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Abstract
Despite the growing research interest regarding the perceptions of forest-related stakeholders about forest functions and values, the views of social actors not directly involved in forestry have been largely overlooked, particularly in Southern European countries like Portugal. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the social perceptions regarding the functions of the Matas do Litoral, public-managed forests in the Centre Region of Portugal, severely impacted by the mega-fires of October 2017. Through a hierarchical cluster analysis of survey results collected from 1000 inhabitants of the adjacent parishes of the Matas, three groups were identified-"The Moderately Interested," "The Comprehensively Interested" and "The Environmentally Interested"-based on significant differences regarding their perceptions of forest functions, the future of these areas, essential factors for effective forest management, the mega-fires and their consequences. Sociodemographic characteristics-particularly age and literacy levels-forest ownership, knowledge and familiarity with these forests help to explain the differences between the three clusters.
Highlights
The empirical evidence discussed here corroborates earlier findings by, among other, Rametsteiner and Kraxner (2003), Carvalho-Ribeiro and Lovett (2011), Edwards et al (2012), and Valente et al (2015) regarding the differences between Central and Southern European citizens’ perceptions about forest preferences and functions. These studies reveal minimal significant differences between the two contexts, they stress that Southern European citizens tend to attribute greater relevance to functions related to biodiversity conservation and protection against natural hazards, namely wildfires (e.g., Rametsteiner and Kraxner 2003; Valente et al 2015; Ranacher et al 2017)
This study offers a novel contribution to the understanding of social perceptions surrounding publicly managed forests in a Southern European context, where such perspectives have remained largely underexplored
The analysis demonstrates that social perceptions are significantly shaped by factors such as socioeconomic characteristics, forest ownership, economic dependence on forestry, and levels of knowledge and familiarity with forest environments
Summary
The contextForests are essential for communities and nations, providing a range of direct and indirect economic, environmental, and sociocultural functions and services and corresponding benefits, contributing to people’s economic and social wellbeing (Valente et al 2015; Frick et al 2018; Pour et al 2023; Valente et al 2024; Lehto et al 2025). The increasing reorientation within the European Union (EU) to bio-based societies and economies (Rametsteiner et al 2009; Valente et al 2015; Dobsinska and Sarvasova 2016) together with the increasing recognition of forests multifunctional character (Nijnik et al 2010; Pastorella et al 2016) contributed to the shift from mainly valuing the traditional forest and production-oriented functions to progressively prioritize environmental and social functions Besides their prominent roles and functions, forests may face various risks, wildfires (e.g., Valente et al 2015; Oliveira et al 2020; Newman Thacker et al 2025), deforestation and changing and competing land uses (Ranacher et al 2017), abandonment (Pastorella et al 2016), forest owners’ absenteeism (Valente et al 2015), diseases, pests and invasive species
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