What is new about new forest owners? A typology of private forest ownership in Austria

Abstract

With structural changes in agriculture, new types of forest owners have become increasingly important. This article develops an empirically-based typology of forest owners in Austria. Based on a representative survey and by means of cluster analysis, seven types of forest owners are identified. These types form a sequence, ranging from forest owners with a strong agricultural background to forest owners with no agricultural background at all. The latter exhibit markedly different behaviour in various respects, e.g. in their interest in forestrelated information. The increasing number of 'new' forest owners raises important questions for forest policy, especially how policy instruments can reach these owners and how extension services can address them.

What Can an Understanding of the Changing Small-Scale Forest Owner Contribute to Rural Studies? The Swedish Case

“…Acknowledging that urban or new forest owners still keep some bonds and may behave partly like traditional/rural forest owners is thus well in line with understandings that highlight the constructed nature of attachment-that any person's bond to area cannot be understood merely through simplified parameters such as geographical distance or, for instance, "forest owner type" (e.g. Hogl et al 2005;Hidle et al 2006).…”

“…Thus, the variation in basis in comparison with which the "newness" is described is substantial (e.g. Hogl et al 2005;Hujala et al 2013;cf. Karppinen 2012;Ziegenspeck et al 2004;Lähdesmäki and Matilainen 2014;Toivonen et al 2005;Follo et al 2017).…”

“…This means that forest owners in different areas have different extents of linkage to agriculture (typically, this seems to have been greater in, e.g., parts of continental Europe; e.g. Hogl et al 2005), whereas in forestlands in particular in northermost Europe this might not have been the case, largely also due to the more marginal soils in this area by comparison. The great variation, and also confusion, that arises when trying to depict "forest owners" thus also results from forest ownership having thus far been depicted in a largely nationally based literature, which has most often naturalised the characteristics amongst forest owners in the national context without necessarily comparing them with other cases (Hogl et al 2005;cf.…”

Feeling at Home from A Distance? How Geographical Distance and Non-Residency Shape Sense of Place among Private Forest Owners

“…In the context of rural change, urbanization and globalization, there is an ongoing transformation of the private forest owner corps in European countries and the US towards increased heterogeneity in terms of their socio-economic characteristics, objectives, and values (e.g., Kvarda 2004;Hogl, Pregernig, and Weiss 2005;Kendra and Hull 2005;Rickenbach, Zeuli, and Sturgess-Cleek 2005;Wiersum, Elands, and Hoogstra 2005;Fischer et al 2010;Urquhart and Courtney 2011;Haugen, Karlsson, and Westin 2016). Growing numbers of private forest owners 1 are no longer directly dependent on their forestland for their livelihood and their relationships to their forests go beyond financial considerations to a wide range of values and meanings, such as nature conservation, recreation, and personal enjoyment (Kvarda 2004;Kendra and Hull 2005;Wiersum, Elands, and Hoogstra 2005;Ingemarson, Lindhagen, and Eriksson 2006;Nordlund and Westin 2011;Urquhart and Courtney 2011).…”

Assessing the Economic Situation of Small-Scale Farm Forestry in Mountain Regions: A Case Study in Austria

“…Whereas holdings larger than 500 ha show a utilization rate of 105.6% of the increment (the annual production of timber due to tree growth), the utilization rate for holdings below 200 ha amounted to only 73.7% of the increment (BFW 2016). Demographic and economic developments increase the danger of abandonment and threaten the sustainability of ecosystem services in ecological, social, and economic terms (Hogl et al 2005;Zivojinovi c et al 2015). Hence, United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 15, targets 15.1 and 15.4, which list forest area as a proportion of total land area and the conservation of mountain ecosystems' capacity to provide benefits, are goals in forestry in Austria, especially in less-favored, mountainous areas.…”