An Internet-Supported Planning Approach for Joint Ownership Forest Holdings

Abstract

This article proposes a planning approach for private forest holdings that have more than one decision maker, e.g. a heirship group or a joint ownership between siblings. Through a case study example, we illustrate the phases of the proposed planning process and describe the communication and planning tools used in this process. The final aim is that in the future the forest planners' toolkit would include this kind of approach for rather common situations where it is not easy to reach all the owners for synchronous face-to-face planning sessions. The process started with initial telephone interviews with the forest owners. From these interviews appropriate alternative forest plans were developed. Indicators and their values from the forest plans were inputted into the Mesta internet application. The forest owners were also given guidance on how to use the program. After this they were given time to independently use the program. Once the forest owners finished the use of the program, the results were collected and analyzed. Among the alternative forest plans, one was approved by all of the forest owners. The results of trial use involving a North-Karelian forest holding were encouraging. The main benefits of the approach according to the participants were learning that there are alternatives between which to choose, and reaching a common base level of understanding holding's production possibilities for future decisions. After developing the process and technical tools further, the proposed model could serve joint ownerships over distance also in practice and in larger scale, and, as a result, foster owners' engagement on their own forest.

Mixing methods – assessment of potential benefits for natural resources planning

“…Mustajoki et al 2011;Duchelle et al 2012) and operability (e.g. Pukkala & Kangas 1993;Eyvindson et al 2011). Furthermore, mixing appears to have enhanced criterion fulfillment in flexibility (for qual-qual and qual-quan) as well.…”

The challenges of coordinating forest owners for joint management

“…management plan, budget, negotiations) are taken by the general assembly, on the basis 'one person, one vote', independently of the forest area owned (Dedeurwaerdere, 2009) applying a majority rule in voting. Some decision-support tools are being developed to facilitate joint decision-making for multiple holders (Eyvindson et al, 2011). These aspects are reflected in the legal form of constitution (e.g.…”

Potentials of Forestry Extension Encounters: A Conversation Analysis Approach

“…In Finland, due to the continuing liberalization of forest legislation, forestry extension is expected to be refocused towards alternative-based services that take greater account of landowners' personal aims and plans (Parviainen and Västilä 2012). In addition to peer learning approaches, recently outlined models of tailored services underline trialogical learning (Hujala et al 2012), internet-mediated (Eyvindson et al 2011) or computer-aided planning services (Leskinen et al 2009;Pykäläinen and Hujala 2012) and interactive services (Hujala et al 2013). As such, forestry extension practice is adopting an instructional positioning embedded with (pedagogic) goals, although not always explicitly defined or requested.…”