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

Abstract

Protecting biodiversity within separate set-aside conservation areas has not been effective enough to halt its loss. Thus, new approaches to conserve biodiversity alongside production are needed. The non-market values of a forest may play an essential role when the forest owner decides the use of their land. However, so far the service offerings other than related to timber production, have been scant. The mismatch between decision support services offered and the service interests of forest owners may result in the objectives of forest owners remaining unfulfilled. The aims of this study were to explore the links between family forest owners' forest management preferences and their objectives for the forest and secondly their preferences for decision support services. Data were collected in a postal survey in the Northern Karelia region, Finland in spring 2014. Data consist of 298 survey answers that were analysed using multi-variate analyses. Two typologies were combined: clustering of forest ownership objectives and the preferred forest management style. We found that the forest owner's objectives were demonstrated by their preferred way of managing the forest. Opinions about different decision aid services varied between cluster groups. The groups emphasizing nature values considered biodiversity related information about their forest more necessary than other groups. They were also less satisfied with the usability of the forest management plan. Forest advisory services should better acknowledge the prevalence of multiple objectives also among forest owners who are interested in timber selling. Developing services for forest owners with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, information needs and objectives is important.

Towards a method of evaluating social innovation in forest-dependent rural communities: First suggestions from a science-stakeholder collaboration

“…"Soft data", such as perception, vision, expectation, preferences of stakeholders and involved actors, are considered particularly relevant in evaluation. In forestry there is a long tradition of studies focusing on forest owners' perceptions and preferences 23 (e.g., amongst the most recent: Pynnönen et al, 2018;Matilainen et al, 2019), as well as stakeholders' opinions (e.g., Focacci et al, 2017;De Meo et al, 2018) which evaluation methods for social innovation can get inspired from. However, among the tools based on primary data that were found in the literature analysis, only a few include the text of questions or questionnaires used for data collection (e.g., Polman, 2002), thus limiting the capacity of practitioners and evaluators to apply and replicate in their own evaluations methods that are proposed by scientists.…”

Finnish forest owner objectives as indicators for a diversifying use of forests on the road to a bioeconomy

“…Also Niskanen et al (2007) stated that for some owners, forest as a symbolic asset may be more meaningful than economic profitability. More recently, in a study by Pynnönen et al (2018), forest owner objectives were combined with preferred forest management style and it was found that a large share of forest owners are willing to manage their forests by combining economic and other objectives equally. Table 2.…”

Conservation perspectives of small-scale private forest owners in Europe: A systematic review

“…Referring to the conservation procedure (Table 3b, recommendations by 65%), studies proposed to enhance the distribution of information regarding conservation (recommended by 59%). Recommendations on how to better reach forest owners ranged from the adaptation of advisory services (Urquhart 2009;Salomaa et al 2016;Pynnönen et al 2018) to different ways to share concrete experiences through peer-learning, or regional demonstrations (Bieling 2004;Van Gossum et al 2005 Gatto et al (2019). Bold numbers show the main direction of influence.…”