Comparative analysis on the communication strategies of the forest owners' associations in Europe

Abstract

This research reports a comparative analysis of the communication strategy that forest owners' associations across Europe use to influence society on one side and the decision-makers on the other, in order to fulfill forest owners' interests. 60% of Europe's forests are privately owned by an estimated number of 16 million forest owners, who are represented by forest owners associations. One of its main functions is to influence the public perceptions on forests and forestry. In this article it is analyzed how a specific forestry stakeholder fixes its strategies to communicate with and lobby society in order to get acceptability for their proposals/demands. Open-end surveys have been used as a source of information in 2006 and repeated in 2012. Besides of the comparison among countries, a comparison along the time has been also performed. The whole communication frame is analyzed, considering the objectives, the structure, the messages, the channels, and the evaluation. The main conclusions that arise are: first, the temporary comparison (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012) results into an improvement in several issues; second, there is room for improvement of professionalization of communication in forest owners' associations in Europe; third, social research into public perception of forestry might help to define communication strategies.

The Challenges of the Forestry Sector Communication Based on an Analysis of Research Studies in the Czech Republic

“…Knowledge on public expectations of forestry is valuable to forest owners as well as administrations, especially in the face of the growing critical citizenship they encounter during their work [20]. The public's perceptions, as well as stakeholders' interests, should be analyzed [21], in order to match them and make them compatible, so one can produce proper communication strategies that will reach the decision-makers, whilst having an adequate amount of social support [22]. The most important studies whose data will be further analysed and put into mutual connections are listed in Table 1.…”

Aktiviranje gospodarjenja v zasebnih gozdovih s poslovnim sodelovanjem med zasebnimi lastniki gozdov in ponudniki gozdarskih storitev: študij primera revir Vodice

“…Večina slovenskih gozdov (76 %) je v zasebni lasti, državnih gozdov je 21 %, 3 % gozdov pa je v lasti lokalne skupnosti (Poročilo …, 2019). Zaradi prevladujočega deleža zasebnih gozdov tako v Sloveniji kot tudi v Evropi, ki bistveno prispevajo k trajnostnemu razvo-ju ekosistemov ter oskrbi trgov z gozdno-lesnimi sortimenti (GLS), ima preučevanje gospodarjenja s temi gozdovi velik pomen (Fabra-Crespo in Rojas-Briales, 2015;Poje in sod., 2016;Pezdevšek Malovrh in sod., 2017;Weiss in sod., 2019a;Weiss in sod., 2019b).…”

Poslovno povezovanje lastnikov gozdov na primeru Društva lastnikov gozdov Pohorje-Kozjak

“…Po podatkih Zavoda za gozdove Slovenije našo državo prekriva 58,3 % gozdnih površin. Od tega je kar 76,0 % v zasebni lasti, 21,0 % v lasti države in 3,0 % gozdov v lasti lokalnih skupnosti (Poročilo Zavoda za gozdove Slo-(Poročilo Zavoda za gozdove Slovenije o gozdovih, 2016) Zaradi prevladujočega deleža zasebnih gozdov tako v Sloveniji kot tudi v Evropi, ki bistveno prispevajo k trajnostnemu razvoju ekosistemov ter oskrbi trgov z lesom, ima preučevanje gospodarjenja s temi gozdovi velik pomen (Fabra-Crespo in Rojas-Briales, 2015;Pezdevšek Malovrh, 2010;Schmithusen in Hirsch, 2010; Živojinović in sod., 2015).Za zasebne gozdove pri nas je značilno, da so v lasti velikega števila lastnikov (okoli 314.000) in solastnikov (okoli 489.000) in razdrobljeni na posamezne prostorsko ločene parcele. Povprečna gozdna posest je majhna, v povprečju meri le okoli 2,5 ha (Poročilo Zavoda za gozdove Slovenije o gozdovih, 2016).…”

“…Ne samo v Sloveniji, marveč tudi v drugih državah Evropske unije interese okoli 16 milijonov lastnikov gozdov zastopajo Zveze lastnikov gozdov (FabraCrespo in Rojas-Briales, 2015). Kot navaja Hägglund (2008) 2 , je v različna gozdarska združenja v devetih izbranih državah Evrope v povprečju včlanjen vsak 11. zasebni lastnik gozda.…”

“…Ne glede na pozitivne učinke povezova-. Ne glede na pozitivne učinke povezovanja, ki so dokazane v številnih raziskavah tako doma kot v tujini (Glück in sod., 2010(Glück in sod., , 2011Leban, 2014;Mendes, 2006;Mizaraitė in Mizaras, 2014;Mori, 2012;Pezdevšek Malovrh, 2010;Põllumäe in sod., 2014), pa se oblike povezovanja spopadajo s nizkim števi-lom članov, omejenimi finančnimi sredstvi in neučin-kovitostjo delovanja (Fabra-Crespo in Rojas-Briales, 2015;Feliciano, 2006;Krajčič in Mori, 2006;Leban, 2014;Schraml, 2005;Šálka in sod., 2016;Weiss in sod., 2012a), zato ne preseneča, da člani oblik povezovanja razmišljajo v smeri profesionalizacije (Krajčič in Mori, 2006;Kronholm, 2016), ali pa so se iz njih ustanovila nova gospodarska združenja (Hägglund, 2008). Tako v Sloveniji obstajata dva primera dobre prakse širitve iz društvenih aktivnosti na raven poslovnega povezovanja, in sicer Strojni krožek Bled, ki je ustanovil Strojni krožek Servis d.o.o., in DLG Pohorje-Kozjak, ki je ustanovilo Gozdarsko zadrugo lastnikov gozdov PohorjeKozjak z.b.o.…”