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SESSION: NATIONAL SDI II
Social and economic benefits from compiling the Forest Data Bank
Project (Dasologio) in Greece
D.S. Palaskas, N.I. Stamou
1 Forester, Msc, Thessaloniki, Greece
2 Professor, Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment, Thessaloniki, Greece
The lack of cadastre and validated forest maps in Greece have formed a peculiar legal status of forest and
natural environment protection which relies on as the case may be certificates issuing (Characterization Acts)
from Forest Authorities, a temporary procedure according to the Greek Law 998/79 but still persisting until
today, although judged as constitutionally dubious from the Supreme Court of Cassation from year 1997. This
rather time – consuming procedure creates additional real and bureaucracy load both for Forest Services and
citizens. As a result the citizens get involved in continuous conflicts with the State and this fact becomes
subject of abuse from both sides either for claiming public forest areas, either for canvass reasons respectively.
Moreover, the State trying to cover weakness in other sectors relevant with planning and implementing
development programs, due to the lack of general and special zoning plans, accuses the Forest Service of being
too strict at the protection of natural wealth. These phenomena will probably vanish definitely with Forest Data
Bank Project (Dasologio in Greek) compiling, a constitutional order already from 1997.
“Dasologio” is a dynamic forest land data bank where the protected from forest legislation areas are registered
(mapped) and classified according to their characteristics and their functions. Its data integration in public
spatial information infrastructures will not only serve the principle of publicity but also render accessible
particularly useful environmental information for the citizens and the involved authorities. The oncoming
benefits are very important and assessed in thousands of man-hours yearly: a numerous scientific personnel
will undertake again substantial tasks in forest management and forest development projects, the juridical load
will decrease effectively and finally the practitioners’ networks living from bureaucracy load (engineers,
lawyers, foresters, surveyors etc) will lack existence reasons.
In Greece, two mapping projects have been implemented or are at the phase of proclamation by OSDE
(Integrated System for Management and Control) and National Cadastre (ortho-basemaps production for the
whole country), while exists already coverage from orthophoto maps in scale 1:5,000 and 1:20,000 of
Surveying and Forest Service, respectively. On the latter, there has been made from decades and is continued
until nowadays the mapping – classification according to forest species, foliage density and woodstock class,
but these data, although being a good background and a remarkable know-how source of the scientific staff, do
not consider to fulfill the high accuracy standards (geometric especially) of “Dasologio”. The absence of a
permanent system of periodic inventories obsoletes and scorns this work as a credible forest data source. What
finally connects all the mapping projects of Greek territory, though limited in area, from whichever authority
or organization, is fragmentation and limited accessibility even for public authorities of the same Ministry!
This (greek) phenomenon derives from distrust sensation and bad cooperation caused by confusion and
dispersion of jurisdiction among the competent authorities, situation with deep roots at the competition among
the scientific branches.
The rapid development of new technologies (Very High Resolution satellite imagery availability, software
improvement, powerful computers, web mapping) combined with political will at European Union level leads
Greece to one-way, on the beginning of the new Programming Period 2007 – 2013, for the instant effectuation
and integration in the developing infrastructures of a far-sighted project like “Dasologio”. The example of the
projects CLC2000 and IMAGE2000 completed in only 3 years at a cost of 13 M€ (corresponding to an
average cost of 3 € / ha), covering an area overcoming the today’s EU of 25 (JRC 2005) is an undeniable
witness for the feasibility of the proposed venture.
The convenience of elaborating “Dasologio” is supported even more if the data concerning the impacts and the
benefits get quantified economically using the most popular methodology for investment choice, the Cost
Benefit Analysis. One particular characteristic of this methodology is the integration of the so-called
externalities, since it is obvious that the public works related with environmental protection and improvement
have little economic reciprocity. This is totally true for the inventory of the national capital of forests and
forest areas, unlike Cadastre which is mostly funded by the registered citizen rights. The estimates made by
analyzing relevant data gathered from regional forest authorities for the last three years indicate an extremely
high degree of staff occupation in the pre-mentioned temporary procedure. The total estimated cost includes
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