Research trends: Forest ownership in multiple perspectives (original) (raw)
Related papers
Forest ownership changes in Europe: State of knowledge and conceptual foundations
Forest Policy and Economics, 2018
Forest ownership is changing in Europe. Reasons include recent institutional changes in Eastern Europe, changing lifestyles of non-agricultural owners and afforestation. At present, there is little comparative analysis across Europe, and the implications that these changes have for forest management and for the fulfilment and redefinition of policy objectives have not been addressed systematically. This paper has been developed in the framework of a European research network on forest ownership change, based on conceptual work, literature reviews and empirical evidence from 28 European countries. It aims to provide an overview of the state of knowledge, to discuss relevant issues and provide conceptual and practical foundations for future research, forest management approaches, and policy making. In particular, it discusses possible approaches for classifying forest ownership types and understandings of "new" forest ownership. One important insight is that the division into public and private forests is not as clear as often assumed and that an additional category of semi-public (or semi-private) forms of forest ownership would be desirable. Another recommendation is that the concepts of "new forest owners" vs. "new forest owner types" should be differentiated more consciously. We observe that, in research and policy practice, the mutual relations between forest ownership structure and policies are often neglected, for instance, how policies may directly and indirectly influence ownership development, and what different ownership categories mean for the fulfilment of policy goals. Finally, we propose that better support should be provided for the development of new, adapted forest management approaches for emerging forest owner types. Forest ownership deserves greater attention in studies dealing with forest policy or forest management.
2013
A property rights-based approach is proposed in the paper to underline the common characteristics of the forest property rights specification in ten ECE countries, the specific patterns governing the harvesting of timber in private forestry and the role of the forest management planning in determining the content of the property rights. The analysis deals with the private forests of the individuals (non industrial ownership) from ten countries, covering 7.3 million ha and producing yearly some 25 million m3 timber. The study shows that the forest management rights in private forests belong to the State and that the withdrawal rights on timber, yet recognised in the forest management plans, are in reality strongly restricted from an economic viewpoint. The forest management planning is the key instrument of the current forest governance system, based on top-down, hierarchically imposed and enforced set of compulsory rules on timber harvesting. With few exceptions, the forest ownersÂ’ ...
UNECE/FAO, 2019
In book: Who owns our forests? Forest ownership in the ECE region Chapter - 3.2 Changes in forest ownership Publisher: UNECE/FAO
Small-scale forest ownership across Europe: Characteristics and future potential
Small-scale Forest Economics, Management and Policy
The concept of small-scale forest ownership means different things to different people in different countries. Traditionally, within Europe, many small-scale forest owners were economically dependent on their forests, either for home or commercial use, usually linked with farming activities. However, many small-scale forest owners are no longer economically dependent on their forests and these owners appear to increasingly focus their management on amenity functions rather than on production functions. These changes in forest ownership are related to more general trends in rural dynamics. As a result of these dynamics, increasingly rural development is not focused on agricultural modernisation, but on rural restructuring. A description of how forest owners themselves perceive their forests has been made on the basis of a survey amongst 1401 small-scale forest owners in eight European countries. Data were collected on ownership and management characteristics as well as on the perspectives regarding the future of the rural area in which the forests are located. The median forest size varies between 1.3 ha in Greece to 4.5 ha in Spain. About 30% of the forest owners have an indifferent attitude to their forests. This group includes many absentee owners and retired local owners, who own only forest lands but who are not economically dependent on these forests. Almost 40% of the forest owners are only modestly interested in forest management; often they have an environmental management orientation. This group includes many hobby owners and part-time employed people. Only one-third of the private forest owners are still economically dependent on their forests; they have predominantly a multifunctional management orientation. The survey findings suggest that policies to stimulate forestry development should be diversified in respect to these different types of small-scale forest owners.
Forest Owners Associations in the Centra 1
The restitution and privatization in Central and Eastern European countries in the early 1990s predisposed a heterogeneous ownership structure, a large number of forest owners and a variety of types of property ownership modes. Furthermore, development of governance in these countries posited a
Forests Governance and Sustainability: Common Property Theory and its Contributions
It would be no exaggeration to say that the study of forests as commons has been central to the development of scholarship on common property. Equally certainly, the interest in forests has generated a vast corpus of research outside the field of common property. The magnitude, variety, and depth of this body of research is an accurate reflection of the many different ways in which forests have been and continue to be central to human survival, livelihoods, and prosperity.