Do forest decision-makers in Southeastern Norway adapt forest management to climate change?

ABSTRACT

To study whether, why, and how forestry decision-makers in Southeastern Norway adapt to climate change, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews in focus groups consisting of non-industrial private forest owners, forest managers, and forest advisors. Our results show that a majority of the participants believed in climate change as a phenomenon, and had experienced events or observed changes that they attributed to climate change. However, we found little evidence of concern regarding climate change impacts on forest ecosystems and forestry among the participants. Instead, the majority regarded climate change more as an opportunity for the Norwegian forest-based sector than a threat. A minority had implemented proactive practices motivated by climate change but in all but one case, the adjustments were adaptation of forest infrastructure. In general, the participants agreed that the uncertainty associated with the effects of climate change and the (economical) uncertainty associated with adaptation of forest ecosystems were too large to change forest management practices at present. However, many participants, in particular the managers, are already adapting in response to experienced problems, such as increased frequency and duration of periods with low carrying capacity of the ground implying reduced or no accessibility within and to stands.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• risk perception
• adaptive management
• risk management
• forest management
• forestry

Acknowledgments

First we would like to thank our respondents, the contact persons in the forest owner organizations who helped us in identifying and recruiting the respondents to the focus groups. We are also thankful to PhD candidate Elisabeth Iversen at NMBU who helped and instructed in the usage of Nvivo, and PhD candidate Hannah Harrison at NMBU who very kindly revised the English language of the paper. Finally, we would like to thank our two anonymous reviewers and the editor for valuable input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Glommen, Viken, and Mjøsen are regional forest owners associations in the Norwegian Forest Owners Association structure, while Norskog is an independent forest owner organization traditionally organizing the owners of the largest forest properties in Norway.

2 The coming forest owners were close relatives (sons/daughters or fiancées) of the current forest owners. The future owners were planning to take over/become co-owners of the forest holding in the near future.

3 The previous owners had already transferred their former forest holding to a son or daughter. The previous owners we interviewed were still involved in the running of their former forest holding, but no longer formally in charge.