| Summary: | This report focuses on the institutional prerequisites for a sustainable exploitation of the forest resources in Tomsk Oblast in West Siberia. Since the spring of 1997, Cerum researcher Mats-Olov Olsson, who is the author of the report, has been working with the Forestry Project at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in a study called "Institutions and the Emergence of Markets - Transition in the Russian Forest Sector." Members of the IIASA research group have looked at problems related to the forest sector institutions in eight Russian regions, including Tomsk and the three regions of north-west Russia (Murmansk, Karelia, and Arkhangelsk).In order to share the results of the study with the people most concerned, i.e., the people living in the Russian case study regions and working in the local forest sector, the study results were presented to forest stakeholders in the respective regions. These stakeholders were also invited to discuss the findings and initiate a process with the aim of generating recommendations for improving the regional forest policy. The policy exercise was chosen as the tool for achieving those goals.This report discusses the rationale for participatory policy formulation processes and the experiences gained through a policy exercise organized in the city of Tomsk in June 2000. The event in Tomsk was a pilot exercise with the purpose of further developing the policy exercise format and techniques.
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