Spanish Journal of Rural Development

The Spanish Journal of Rural Development (SJRD) is a quarterly scientific journal published by the Galician Association of Researchers for Rural Development Asociación Gallega de Investigadores para el Desarrollo Rural (AGAIDERU).

Span. j. rural dev. is a multidisciplinary journal which publishes original research articles of practical application in the fields of forestry, agronomy, the environment, rural planning, international cooperation and socioeconomic issues. The overall focus is on the sustainable rural development of local populations, within identified Priority Lines

The journal also applies a policy of exchange with various scientific journals, at both national and international levels, and it is indexed in important scientific databases.

• Introduction

  Editor SJRD

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  The group of Forest Engineers, despite being highly regarded professionally, it always attributed us that we spent little time to write. I honestly, thought this was our "black legend" than reality. In any case, today, it's some anecdotal. Proof of this this publication. This is a special issue of the journal "Spanish Journal of Rural Development (SJRD)", in particular the Special Number 3, Volume II, 2011. This copy contains a series of papers selected and subjected to strict peer review, presented in the “Congreso Bosques del Futuro” held on 25 and 26 May in the Technological Park of Galicia, San Cibrao das Viñas, Ourense (Spain).
  
  With the publication of it, go forward, thanks to the selfless work of a number of people. And with each new issue of SJRD that we publish, our spirits up, because we firmly believe in this project. Our goal is to get a quality journal, as nationally as internationally. In approximately two years, we have a total of 13 numbers and going ahead with new projects. Thus, people who work in SJRD, we thought it is the moment to talk of reality, instead of project and thank God we are not mistaken because "The honest words are indicative of the honesty of who pronounce or write those words"("The ingenious hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha" by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra).

• Prologue

  Esther Merlo, Luis Ocaña, Ricardo Alía y Gloria Domínguez. Comité organizador del Congreso “Bosques de Futuro”

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Forest management has suffered in recent decades a paradigm shift in both social and economic bases as in the ecological and technical. The forestry sector in developed countries fits through the modernization and diversification and adding value to products and goods and services obtained. However, in Spain this change has occurred at a much lower level, causing a loss of interest by society in managing scarce resources such as forestry, or be managed by clearly inadequate technologies against developments in other fields activity or other countries. As a result, Spain is a country with different forest use almost unique in Europe (eg. Cork, acorn, pine, resin), or where there are some extensive woodlands with traditional uses of wood, industries related to these themes are almost marginals. Moreover, management's response to new challenges: forest fires, biodiversity conservation, global change, water supply and protection, bioenergy production, and so on. not be characterized at the level demanded by society.
  
  Spain has the highest plant diversity in Europe, but predictions indicate a high vulnerability to climate change. While Spain is among the European countries with forest area (in both absolute and relative) and greater volume of wood harvested from forests, the tail is in R & D in this field. The great potential of our wide range of species and variants within species: 1) give value to our forest systems 2) improve adaptation to climate change and 3) enhance carbon sequestration for mitigation of such change, are largely untapped. Optimize the use of this potential goes through innovative solutions and of sufficient scope.
  
  In this special edition presents a selection of papers presented at the conference "Future Forests" organized in Ourense 25 and May 26, 2011 under the Special Strategic Project PSE-Forest "Forest Restoration and Management" (PSE-310000-2008-1). This project is funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation within the National Plan for Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation 2008-2011 and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). The publication has been funded by the Forest Platform of Galicia (DEVESA), whom we thank for their interest in collaborating in the dissemination of these works.
  
  Articles published in this special issue are an important component of research and development groups from R + D + i have been working disconnected entity itself, in very different but all are essential to ensure progress in the forestry sector and to fight for the future of our forests:
  
  Involvement of social partners and dissemination: Only the knowledge of the views of social partners (forest owners, foresters and management of private and public) may lead to design efficient policy of engagement and outreach contribute to achieving the objectives set by government. The use of qualitative research techniques can delve into the motivations and factors that may lead to the acceptance, support, involvement or otherwise of rejection of the proposed management and restoration.
  
  Options for national planning and landscape: Facing climate change scenarios and current demands of society must advance sustainable forest management, combining technologies and growth modelling of forest dynamics, structure and production multiple-use forest systems.
  
  Forests of the future: It is necessary to obtain reproductive material more suited to the needs of the future using a range of assessment tools and production. This will develop biotechnological techniques of identification (genotypes, populations), characterization (tolerance to different biotic and abiotic) and plant production models for routine use in reforestation programs.
  
  Systems decision support: The analysis of different management alternatives and their impact on the evolution of forest ecosystems at different spatial and temporal scales through specific tools should support the generation of policies and decisions aimed at managers and those responsible of public administrations.
  
  Singular Strategic Project Management and Forest Restoration, which is part of this special edition has been developed over 4 years and brought together 17 institutions and companies to develop materials and tools to improve multifunctional management of forests, and to spread the benefits of this management on the sectors involved.
  
  Spanish Journal of Rural Development is a broad platform to offer to researchers and to all other interested stakeholders a great opportunity for disseminating forest-related issues that have the potential to really influence in the future forest activities.

• Post-fire managemeent in support of natural regeneration and restoration after Guadalajara mega fire: effects on survival and growth of seedlings of Pinus pinaster Ait.

  Madrigal, J., Hernando, C., Guijarro, M.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Present study describes five years post-fire regeneration monitoring after Guadalajara wildfire (2005). Factors that more significantly have contributed to recruitment, the effect of salvage logging on survival and growth of Pinus pinaster seedlings, and competitive effects with accompanying vegetation were analysed. Fire severity and mulch effect generated by scorched needles were the most significant factors to explain regeneration success of P. pinaster. However, these factors contributed to generate interspecific competence presenting a negative effect on survival and growth of pine seedlings, as they were factors that favoured all competing species. Salvage logging and previous stand age were also factors that affected the process, confirming postfire management experience in these stands. But the obtained results qualify advisability of some practices, as the delay of salvage logging. Post-mega fire management and restoration recommendations for this provenance of P. pinaster forest stands are proposed.

• Public participation as a need for forest planning

  Bruña-García, X., Marey-Pérez, M.F., Franco-Vázquez, L.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  The participation of society in decisions related to land planning and management is essential to reach long-lasting and viable solutions. In this way, public participation becomes a need for modern society to build consensus about natural resource management and land governance by citizens. Within the forestry sector, the first steps are being taken so that public participation is included into the elaboration of Forest Resource Management Plans. According to current legislation regarding forestry and natural resources, their elaboration must include participative processes, which give legitimacy to the results of the plan from a social point of view and contribute to include relevant information in the processes of setting of objectives and programming of actions. In the present article, we review the scientific literature related to this topic. The results show the main strategies and methods used in these processes.

• Economic profitability of forestry decisions on non-industrial private forest owners: the key issue to sustainable management.

  Marey-Pérez, M.F., Rodríguez-Vicente, V., Díaz-Varela, E.R.

  Intro Full Text Original language : English

  Sustaining the viability and continuity of farm forest holdings requires developing policy measures that improve or advance its forest and agrarian productivity regarding the socioeconomic perceptions and values of its managers. As a previous work and discussion of recent constraints related to sustainable forest practices by individual private forest (NIPF) owners, we analyse the key factors on individual forest profitability on an empirical study of their planting, silviculture and harvesting behaviours in a forest region in Northern Spain. The profitability was statistically characterized and explained as social, economic and policy variables. Our results explain how attractive conditions for timber market, as key factor, motivate the forest investment chain to make profitable lands by the owners. In this sense, maintaining and improving the rural economy and welfare by means of sustainable forest practices must consider the economic returns as fundamental issues which counteract the economic losses for including environmental constraints.

• Classifying tree and non-tree farmers for improving of agroforestry systems using a discriminant analytical approach.

  Marey-Pérez, M.F., Rodríguez-Vicente, V., Álvarez-López, C.J.

  Intro Full Text Original language : English

  Non-industrial private forestry owners (NIPFo) represent the most forest and wooded lands, as well as timber supply in several forest European regions. In Galicia, a Northwest Spanish community, there are registered more than 670000 NIPFo on a total area around 1200000 ha. Farmers to main title, although they are experimented a notable decline during the last years, constitute the main profile of Galician NIPFo. This article presents a statistical model and empirical evidences of the factors that determine forest behaviour and management by farmers. From 245 variables collected by a personal survey questionnaire to more than 4300 Galician farmers, a factorial discriminant analysis was used in the empirical study for classifying significant farmer groups by forestland owned. The results suggest that variables associated with geographical location of the farm, the pattern of land acquisition, the economic dependence of farm activity and the agroforestry size are key determinants of the forest behaviour, management and relevance for the farmers. Moreover, the study provides useful information and recommendations to new actuation patterns and allocation aids by the public Administration in the future development of the agroforestry activities by individual tree farmers.

• The diffusion process in participation for the development of a PORF.

  Abelleira-Yáñez, L., Bruña-García, X., Franco-Vázquez, L., Marey-Pérez, M.F.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Society participation in decisions on planning and land management is fundamental to achieving viable and lasting solutions. Joint action by all sectors involved in the development of a Forest Plan strategic and tactical in nature, produces a final document in which it agreed to propose solutions to the problems detected in the area. For the achievement and success of public participation in forest planning is necessary to establish an effective dissemination in order to form representative and participatory groups to arouse interest in the participatory process itself. Based on this raised a specific dissemination strategy, based on a methodology set forth in this Article, to initiate the public participation process of a forest plan in the forest region of District VII "Ancares Fonsagrada" of Galicia (Northern Spain).

• Application of precision farming techniques for the optimization of irrigation in plantations of Prunus avium L. and Celtis australis L. for the production of quality timber in Mediterranean areas.

  Ripoll, M.A., Gallego, E., Terrón, L., Navarro, F.B., Jiménez, M.N., Montosa, J.M. Sánchez-Miranda, A

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  The effectiveness of measuring the water status of trees and the soil was studied to optimise irrigation in plantations of cherries (Prunus avium L.) and Mediterranean hackberry (Celtis australis L.) for wood in the Vega (cultivated area) of Granada. Since their planting in 2003 until 2008, the trees were gravity irrigated. In 2009, a localized irrigation system was installed, applying two levels of irrigation: T1 (150% ETc) and T2 (irrigation by dendrometric record and soil moisture). In the cherries, an annual increase in trunk perimeter of 16.3 mm was found in 2008, 54.9 mm (T1), and 35.3 mm (T2) in 2009, and 66.6 mm (T1) and 59.3 mm (T2) in 2010. For the hackberries, this increase was 33.3 mm in 2008, 52.0 mm (T1) and 44.0 mm (T2) in 2009 and in 30.2mm (T1) and 41.7mm (T2) in 2010. For the years 2009 and 2010, the perimeter of the cherries significantly increased while hackberries responded with greater growth rates at low irrigation rates. The integration of the record of variations in the trunk perimeter with the record of soil moisture is a good indicator for making irrigation decisions to optimise the water quantity used per species.

• Qualitative evaluation of public participation of community land owners in Galicia (Spain).

  Marey-Pérez, M.F., Calvo-González, A., Domínguez, G.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  The involvement of society in decisions relative to land use planning is essential to accomplish sustained and reliable solutions. In the public participation process for the elaboration of a Forest management Plan in an area of the region of Galicia (NW Spain), one of the collectives with a higher level of participation were the Common Forest Land (Montes Vecinales en Mano Común, MVMC) owners' communities. MVMC are collective private ownership systems embracing approximately one third of Galicia's forest lands. In order to improve the comprehension of this collective's attitudes, an analysis was made regarding how they participate (or not) in the management of their lands. To do that, an approach based on the Grounded Theory from Glaser & Strauss (1967) was used to build an emergent theory from the study and interpretation of data collected by personal interviews performed during the participative process. The surveyed communities were classified regarding their degree of participation in the Forest Management Plan, and also the level of management displayed: Very active, active, and passive communities. The main finding was that the higher active communities aim to dynamize their management due to: their multifunctional perspective for MVMC, and the startup of new models of exploitation, the technical and administrative support of public authorities, and the expectative of their participation in the forest plan and the synergy in the management associated to the collective cooperation of all the community. On the other hand, the lack of dynamism of the most passive communities is due to a irresponsible management by the community together with the acknowledgement of a conflictive identity with their lands due to both physical and administrative problems. Such personal, social and cultural factors are interdependent with the future application of effective policies by the region's policymakers.

• Restoration of land affected by mega-wildfires. Case of “Rodenal de Guadalajara”.

  Carrillo, A., Serrada, R., Rincón, A., Hernando, C., Vega, J.A., Ocaña, L.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Although wildland fires are few in number, they recur with some frequency every year and cause serious environmental and economic impacts. An effective management of restoration works after fires is a key factor in order to reach a successful vegetation recovery. ‘RODENAL R&D Project’ started with the attempts to provide some criteria for post-fire forest management based on the study of site and stand conditions. In 2009, the project continued within the Strategic Singular Project: ‘Restoration and Forest Management’. The goal is to integrate existing pieces of knowledge on post-fire regeneration from the scientific field and bring them closer to forest managers. This Project faced the targeted problem through the knowledge of local ecologic factors, burn severity and site characteristics, and results from subsequent burned trees chopping and removing works, to obtain a model that can help managers to obtain a faster and more systematic restoration in areas affected by wildland fires. The methodology and general results of the project are presented in this article. Monitoring results from the third and fourth years after the fire are also presented.

• Wireless sensor networks to monitor vegetation conditions and early detection of forest fires.

  Gay, J.A., Lobón, I., Cuíñas, I.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Forest fires are, nowadays, one of the most important problems regarding the maintenance and the proliferation of the woodland in Spain. Commonly, when the fire services arrive at the fire focus, it already has a considerable size. The main explanation of this fact is the large fire detection time, which is independent of the accidental or induced origin of the combustion. This article presents a possible solution to improve the prevention and detection of forest fires. The proposal is based on the deployment of a wireless sensor network, based on ZigBee technology, which allows the monitoring of several environmental variables, such as ambient temperature and humidity. These values, together with the rainfall rate and the wind speed and direction, could help to prevent and detect forest fires and, if they happened, the sensor values would permit to carry out the right measures at a time. This paper describes the global operation of the wireless network. Furthermore an estimation of the number of nodes and their approximate cost per hectare are going to be presented. Finally, results obtained from other pilot deployments of this kind of sensor networks in Galician forests will be shown.

• Commercialization of population of production composed of 12 higher families of Pinus pinaster Aiton. by mini-cutting

  Lario, F.J., Cuenca, B., Ocaña, L.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  This works aims to use the genetic pool of 12 super-selected genotypes of Pinus pinaster Aiton as Base Forestry Material. Genotypes were selected among 116 of first generation breeding cycle. Clonal production tests were conducted with open pollinated genotypes obtained from the 12 selected for its straightness and growth performance in genetic trials of Galicia-Costa and Montaña Soria-Burgos breeding populations. In these tests, 3-5 cm minicuttings were employed, and variables assayed were: ortet type, cutting type, rooting atmosphere and date of rooting. Best results (57% final ramet survival) were obtained with apical cuttings coming from the outer hedge and settle to root in October inside the rooting tunnel. Production strategy would be based in a first cutting harvest, 3 months after the sewing, and 4 subsequent harvests every two months, where June cuttings will produce commercial ramets. Within 2.5 years, a single seed would produce 700 ramets.

• Effects of container on the air and root growth of four spanish provenances of Pinus pinaster Aiton.

  Garrido, F., Pando, V., Sierra de Grado, R.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Due to the concern about stability problems caused by strong winds found in numerous plantations of Pinus Pinaster in recent years, we analyzed the influence in nursery during the first year of life of four types of containers: big container with wire mesh, small container with wire mesh, big container without wire mesh and small container without wire mesh placed over P. Pinaster seedlings from four parts of Spain, that is, Oña, Tiétar, Gredos and the Northeastern coastline, showing the ones which are most suited for growing Pinus Pinaster by means of a study on morphological variables. We emphasized the performance of roots in order to point out differences among origins (genotype-environment interaction), and aerial parts and roots according to crop systems and use of containers. We measured the following variables: height, diameter, dry weight of aerial surface and dry weight of roots and carried out analysis of variance for all the variables and comparisons of mean values by means of Duncan multiple range test, adjustment of the model PROC GLM. The results indicated that the origin that performed best was Tiétar, which has significant differences compared to the other three: Northeastern Coastline and Gredos, without differences between them, and Oña, different from the rest. Concerning the containers the best to be used was the big one without wire mesh.

• Regeneration of woodland according to the treatments applied after the fire of 2005 in the region of Rodenal (Guadalajara).

  San Miguel, I., Serrada, R., Carrillo, A., Ocaña, L.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  After the fire in the “Rodenal Guadalajara area”, a research Project (RODENAL) was launched with the aim of studying the forest regeneration processes after the fire and a net of permanent field sites was set up. Data from the third and fourth year after the fire are presented. Ecologic variables from the blocks of field sites are linked to the executed treatments and to the spontaneous vegetation, in order to provide the necessary knowledge to help in the planification of restoration treatments in burned areas covered with Pyrenean oak or pine groves. Within pine groves the regeneration and survival of the seedlings were measured as well as their averaged height and the woody vegetal cover. A floristic inventory was also carried out. In oak groves, averaged height was measured and a floristic inventory was fulfilled too. Heterogeneity has been noticed between blocks and the field sites within the blocks, which mask the effects of the treatments on the survival and the growth of the regeneration. No differences between regeneration density in old aged pine sites and young aged ones were appreciated. No differences between treatments turned up either. A significative effect of the woody vegetation cover on the regeneration mortality was demonstrated. In Pyrenean oak stands, there is a massive regeneration in the following spring after the fire, with great height growth which, for the time being, shows no significant differences between treatments or between blocks.

• Characterization and diagnosis of Pinus nigra in Navalcruz (Ávila). Strategies for conservation of genetic resources and management and improvement proposals.

  Arias, B., Climent, J.M., Díaz, P.M.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Navalacruz pine forest is the largest monospecific stand of Pinus nigra subsp. salzmannii in the Spanish central Range, as well as one of the five seed sources of its Region of Provenance. After the several large forest fires that affected other stands of this species, post-fire recruitment was extremely low, and re-planting is constrained by a chronic lack of reproductive material. Our study in Navalacruz consisted of the inventory of the more dense sector, and the threats and weaknesses for its use as seed source. The stand is considerably old and regeneration is low. However, there is wide recruitment of black pine in a close area planted about 20 years ago with Scots pine at low density. Seed collection at the mature stand is done with movable platforms carried by vehicles, which is costly due to the low accessibility. Fire risk is high due to the vicinity of unmanaged planted stands, close to a road. Another risk is genetic contamination from the plantations of unknown origin. This situation makes it necessary measures of both ex situ and in situ conservation to ensure the persistence of this relevant resource.

• Obtaining map sources for the management of Protected Natural Areas: Natural Park of Urbasa and Andía (Navarra).

  Sola, I., Díaz-Maroto, I.J., Vila-Lameiro, P., Vizoso-Arribe, O., Melicharová, L., Sylvain, T.

  Intro Full Text Original language : Spanish

  Nature Park of Urbasa and Andía is located in the Northwest of Navarra. It is a natural area with significant geological, biological and ecological aspects, which enabled its declaration as a Natural Park, to ensure their conservation in harmony with traditional and new uses of enjoyment of nature. It has an area of 21,408 hectares, whose territory is occupied mainly by beech forests and mountain pastures, and given its nature was appointed SCI (Site of Community Importance). For his statement as a Natural Park, was developed the Management Plan of Resources Natural (MPRN), which establishes the basic rules for the activities that take place in this space. Also, approved the Plan of Use and Management (PUM) (Boletín Oficial de Navarra, 2002), which defines the standards, guidelines and criteria for use of territory. The main objective of this work is the application of GIS methodologies for obtaining information sources, mainly mapping that can be used to support the management of the natural park. Therefore, in some cases proposed methodologies have been applied by other authors and, in others, their own methodologies. It is intended that the use and application of the mapping results obtained that can improve various aspects of natural park management, either optimizing the mechanisms of action when dealing with a fire (Fernández-Couto, 1998; Alejo et al., 2000), whether in action to prevent soil erosion. Another secondary objective is to obtain maps for tourist use and/or educational-informative, with the ultimate aim of attracting visitors to the natural park and make them partakers of his beauty. This is the case, for example, the mapping of location and description of points of landscape interest (Moreno and García-Abad, 1996; Madiedo and Bosque, 2006). To obtain data, the Mapping Service of Navarra provides in format “shape” the georeferenced limits and 1:10000 scale aerial photographs. It has also used information from the Corine Land Cover project that develops the creation of a database 1:100000 land use in the European Union and has as main objective, the capture of digital data and geographic images collected through the series of Landsat and Spot satellites. The main problem with this project, which was designed to a very large area, it is that in local scales does not always work well. Therefore, this information was completed with that obtained by aerial photography and map habitats.