Profiles of private forest owners and the importance of landscape-scale management in the timber trade process of Finnish wood procurement

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Summary In the decision-making process that determines timber sales between private forest owners and the Finnish forest industry, opinions frequently confl ict about the extent to which the forest landscape should be managed. The objective of this study was to investigate whether it would be useful to develop a landscape visualization tool that would help forest owners understand the consequences of harvesting so they could make a more informed decision on whether to sell their timber. We evaluated responses to a survey sent to forest owners in two regions of Finland to provide insights into owner appreciation of the forest landscape. The 545 forest owners who responded also evaluated the value of computer visualizations and a set of computer-generated images of the landscape. Our analysis concentrated on whether visualizing the landscape would affect sales decisions and – since women are increasingly becoming forest owners – how gender affected perceptions of the landscape and decision making. Visualization proved to be a popular tool for all forest owners. However, male and female forest owners had different perspectives on the forest landscape. Factors that differed between men and women for the statements with the strongest weightings in the principal component analysis explained 26 per cent of the overall variation in perceptions. Women particularly wanted to be able to visualize the post-harvesting landscape and preferred different types of visualization than men. Values associated with forest landscapes and their visualization seem more important to women and may therefore affect their sales decisions more than those of men. Based on these results, it will be useful to design and implement a decision support tool that will help forest owners visualize the consequences of harvesting and help the Finnish forest industry provide a more environmentally friendly service that accounts for the owner’s landscape-related goals.