Private forest owners' organizations adherence to policy tools. Insights from Portugal

Abstract

To ensure sustainable forest management, public authorities have been working on the creation of policy tools to stimulate private forest owners' cooperation and active forest management. The effectiveness of these policy tools depends on their adoption and private forest owners' organizations (PFOO) are interlocutors with a crucial role. Hence, it is important to comprehend the acceptance level, the main reasons for adherence, and whether the benefits of cooperation are made possible by these policy tools. Although the literature recognizes the relevance of PFOO, their acceptance and perception about forest policies and particularly, policy tools, is still not completely unravelled. For this purpose, an exploratory study based on primary data collected by means of an online survey was conducted in Portugal. All the Portuguese PFOO registered were contacted, with a response rate of 47%.Results show that 54% of PFOO inquired are currently managing entities of at least one forestland area working under the rules of these policy tools and 49.2% are working on new managing arrangements. The most adopted arrangement is the Forest Intervention Zone, while the newly created Integrated Areas of Landscape Management reveals the greatest dynamism concerning new agreements. The most frequent reasons justifying the adherence were the need to create scale, forest owners' interest in those arrangements, and motives related to monetary support, namely, the facilitated access to funds and the monetary support from central government. Moreover, PFOO recognize that their activity results in a high number of benefits, some of them enhanced by the adherence to policy tools. Thus, besides being important for joint representation of owners' interests and in accessing services for forest management, PFOO are crucial for the implementation of actions underlying the policy tools. Particularly for fragmented forest areas, facing population ageing and less active forest management, in a context of accelerating climate and biodiversity crises, PFOO may be a fundamental part of the success of public policy tools towards sustainable forest management.