Public Attitudes about Private Forest Management and Government Involvement in the Southeastern United States

Abstract

In the southern United States the country’s top wood-producing region, factors such as intergenerational land transfer and population spillover from urban areas have resulted in forestland conversion and reduced production of critical ecosystem services associated with forest systems (e.g., timber, clean water supply, wildlife habitat). Public attitudes, which drive forestland policy prescriptions, may also be evolving due to the way people experience and perceive forests (e.g., recreation), and think about the role of government in private forest decisions. These changes have significant implications for forestland management and the forest-based economy, both locally and globally. We present the results of a regional survey (n = 1669) of residents in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, which assessed attitudes toward timber harvesting and government involvement on private lands. We found significant public support for timber harvesting with a somewhat stronger focus on ecosystem maintenance compared to timber production, and strong support for policies that empower landowners (e.g., assistance programs) over regulatory strategies. We conclude that existing government policies and programs are failing to help landowners meet public demand for ecosystem service provision on private forest lands in the southeastern US. Public attitudes appear conducive to innovative policy strategies such as market-based solutions and nudges. Perceptions of forest health will likely be the metric the public and landowners will use in assessing the value of policy alternatives, in addition to economic impact. Public ignorance and indifference towards forest management also appear to be growing.

Using systems thinking and causal loop diagrams to identify cascading climate change impacts on bioenergy supply systems

“…Pine plantations are less biodiverse than natural forests (Duden et al 2018 ) and hence potentially more vulnerable to climate change induced disturbances, which further increases the pressure from NGOs and the public to protect natural forests from plantation conversions in the face of climate change (Aggestam et al 2020 ). Nevertheless, citizens in the southeast US tend to support the local forest industry and oppose too strict involvements by the government in private forest owners’ management decisions (Kreye et al 2019 ). In addition, increased pellet production may help counteract other major threats to southeast forests, namely, urbanisation and expansion of agricultural areas.…”

Public Attitudes towards Birds and Private Forest Land Conservation

“…This is consistent with the finding that many respondents support landowner assistance programs over environmental regulations. Pennsylvania, like many states in the US, has a long history of supporting strong private property rights [45,67,68]. Interest in environmental quality often increases when people are given the right to protect, manage, and utilize (e.g., revenue) the land resource [69].…”

“…Four statements represented interventions through landowner assistance strategies, and the other four statements represented top-down or regulatory approaches (Table 2.). Scalar tools were also used to obtain subjective and objective measures of knowledge about birds and their condition [45] (Table 3). Respondents were asked how strongly they agreed with statements describing judgments of their own knowledge about birds (2 statements), if they demonstrated reasoned action in the past by supporting local bird conservation activities (1 statement) and how strongly they agreed with a list of bird facts (4 statements; α = 0.70).…”

Landowner Acceptability of Silvicultural Treatments to Restore an Open Forest Landscape

“…Forests provide multiple ecosystem services [1,2]. To maximize services for human needs, the structure and function of some natural forest landscape types have been altered, often to increase the productivity of high-value tree species at the expense of other ecosystem services, such as biodiversity [3].…”