A typology of small-scale private forest owners in Sweden

Abstract

Planning instruments have to be consistent with the underlying values of the forest owners to have an influence on their management activities. The aims of the present study were to identify different types of Swedish forest owners, to quantify their objectives and to validate a previous, qualitative study of the objectives of the small-scale forest owners. A survey was conducted and forest owners were classified by means of cluster analysis into five types: the “economist”, the “conservationist”, the “traditionalist”, the “multiobjective owner” and finally the “passive owner”. Significant factors characterizing these owners are presented and discussed. The results showed that clear subgroups of forest owners can be differentiated by their objectives and confirm recent studies suggesting that a sole emphasis on economic benefits is not desirable from the forest owners’ point of view. The findings should give a better understanding of the behaviour of the small-scale forest owners and provide a basis for further research, counselling and development of forest policy.

Keywords:

• Amenities
• conservation
• economic efficiency
• forest policy
• goals
• motivations
• objectives
• utilities
• values

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the small-scale forest owners who gave their time to answer the questionnaires and the Heureka programme for supporting the project. Heureka is a research programme based at the Faculty of Forestry, in which computer-based tools for forest analysis and planning in Sweden are being developed. Financial support has been received from the Mistra Foundation.