Forest Owner Group Research Articles

Understanding small‐scale private forest owners is a basis for transformative change towards integrative conservation

Abstract Balancing societal demands on forests is a major challenge in current forest management. Small‐scale private forest owners are an important ownership group that is rarely addressed directly in this discussion. Our study aims to identify and differentiate between private forest owner groups. Based on this, we take a systemic approach and determine leverage points that can be used to foster transformative change towards integrative conservation‐oriented forest management. We conducted a survey of 1656 small‐scale private forest owners in northwest Germany within a typical European multi‐ownership landscape and formed three clusters based on their activities. While all groups generally perceived nature conservation as important, they differed with regard to their forest management activities. Multiple‐use‐oriented forest owners (45%) were most active, including in terms of conservation measures. Conservation‐oriented owners (25%) mainly focused on passive measures, and conventional owners (30%) showed only a little engagement with conservation‐related activities. Despite the differences, common instruments promoting conservation activities were identified. They included, for example on‐site consultation, information about legal regulations and financial incentives. Based on four system characteristics (parameters, feedback, design and intent), we identified leverage points towards transformative change. The deep and thus effective leverage points are changing the discourse, accounting for the heterogeneity of private forest owners as well as for uncertainty related to climate change and adapting measures to local contexts. Furthermore, working towards increasing awareness, knowledge and interest as well as accounting for the desire for autonomy and control are promising pathways for change. A holistic transformation of forest policy and management towards integrative conservation is urgently needed to meet the current challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and timber demand. This transformation has to go beyond the adaptation of existing policy instruments and instead focus on systematic and cross‐sectoral changes in the underlying policy orientation, its design and its implementation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Probabilistic typology of private forest owners: A tool to target the development of new market for ecosystem services

Understanding how and why private forest owners manage their forests is the basis for efficient policy, and improperly targeting forest owners can lead to inefficiencies. Furthermore, new markets for ecosystem services have been proposed as a way to diversity private forest owner revenues and move forest management in a more sustainable direction. Based on a survey of 220 French private forest owners, we perform a cluster analysis to identify distinct groups of forest owners according to their stated behaviors. Owners were clustered based on their rating of statements derived from existing profiles as well as their rating of the importance of new markets and social recognition. We then test if our owner classifications are sufficient predictors of the valuation of a set of ecosystem services, explicitly comparing an individual’s stated need for ecosystem services to their perceived social demand. Our results confirm previously reported forest owner typologies of European forest owners, and show that these typologies can meaningfully explain variation in ecosystem service demand. This is important as the preservation and production of ecosystem services are increasingly important components of forest management and policy.

Passive or not? – Examining the diversity within passive forest owners

The structural changes that affect forest owners at the European level have entailed the threat of their becoming more passive in their forest management. These “so-called” passive forest owners represent a challenge for policy-makers, as they typically do not pursue explicit forest management goals and put less weight on externalities demanded of the forest resources by society. At the national level, an increasing number of indifferent or passive forest owners is usually construed as a waste of forest resources. Even so, the deeper reasons for passivity have not been thoroughly examined. Previous studies show that certain technical reasons, such as small forest holding size and a long distance to the forest, may increase passive forest management behaviour. However, in many countries various forest management services to overcome these obstacles are provided. This raises the question of whether we actually understand the reasons for passive forest management behaviour. Without this understanding, no advisory services can truly solve the problem.This study presents the results of 273 qualitative phone interviews targeted at Finnish private forest owners classified as passive. The reasons for passivity in forestry are described by constructing a qualitative typology of passive forest owners. The findings illustrate the various reasons leading to passive forest management behaviour. As practical implications, the results provide tools for communicating on forest management with different forest owner groups considered as passive.

Forest Owners’ Perspectives Concerning Non-Timber Forest Products, Everyman’s Rights, and Organic Certification of Forests in Eastern Finland

Global trends towards the bioeconomy and multidimensional ecosystem-based approaches are transforming our understanding of forests and expanding access to forest management. The demand for non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is increasing due to the current trends in lifestyle and consumption. Forest owners play a key role in the supply of NTFPs. However, many forest owners are not committed to production or aware of the opportunities for production of their forests. Understanding better the family forest owners’ behaviour and decision making regarding NTFPs is needed to strengthen the role of NTFPs in the Finnish bioeconomy. In this study, forest owners’ perspectives concerning NTFPs, Everyman’s Rights, and organic certification of forests were identified. The survey data were collected by emailing the questionnaire to North Karelian forest owners and analysed by creating forest owner typologies based on their forest ownership motives and perspectives concerning NTFPs. Regarding forest ownership motives, four owner groups of relatively equal size were identified and named as recreationist, conservationists, timber producers, and resigning owners leaving the forest property to the next generation. Regarding their use of NTFPs and interest in producing NTFPs four groups of owners were identified: owners who 1) harvested NTFPs for household use or 2) sale, 3) would allow the harvesting of NTFPs not covered by everyman’s right, and 4) need more information on the joint production of timber and NTFPs not covered by Everyman’s Rights. Most owners were household users. The results can be utilised to promote NTFP production and advocate for the more effective organic certification of forests for different forest owner groups.

Forest Owners\u2019 Willingness to Implement Measures to Safeguard Biodiversity: Values, Attitudes, Ecological Worldview and Forest Ownership Objectives

The effective implementation and development of conservation schemes to which participation of forest owners is voluntary, requires an understanding of forest owners’ views on measures to safeguard forest biodiversity. The Forest Biodiversity Program for Southern Finland is currently the most important instrument of voluntary forest conservation in Finland. The aim of this study is to explore what kind of methods the forest owners are willing to implement to safeguard biodiversity in their own forests and to identify forest owner groups based on these views. The aim is also to compare forest owners’ values, attitudes, endorsement of an ecological worldview and objectives for forest ownership as well as the background characteristics in these groups. The data were collected in 2015, by a nationwide mail survey sent to 3000 Finnish family forest owners (n = 1035). Five forest owner types were identified: Conservationists, Moderate conservationists, Compensation oriented, Promoters of biodiversity through forest management and Uninterested. Previous experience of implementation of voluntary measures to safeguard biodiversity and positive attitudes towards conservation were important in explaining the willingness to adopt conservation measures. The results can be utilized in developing voluntary conservation programs and in targeting advisory services related to biodiversity protection to different forest owner groups more accurately. The results support the need for flexible voluntary conservation programs, including a large variety of mechanisms to protect nature values in family owned forests.

A theoretical and empirical analysis of joint forest production: Timber supply and amenity services

This paper applies a two-period timber and amenity production model to assess the hardwood harvesting choices of different forest owner groups at the stand level by utilizing USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory Analysis (FIA) data for nine southern states. We find that forest industry and institutional timberland owners are more likely to do partial harvests than non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners and that all of three owner groups are less likely to harvest if there is a high possibility of generating revenues from amenities. Final harvests are more price and income elastic than partial harvests among all owners at both of stand level and aggregate level. Additionally, stand-level timber supply for institutional owners is more responsive to stumpage price change than for industry and NIPF landowners. At the aggregate level, institutional timberland owners respond the most to stumpage prices for partial harvest among all owners.

Towards more sustainable bioenergy production – forest owners’ readiness for change

ABSTRACTCommunity-based energy initiatives have been regarded as a promising way to guide people toward a more sustainable future. We analysed whether the members of Finnish forest bioenergy co-operatives (FOCOs) are readier for the sustainability transition than other forest owners (n = 10 for both groups). The data were gathered using an interview about forest-related change and a survey about climate change attitudes. Qualitative content analysis, network analysis and Mann-Whitney’s U-test were applied. The FOCO members were readier for change regarding different new ways to gain profit from one’s own forest, and they also recognised significantly more positive forest-related changes than the non-members. However, changes that reflected environmental concern or the idea of sustainability transition were rarely recognised within both forest owner groups. Further research and education interventions are thus needed to increase the awareness of sustainable development within both groups. Furthermore, the FOCO members’ readiness for applying economically attractive businesses could be used in piloting projects that aim to include payments for ecosystem services, such as subsidies for carbon storage, into the FOCO model. Instead, the emergence of more radical community-based forest initiatives that start from an environmental concern are probably not appealing for most of the present forest owners.

Information Needs of Non-industrial Private Forest Owners After Logging Operations in Finland: A Case Study

In this study, the information needs of non-industrial private forest owners in Finland, after logging operations, were investigated. The study was carried out as an online survey in 2017. The survey was targeted at non-industrial private forest owners who had sold their timber during the previous 10 years (2008–2017) and whose email addresses were in the customer relationship management system of a large wood procurement company in Finland. A response link for the survey was successfully sent to 31,988 forest owners, of whom 3323 replied (response rate: 10.4%). The final study data included 3284 non-industrial private forest owners. The results of the study, which need to be interpreted cautiously due to the low response rate, showed that the forest owners want better-quality reporting after logging operations. Furthermore, the results suggested that gender, age, education, occupational status, place of living, size of, and access to, forest property, and length of, and objectives for, forest ownership have a significant effect on their information needs. Younger, highly-educated, female, urban-living and multi-objective forest owners with larger forest holdings and short forest ownership tenures desired more information. Particularly, the respondents conveyed that they would like more and better information about thinning harvesting result. The results also indicated that when different groups of forest owners call for certain information, there is a need for producing different types of reports after logging operations for different forest owner segments.

Determinants of Nonindustrial Private Forest Owners’ Willingness to Harvest Timber in Norway

In Norway, 84% of the productive forest is privately owned, and these forests dominate the supply of timber to industries. However, during last 80 years, annual forest growth has seen a substantial upsurge while annual timber harvest has been rather stable, generating an increasing potential for timber supply. In this study, we provide new insights to better understand Norwegian non-industrial private forest owners’ timber harvesting decisions. This was achieved by comparing the outcomes of two different statistical approaches (i.e., a combination of probit-linear models with a tobit model). These approaches are commonly applied in timber supply studies, but to the best of our knowledge have never been compared on the same dataset. The survey utilized for this study constitutes a population of Active and Inactive forest owners, based on whether the owner had harvested timber for sale during the last fifteen years. Two gross samples of 1500 and 1650 were drawn, with response rates of 56% and 49% for the Active and Inactive owner samples, respectively. The study results reveal that the average holding size varied from 25.2 ha for Inactive to 49.5 ha for both samples and 73.8 ha for Active owners. The probit model analysis indicated that knowledge of forest fund and financial objectives had the most significant impact on the willingness to harvest, with marginal effects of 11% and 12%, respectively. In the linear regression, being a female owner increased the historical timber supply by 1.48 m3 ha−1 year−1 compared to male ownership. In the second regression pathway (tobit model), the two variables female forest owner and owning forests for financial objectives triggered the supply of timber by 1.85 m3 ha−1 year−1 and 1.25 m3 ha−1 year−1, respectively. Timber prices were significant in the linear model (elasticity 1.18) and tobit model (elasticity 0.66), whereas they were non-significant in the probit model. Our study concludes that Active owners had a better understanding of acknowledging forests for economic security. Policy-makers and extension services should recognize that the Inactive forest owner group may require different actions than Active owners.

Planning on a wider scale – Swedish forest owners' preferences for landscape policy attributes

A tax-fund system has been proposed to advance Swedish forest conservation. We present a choice experiment with Swedish private forest owners on preferences for attributes of a tax-fund system. Focusing on three aspects: (i) freedom to choose set-asides, (ii) equity issues, and (iii) frequency of nature inventories, we find two groups of forest owners. The first is opposed to interventions that could curtail liberty and oppose frequent nature inventories, while a smaller group would derive positive utility from jointly deciding on the location of set-asides with society. Both groups have a preference for changing the current tax-base to soil productivity or timber volume. The tax-base chosen together with the modalities of re-distributing the funds will determine the program's efficiency. The paper concludes that a tax-fund system could indeed be a way forward but would need to be designed in a participatory manner to reconcile forest owners, forest industry representatives, and conservationists.

Planning On a Wider Scale – Swedish Forest Owners’ Preferences for Landscape Policy Attributes

A tax-fund system has been proposed to advance Swedish forest conservation. We present a choice experiment with Swedish private forest owners on preferences for attributes of a tax-fund system. Focusing on three aspects: (i) freedom to choose set-asides, (ii) equity issues, and (iii) frequency of nature inventories, we find two groups of forest owners. The first is opposed to interventions that could curtail liberty and oppose frequent nature inventories, while a smaller group would derive positive utility from joint decision-making. A tax-fund system would need to be designed in a participatory manner to reconcile forest owners, forest industry, and conservationists.

Perspectives of Private Forest Owners toward Investment in Forest Carbon Offset Projects: A Case of Geumsan-Gun, South Korea

Understanding and promoting South Korean private forest owners’ investment in the Forest Carbon Offset (FCO) scheme is crucial for enhancing carbon sequestration using forests in South Korea. This study aims to identify the factors of private forest owners associated with the investment decision in FCO projects. A total of 132 forest owners in Geumsan-gun, Chungcheongnam-do responded to a mixed-method survey. A chi-square test on the respondent groups shows that a forest management contract has a positive correlation with the forest owners’ willingness to invest in FCO projects. We also developed a logistic regression model for each forest owner group to estimate the effects of forest characteristics, experience of financial support, forest owner characteristics, and management characteristics on the forest owners’ willingness to invest in FCO projects. The results indicate that beliefs in climate change, size of forest holdings, tree species, stand age, experience in cost-sharing for forestry operations with public agencies, and timber harvest experience were significantly associated with the likelihood of a forest owner’s willingness to invest in FCO projects. Therefore, forest policies should take account of the factors influencing the likelihood of forest owners’ investment in FCO projects. We also found that the forest management contract scheme can be used as a policy instrument for promoting private forest owners’ action for climate change in South Korea.

Mnenje prebivalcev Slovenije o pomenu gozdov in gozdarstva

The research aims at assessing the Slovenian public opinion on the importance of forests and forest management. 1014 surveys were completed by randomly selected adult citizens of the RS proportionally in regard to the country%s statistical regions. The survey included 10 sections and 74 Likert-type statements. Slovenian public believes that the most important functions of forests are environmental functions, followed by wood production and protection against natural hazards, social functions, whereas the least important are gathering non-wood forest products and hunting. More than 90 % of respondents think that forests are important for multiple functions. 74 % of the public supports free access, 60 % of them supports the right to gather non-wood forest products. The majority of them believe that the state should invest funds for supporting environmental functions. The statements on free access and importance of forests for recreation are the strongest factors in discriminating the groups of forest owners and non-owners.

Adaptation to Climate Change in Forestry: A Perspective on Forest Ownership and Adaptation Responses

Adaptation to climate change has often been discussed from the perspectives of social vulnerability and community vulnerability, recognising that characteristics at local level will influence the particular adaptations undertaken. However, the extent to which national-level systemic factors influence and shape measures defined as adaptations has seldom been recognised. Focusing on adaptation to climate change in forestry, this study uses the example of two countries in the northern hemisphere with different forest ownership structures, forestry industry and traditions: Sweden, with strong private, non-industrial ownership, dominant forest industry and long forestry traditions; and Scotland, with forest ownership dominated by large estates and investment forestry based on plantations of exotic conifer species. The study shows how adaptation to climate change is structurally embedded and conditioned, which has resulted in specific challenges and constraints for different groups of forest owners within these two different contexts. This produces a specific set of political spaces and policy tools by rendering climate change in relation to forestry manageable, negotiable and practical/logical in specific ways. It is recommended that the focus of future work on climate-related issues and development of adaptation measures and policy should not be primarily on climate-related factors, but on institutional analysis of structural factors and logics in target sectors, in order to critically explore concepts of agency and power within these processes.

Conventional and New Ways of Governing Forest Threats: A Study of Stakeholder Coherence in Sweden

Based on a framework for analyzing stakeholder coherence horizontally and vertically, the present study examined the governance of forest threats in Sweden. Opinions of forest risk governance in stakeholder groups with and without a connection to private forestry were compared (n = 2496) and the opinions were analyzed in relation to current governance practices. More specifically, forest threat appraisals, trust in the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA), and the acceptability of forest risk policy measures directed at private forest owners were assessed. Results revealed an overall coherence between different stakeholders in this context. However, the groups differed in, for example, the acceptability of the hypothetical regulative measure aiming to reduce damages threatening the forest long-term (e.g., climate change). Furthermore, an extensive use of advice for a fee may challenge particularly the internal, but also the external, legitimacy of forest risk governance. The forest owner stakeholder group showed lower threat appraisals when evaluating threat to one’s own forest rather than to the Swedish forest, except regarding browsing by animals. Regulations were not disapproved of in any of the stakeholder groups, although the forest owner group generally displayed higher acceptability of encouraging measures compared to the general public. Trust in the SFA was furthermore confirmed as an important driver of policy acceptability, and higher threat appraisals of novel threats, such as climate change and fire, resulted in a higher acceptability of measures less central or new in this context. The value of analyzing stakeholder coherence for natural resource management and governance is discussed.

The social networks of Irish private forest owners: An exploratory study

Private forests in Europe are increasingly characterised by fragmented ownership and declining owner knowledge and engagement, raising concerns about the harvesting behaviour of private forest owners. The formation of forest owner groups is seen as a means not only of addressing fragmented ownership but also owner knowledge. It is also increasingly recognised that owner engagement is not only influenced by the characteristics of the owner and their forest but also the individuals that surround the owners, i.e. their social network. This study aims to explore and describe existing social networks of private forest owners in Ireland. It focusses specifically on four types of owners: forest owners who were members of a forest owner group and who had harvested; forest owners who were members of a group but had not harvested; forest owners who were not members of a group and who had harvested and finally forest owners who were not group members who had not harvested. Interviews were held with a total of 56 forest owners in the southern half of Ireland. Members of forest owner groups who have harvested had the largest and the most diverse social networks. These results suggest an association between social networks and the harvesting activity of forest owners, although the direction of the association is not clear. The persons/organisations in the social networks that were trusted most by the forest owners were the public technical advisory service (Teagasc), the forest owner group and family/friends/neighbours. Teagasc and the forest owner group were also the most influential highlighting the key role that trust plays in knowledge exchange. The study provides the first insights into the social networks of forest owners in Ireland. However, further research is required to address how social networks effectively influence forest owners' harvesting behaviour.

Private Forest Owner Typologies in Slovenia and Serbia: Targeting Private Forest Owner Groups for Policy Implementation

Forestry decision-makers in Slovenia and Serbia share common objectives: development of a more coherent policy for private forests and involvement of different ownership groups in policy deliberation and development, as well as increased management levels in private forests that are currently below their productive potential. Successful achievement of these objectives in both countries requires a range of policy tools. The research objective of this study was to identify and describe private forest owner types in Slovenia and Serbia based on various criteria (forest management objectives; participation in private forest owner associations; cooperation with other private forest owners and the public forest administration; performing forest harvesting activities) and to suggest a combination of policy instruments to target each private forest owner group. Surveys were conducted in Slovenia (n = 322) and Serbia (n = 248) on random samples of private forest owners. Survey data were analysed using a two-step cluster analysis. Four groups of private forest owners were identified in Slovenia: active (26.1 %), passive (33.2 %), multiobjective (18.6 %) and uninterested (22.0 %). Two were identified in Serbia: active (32.6 %) and multiobjective (67.4 % ). Existing policy instruments referring to private forests in Slovenia and Serbia are rather similar and formulated in the respective forest policy documents at the national level. However, there are no policy instruments in either country targeting specific private forest owner groups. Based on smart regulation as a specific conceptual approach, an appropriate mix of policy instruments is proposed, which includes various measures designed to target the identified private forest owner types.

Look at what they do – a revised approach to communication strategy towards private forest owners

Private forest owners in Sweden and other countries are becoming an increasingly heterogeneous group as regards their experience and knowledge of forestry. Over the past decade, a number of studies have been conducted with the aim of describing different aspects of forest owners. However, little attention has been paid to the owners' self-activity and how they learn. With the overall aim of exploring the relationship between self-activity and knowledge to use it as a starting point for new recommendations for planned communication towards forest owners, this study examines the extent and type of the work different categories of private forest owners perform, and from whom or where they learn. An analysis of data from a mail questionnaire and from the Database for Forest Owner Analysis showed that self-activity is common in all categories of owners but more frequent among male and resident forest owners. Forest owners have relatively few knowledge sources. Besides being self-taught, the most common ways of learning are from their fathers and from attending forest days. The study also shows a strong connection between self-activity and self-estimated knowledge of forestry. The recommendation for communication planning is therefore to use the extent and type of self-activity among different groups of forest owners as a point of departure for planning communication strategies.

Deliberation in cooperative networks for forest conservation

In this article, we discuss cooperative networks for forest conservation from the viewpoint of deliberation. We ask how deliberative processes are produced and what predicts deliberation in the cooperative networks for forest conservation that have been established for policy implementation as a part of the Finnish forest biodiversity programme METSO. We base our argument on both qualitative and quantitative material. In the qualitative study, we present two cooperative networks for forest biodiversity conservation in Finland. The results show that clear leadership, active and determined work for common goals and openness to actively engage new actors assist in creating deliberative processes in cooperative networks. In the quantitative study, we explore the perceptions of implementers of METSO programme about the prerequisites for achievement in deliberation. The results of a quantitative study support those of a qualitative one: involving new forest owner groups and including conservation-biological knowledge were connected to perceived achievement. Based on the findings, we argue that in order to become as deliberative and empowering a programme as it has potential for, METSO needs to expose its actions to a broader public, critique and debate, involve new collaborators actively and support integration of various types of knowledge.

Do forest owners share the public's values? An application of Schwartz's value theory

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences in value priorities between Finnish forest owners and the general public. A conclusion is drawn whether and to what extent value changes in society are reflected in forest owners’ values and objectives, and, finally, in their actual forestry behavior. In addition, the study highlights the differences in value priorities among forest owners in various demographic groups. The data set used in this study was based on a nationwide mail survey on Finnish non-industrial private forest owners conducted in 2009 and consisting of 2116 observations of forest owners. Schwartz’s value theory was a good fit for testing the value priori ties of forest owners. The three most important values were benevolence, security and conformity, both among the forest owners and the public. Tradition was ranked the fourth most important value by the forest owners, but very low by the public. The forest owners ranked universalism slightly lower than the public in general. This difference was clearly greater when the female forest owners were compared to women in the whole population. The probability of a forest owner belonging to the Softies (high emphasis on universalism and benevolence) increased with age and was higher for the female owners and the owners with recreational or multiple objectives compared to the indifferent owners. The multiobjective owners and recreationists had relatively similar value profiles. The previous literature suggests that multiobjective owners are the most active forest owner group and that recreationists and indifferent owners are the most passive groups in their timber supply behavior. The relationship between values and forestry behavior thus remains ambiguous.