Structural social capital and local-level forest governance: Do they inter-relate? A mushroom permit case in Catalonia.

In diffuse forest uses, like non-timber forest products' harvesting, the behavioural alignment of pickers is crucial for avoiding a "tragedy of the commons". Moreover, the introduction of policy tools such as a harvest permit system may help in keeping the activity under control. Besides the official enforcement, pickers' engagement may also derive from the perceived legitimate decision of forest managers and the community pressure to behave according to the shared values. Framed within the social capital theory, this paper examines three types of relations of rural communities in a protected area in Catalonia (Spain) where a system of mushroom picking permits was recently introduced. Through social network analysis, we explore structural changes in relations within the policy network across the policy conception, design and implementation phases. We then test whether social links of the pickers' community relate to influential members of the policy network. Lastly, we assess whether pickers' bonding and bridging structures affect the rate of permit uptake. Our results show that the high degree of acceptance could be explained by an adequate consideration of pickers' preferences within the decision-making group: local pickers show proximity to members of the policy network with medium-high influence during the three policy phases. The policy network also evolves, with some members emerging as key actors during certain phases. Significant differences are found in pickers' relations among and across the involved municipalities following an urban-rural gradient. A preliminary relation is found between social structures and differential pickers' engagement. These results illustrate a case of positive social capital backing policy design and, probably, also implementation. This calls for a meticulous design of forest policy networks with respect to communities of affected forest users.

From recreational to income-generating opportunities: assessment of public preferences for non-wood forest products in the Czech Republic.

With the alarming increase in dying trees and massive logging in the Czech forests due to bark beetle infestation, the collection of non-wood forest products, a beneficial recreational activity in the Czech Republic, is now being promoted as an alternative to wood provisioning services. This paper aims to present findings on the non-wood forest product preferences in the country as part of a baseline assessment for promoting the usage. This study relied on the 2019 national survey data of public preferences in collecting forest berries, mushrooms, honey, and medicinal herbs. K-means cluster analysis was employed to classify the respondents. A binary logistic regression with a conditional forward approach was employed to identify the potential predictors of the high preference for each non-wood forest product. Data from 1,050 online respondents were included, and two groups of respondents were clustered based on their preferences for the entire non-wood forest, i.e., higher and lower utilization. The regression analysis revealed that frequent forest visitors were the primary predictor of high utilization of all non-wood forest products (between 1.437 to 4.579 odd ratios), in addition to age, gender, and location of the forest property. By clustering the respondents based on the high and low preferences in utilizing non-wood forest products, the promotion of this service, from recreational to potential livelihood activities and economic benefits, can be better targeted, e.g., target customer, infrastructure development in the location with high preferences, scenarios based on the type of owners (municipal or private forest owners), which in accordance to the national forest policy and laws, and, at the same time, maintain the ecological stability.

Natural Bioactive Substances in Fruits of Aronia melanocarpa (Michx.) Elliott Exposed to Combined Light-Type, Chitosan Oligosaccharide, and Spent Mushroom Residue Treatments.

Greenhouse culture is a practical approach to obtain non-wood forest products from berry fruit at a higher efficacy than resource silviculture in natural understory. In this study, three-year old black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa (Michx.) Elliott 1821) seedlings were transplanted to a greenhouse where sunlight was complemented by red- (69.4% red, 30.2% green, 0.4% blue) and blue-color (15.3% red, 64.9% green, 19.8% blue) light-emitting diode (LED) illuminations. Half of the planting soils were amended by spent mushroom residue (SMR) (not amendment as the control) and half the seedlings were sprayed by chitosan oligosaccharide (CO) on leaves. All treatments can increase seedling height, but only blue light reinforces the basal diameter growth. Compared to sunlight, exposure to blue light can promote leaf nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, superoxide dismutase activity, and fruit proanthocyanidin content. The combination with CO addition will further increase chlorophyl a content, acid phosphatase activity, and total phenolics in fruit. SMR amended can induce the steady state uptake of nutrients but failed to impact fruit quality. Overall, we recommend the combination of blue light LED illumination plus CO addition to culture black chokeberry for the purpose to gain natural bioactive compounds.