A conceptual model for private forest owners' harvest decisions: A qualitative study in southwest Germany

Abstract

Forest development and wood supply projections can inform policy makers, industry and the public about consequences of today's actions for future forests and resource availabilities. Due to complex factor interactions, harvest decisions within the non-industrial private sector are difficult to retrace. This research develops a conceptual model capturing the harvest decision-making processes of owners of small- to medium-scale private forest properties through to the occurrence or non-occurrence of harvests on forest stands. The conceptual model was developed on the basis of 32 semi-structured qualitative interviews with forest owners. Interviews were restricted to forest property sizes up to around 100 ha located within southwest Germany. Data analysis was based on grounded theory and involved open, sensitized, selective and theoretical coding. The derived conceptual model includes the forest owner as principal agent and the forest stand embedded in the forest property as an object of interest. The forest owners' internal drivers are needs (dependencies) and wants (objectives) related to their personalities. Harvest decisions are driven by interactions of these internal drivers with phenomena related to external drivers and obstacles. Components of the system shift as a consequence of transformations (e.g. inheritance and life cycle) which create new drivers and obstacles. In contrast to owner typologies, the conceptual model explains harvest decisions as the outcome of interrelations between the involved elements. It is especially suited to supporting data selection and model building for harvest decision predictions, which can be used to inform political decisions.