovrić et al., 2013). The specific COST Action E19 (1999–2003) on NFPs was important to define NFPs' framework. It aimed to increase the common knowledge on SFM and NFPs, and provided means to policy makers for formulating and implementing NFPs (Humphreys, 2004). This COST Action focused on four core variables of a NFP such as participation, collaboration, inter-sectoral, and long-term iterative adaptive approach (Mayer, 2004). The main output of this COST Action was the Interim Report “Making NFPs Work: Supporting Factors and Procedural Aspects” (Glück et al., 2003). The Report provides the guidelines for the imple- mentation of national and sub-national forest programmes. These strat- egies, conferences, and the outputs of the COST Action E19 established the key principles of NFPs. The key principles of NFPs are (Pülzl and Rametsteiner, 2002; Ollonqvist, 2006): appropriate participatory mechanisms to involve all interested parties; empowerment of sub-national governments; recognition and respect for traditional and customary rights, local Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Italy. E-mail address: Jessica.Balest@eurac.edu (J. Balest). FORPOL-01549; No of Pages 6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.02.002 1389-9341/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Forest Policy and Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol Please cite this article as: Balest, J., et al., The formulation of the National Forest Programme in the Czech Republic: A qualitative survey, Forest Policy and Economics (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.02.002