Nonindustrial private forest landowner perspectives on forest certification: A look at awareness and barriers

Abstract

Sustainable forest management is a universally desired goal to provide ecological, economic, and social benefits. Sustaining forest benefits across the landscape in Arkansas depends on nonindustrial private forest landowners (NIPF) who own 58% of forestland in the state. Forest certification is an effective “market based” mechanism for improving forest management to achieve sustainability. A mixture of mail and online surveys collected data on Arkansas NIPF landowners' demographic and forestland characteristics, ownership motivations, and attitudes regarding perceived benefits and drawbacks of forest certification. A binary logistic regression model revealed that age, gender, education, timber harvest intentions, motivations for owning forestland, and perspectives regarding the potential benefits of forest certification influenced landowners' awareness and interests in forest certification. These findings provide insight into NIPF landowners' attitudes in participating in a forest certification program. The findings are useful for developing outreach and education programs promoting NIPF landowners' participation in forest certification in Arkansas and other southern states.