<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Private forest owners are increasingly responsible for providing an extensive range of goods and services from their forests, as there are around 100,000 forest owners in Estonia. In order to support forest owners in providing these services, the state has continuously backed the forestry sector and established a public-private partnership with forest owners’ associations as well as their umbrella organisations and cooperatives. The aim of this paper is to identify the service and information needs of private forest owners in the context of this established support system. Using a survey sample of 757 respondents, we found that in regard to informational needs more focus should be put on forest management activities, i.e. on available information about service providers’ contacts, prices, options and principles for selling harvesting rights and timber. Furthermore, joint timber sales as a service should be further developed and focused on. While forest owners ranked highly both the information about financial support and the specific measures, they found the system sometimes too complicated. Both in terms of information and service importance-performance, forest owners indicated certification as a low-priority topic. Whilst interest representation in policy processes was indicated as a very important service, its performance was rated quite modestly indicating slight dissatisfaction with the current arrangements. There are also several socio-demographic attributes of forest owners that influence their needs for information and services about forest management. However, a better understanding of these attributes might help develop the system further.</p></abstract>

Private forest owners are increasingly responsible for providing an extensive range of goods and services from their forests, as there are around 100,000 forest owners in Estonia. In order to support forest owners in providing these services, the state has continuously backed the forestry sector and established a public-private partnership with forest owners’ associations as well as their umbrella organisations and cooperatives. The aim of this paper is to identify the service and information needs of private forest owners in the context of this established support system. Using a survey sample of 757 respondents, we found that in regard to informational needs more focus should be put on forest management activities, i.e. on available information about service providers’ contacts, prices, options and principles for selling harvesting rights and timber. Furthermore, joint timber sales as a service should be further developed and focused on. While forest owners ranked highly both the information about financial support and the specific measures, they found the system sometimes too complicated. Both in terms of information and service importance-performance, forest owners indicated certification as a low-priority topic. Whilst interest representation in policy processes was indicated as a very important service, its performance was rated quite modestly indicating slight dissatisfaction with the current arrangements. There are also several socio-demographic attributes of forest owners that influence their needs for information and services about forest management. However, a better understanding of these attributes might help develop the system further.

Reflections of active forest owners to the public-private forestry support system in Estonia

Chair of Forest Management Planning and Wood Processing Technologies, Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering

Forestry Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Private forest owners are increasingly responsible for providing an extensive range of goods and services from their forests, as there are around 100,000...

Reflections of active forest owners to the public-private forestry support system in Estonia

Article Category: Research paper

Published Online: Dec 31, 2019

Page range: 100 - 119

Received: Oct 30, 2019

Accepted: Dec 31, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fsmu-2019-0015

Keywords
service needs, information needs, importance-performance analysis, forest policy, forest governance

© 2019 Priit Põllumäe et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Reflections of active forest owners to the public-private forestry support system in Estonia

Article Category: Research paper

Published Online: Dec 31, 2019

Page range: 100 - 119

Received: Oct 30, 2019

Accepted: Dec 31, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fsmu-2019-0015

Keywordsservice needs, information needs, importance-performance analysis, forest policy, forest governance

© 2019 Priit Põllumäe et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
service needs, information needs, importance-performance analysis, forest policy, forest governance