Bibliotecas especializadas y otros recursos

the state explored ways of intensifying the commercialization of its forests9. It started in 1983 with the apartheid cabinet recommending the establishment of a committee to assess options for transferring commercial aspects of forestry to a corporation. In 1985, the state introduced a trading account, which was meant to enable more accountability and clarity in terms of income and production costs. A Draft Bill on National Forestry Corporation followed this in 1989. By 1992,

8 _{More details on the policy background are given in chapter 3.}

9 _{Information on the policy process in this chapter is partly sourced from an internal paper by DWAF}

these efforts had culminated in legislation that would commercialize state forests under an incorporated public entity SAFCOL (South Africa Forestry Company Limited). All state forests in the then Republic of South Africa, excluding those in the former homelands, were placed under management of SAFCOL. SAFCOL started active operations in 1993, with the bulk of its expertise drawn from the National Department of Forestry. In 1994, at the beginning of the new political dispensation in South Africa, the forest policy had to change to conform to the new political and economic order. This involved reformulating a new policy through a consultative forum whose products were the following: a Forestry Green Paper in June 1995, a White Paper for Sustainable Forest Development in 1996 and a National Forestry Action Plan (NFAP) in 1997. It was during the same year that, as these policy processes were taking off, the new government approved a new SAFCOL board. The former forests in the Bantustans were brought under the management of DWAF, while the ones in the former Republic of South Africa remained under management of SAFCOL. In 1995, another agreement was signed between the government and SAFCOL, which reaffirmed that state forestland would be transferred to SAFCOL’s management.

Amidst all these changes taking place in forestry at this time, community forestry, which was previously relegated in policy decisions in favour of com- mercial forestry, for the first time received special attention in the discussion document, the Forestry Green Paper of June 1995. Later, in August of the same year, a National Forest Policy Conference was organized solely to discuss community forestry issues, and how the interests of women could be included in the new vision for forestry.

The forest policy paper, the White Paper on Sustainable Forest Development was approved by cabinet in 1996 and aimed to promote sustainable and equitable forestry practices as well as reconcile existing discords between commercial, community and indigenous forestry. Around this time as well, SAFCOL was realizing profits from its operations, although there were increased concerns from other sectors of the industry about SAFCOL’s monopoly in sawn timber produc- tion. The combined SAFCOL and DWAF plantations were producing about 4 million cubic meters that translated to 66% on the total national supply (Dlomo & Pitcher 2002).

Intentions of a complete privatization of SAFCOL-held forest assets were made clear as the White Paper indicated a reduced role of government in the industry, and in the same year a committee was established at SAFCOL to discuss the fate of government shareholding in forestry. The White Paper on Sustainable Forest Development (1996, section 2.5) stated:

The Government recognizes the important role of the industrial forest sector in South Africa, including the wood processing industries. It currently has a major stakeholding in Industrial forestry, as the owner of SAFCOL and the former homeland forests. Restructuring or priva-

tization of these holdings will be treated in line with overall government policy, in consulta- tion with all interested parties.

While the White Paper on Sustainable Forest Development voiced the policy intentions, another important document the National Forestry Action Plan (1997), presented strategies and tools for implementing these policy objectives. In the NFAP, the government reiterated its intention to move out of core forestry operations and give way to the private sector. This was a fairly straightforward intention, especially for the SAFCOL assets that were in good condition and were realizing profits. The situation of the forests in the former Bantustans that were separately managed by DWAF was more complicated, as they were loss- making and overstaffed. In addition, significant portions of them were degraded and would prove difficult to transfer to private interests.

Apart from the poor state of these assets, there were interests that were uncom- fortable with the decisions that government had taken pertaining to forestry. The labour unions for instance, were concerned that their unionized workers would be laid off as a result of government’s withdrawal from forestry operations. So as preparations were underway to privatize, there were parallel discussions with labour to reach a compromise on privatization as well.

In 1998, a new Chief Director was appointed to head the forestry department. Within the same year, significant strides were made towards the forestry sale, as an agreement was reached between the labour unions and government that provided for a moratorium on retrenchment of existing unionized employees. The agreement stated that they would remain employed by the new owner, at least for the first three years, but there were also options for voluntary severance pack- ages. The DWAF employees who were managing the assets that were now merged with SAFCOL were absorbed into the SAFCOL workforce as well. A decision was further made to introduce Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOPS) as a vehicle to enable employees to have partial ownership of the forest companies for which they worked. A 9% shareholding in each sold asset was reserved for this purpose, although the details of these had not been finalized by the time of the research.

During the same year, a new National Veld and Forest Act (1998) was insti- tuted and this created a regulatory framework that was needed to move forward with plans for privatization. It also paved the way for the development of certain criteria, indicators, and standards for sustainable forestry management. In the meantime, the viable DWAF forests were categorized as A and merged with the SAFCOL ones. They were initially repackaged into seven different geographic units, but these were reduced to five when the Northern and Mpumalanga, as well as the western and Southern Cape units, were respectively merged into two. The five forest assets were offered to the market in 1999. At this stage, DPE

entered the process as the government department with the mandate to sell and restructure state owned enterprises. In essence, where the sale of forests was concerned, DWAF was reduced to a support-role for DPE.

Policy changes and influence on actors