How and why forest managers adapt to socio-economic changes: A case study analysis in Swiss forest enterprises

Abstract

Forestry is an important source of income for forest owners and those employed in rural areas. In recent years, this sector has had to tackle far-reaching changes taking place in the social, economic and political system. New demands are now being addressed and policies reformulated. As a response to this pressure, new decision-making structures and innovation activities are taking place in the forestry sector. The aim of this paper is to study learning processes on the management level of forest enterprises. We focus on the production of new ecosystem goods and services; a result of such learning and adaptation processes during the last ten years. The main questions we ask are: How did forest enterprises react to the different changes with respect to their products and services? What are the driving forces and causes for learning and adaptation? In order to operationalise this research aim, we conducted a case study analysis among 6 forest owners in Switzerland between 1995 and 2005. We identified the production of new ecosystem goods and services mainly in the category of cultural services. As we expected, the most important impulse for these adaptation activities was the decrease of returns from traditional timber production. However, other explanatory factors such as external contacts and innovation strategies also seemed to play a similar role.