Forest owner representation of forest management and perception of resource efficiency: a structural equation modeling study

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Underuse of nonindustrial private forests in developed countries has been interpreted mostly as a consequence of the prevailing noncommodity objectives of their owners. Recent empirical studies have indicated a correlation between the harvesting behavior of forest owners and the specific conceptualization of appropriate forest management described as "nonintervention" or "hands-off " management. We aimed to fill the huge gap in knowledge of social representations of forest management in Europe and are the first to be so rigorous in eliciting forest owner representations in Europe. We conducted 3099 telephone interviews with randomly selected forest owners in Slovenia, asking them whether they thought they managed their forest efficiently, what the possible reasons for underuse were, and what they understood by forest management. Building on social representations theory and applying a series of structural equation models, we tested the existence of three latent constructs of forest management and estimated whether and how much these constructs correlated to the perception of resource efficiency. Forest owners conceptualized forest management as a mixture of maintenance and ecosystem-centered and economics-centered management. None of the representations had a strong association with the perception of resource efficiency, nor could it be considered a factor preventing forest owners from cutting more. The underuse of wood resources was mostly because of biophysical constraints in the environment and not a deep-seated philosophical objection to harvesting. The difference between our findings and other empirical studies is primarily explained by historical differences in forestland ownership in different parts of Europe and the United States, the rising number of nonresidential owners, alternative lifestyle, and environmental protectionism, but also as a consequence of our high methodological rigor in testing the relationships between the constructs. We suggest developing natural resource management concepts that emphasize forests not just as ecosystems, but as socialecological systems.

What influences European private forest owners' affinity for subsidies?

“…Furthermore, members of forest owner associations in North and Central Portugal were sampled. A non-response bias test was conducted on the Slovenian data, and no bias was found (Ficko and Boncina, 2015). Despite different sampling methods and the fact that we did not have a full list of forest owners for each country, there is no reasonable assumption that the samples are biased, while conversely there is no proof of complete representativeness.…”

“…Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with a range of statements defining forest management on a standard five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The statements were taken from the questionnaire used in the national study by Ficko and Boncina (2015) and the international survey by Feliciano et al (2017), and included perceptions on forest management, ranging from biocentric approaches (hereainafter nonutilitarian), valuing nature for its own sake, to anthropocentric approaches (hereinafter utilitarian), where nature is valued because of the material or physical benefits it can provide for humans (Gagnon and Barton, 1994). Figure 2 shows the histograms for the affinity for subsidies (dependent variable), from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).…”

Research trends: Forest ownership in multiple perspectives

“…The increased fragmentation of private ownership and increased share of non-traditional or urban forest owners is concern for many European policy makers who see the active management of private forests as important for achieving their development agenda (Stern et al, 2010). But while policy-makers often believe many forest owners to have a low level of interest and management activity, forest owners themselves mostly claim to actively manage their woodlands, on their own terms (e.g., Feliciano et al, 2017;Ficko and Boncina, 2015;Lawrence and Dandy, 2014;Matilainen et al, this issue). With the growing share of non-traditional owners, the goals behind forest ownership become more diversified: urban owners are more open towards biodiversity conservation or other non-traditional uses of forest land (Hogl et al, 2005;Schraml and Memmler, 2005;Lorenz and Elsasser, 2018).…”

Reflections of active forest owners to the public-private forestry support system in Estonia

“…Interestingly, in both the Estonian and Lithuanian cases, it was reported that one of the main issues of concern to owners are pests and diseases that influence their forests. Ficko & Boncina (2015) were looking at the owners' representation of forest management and similarly found that the maintenance of the forest is one of the main ways owners conceptualize forest management. This included the idea of taking care of the forest so that it would not be neglected.…”