Understanding private forest owners’ conceptualisation of forest management: Evidence from a survey in seven European countries

Abstract

Private forest owners' involvement in forest management has been frequently examined through the attitudes, values, beliefs, objectives and motivations associated with owning and managing forestland. Owners' views on forest management do not always align with those of policymakers who believe forest owners do not actively manage their forests. However, empirical studies on forest owners' conceptualisations of forest management are scarce. To determine how private forest owners in Europe conceptualise forest management, a survey (n = 1,140) was undertaken in seven European countries (Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania). The owners were asked to indicate their level of agreement with 19 pretested statements defining forest management on a five-point Likert scale. Classification and regression trees were used to explain the major factors that influenced owners' conceptualisations. Owners primarily conceptualised forest management as preserving forests for future generations and considered "a good business opportunity", "an opportunity to earn additional money" or a "source of subsidies" less important. Their understanding of forest management as a mixture of forest maintenance, ecosystem stewardship and economic activity does not match with alleged policy makers' views. Property size, age and Eastern/Western countries were the most relevant predictors of definitions of forest management. Small-scale forest owners from Western Europe considered ecosystem orientation more important, while owners from Eastern Europe considered economic aspects and forest maintenance more important. These differences might be associated with the socio-political system dynamics in Europe in the 20 th century and changing values in postmodern society. Policymakers must be aware of the different forest management paradigms among forest owners in Eastern-Central and Western Europe when designing European forest policies.

Recognizing the Interest of Forest Owners to Combine Nature-Oriented and Economic Uses of Forests

“…For example, the dynamics between instrumental and intrinsic values among forest owners may be different outside Finland. However, also a wider European study highlights the multiple objectives of forest owners; forest owners increasingly manage their forests for multiple objectives such as maintaining ecosystems instead of only exploiting the timber (Feliciano et al 2017).…”

Knowledge use in the management of privately owned forests: a focus on decision support services for multi-objective forest use

“…Kline et al (2000) also recognised a group of passive owners. Feliciano et al (2017) conducted a survey in seven European countries and found that private forest owners in Western European countries emphasise ecosystem-oriented forest management and the concept of multi-functionality more, while economic aspects and maintaining the good growing condition of forests are more important in Eastern European countries.…”

Are non-industrial private forest owners willing to deliver regulation ecosystem services? Insights from an alpine case

“…In parallel, research efforts are increasingly devoted to understand what may reorient NIPF owners' choices towards management objectives inclusive of public FESs. This emerging research has shown that NIPF owners are a multifaceted group with several objectives (Ní Dhubháin et al 2007;Howley 2013;Feliciano et al 2017): some of them prioritise goals related to production of FESs for the market; others prefer goals related to self-consumption of FESs, such as recreation and amenities delivered by their forest estate (Boon et al 2004;Kendra and Hull 2005;Serbruyns and Luyssaert 2006;Butler et al 2007). The research has also highlighted that although financial compensation may help, the delivery of public FESs by NIPF owners goes far beyond a matter of public policy or support while stretching across a wide set of factors, including the ownership characteristics, the owner's personal features and motivations and the socioeconomic context (Harrison et al 2002;Boon et al 2010;Song et al 2014; Rodríguez-Vicente and Marey-Pérez 2010; Domínguez and Shannon 2011).…”