Small foretsts - big players: Valorising small scale forestry for a bio-based economy (ValoFor):
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Umeå universitet - Institutionen för geografi och ekonomisk historia, Umeå |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 2 846 497 |
| Project duration | January 2019 - September 2022 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | Forest Value ERA-NET cofund |
Important results from the project
The overall aim of this project, which is part of the EU project ValoFor, was to examine individual private forest owners´ objective with the forest ownership and their value orientation (social, economic and environmental), and how these affect management strategies. Based on a survey in five EU countries, we found that forest owners tended to value social, economic and environmental values equally high. Use of different management activities varied between the countries, and an activity could be perceived as production-oriented in one country and nature-oriented in another.
Expected long term effects
- Forest owners consider environmental, social and economic values of forest all to be very important. - Forest values differ from country to country according to different conditions and national forest policies. - What is considered a nature-oriented activity in one country is not necessarily the case in another. These findings point at the importance of policy-makers at all levels to communicate the objective of a management strategy and activity, and terms used to convey a message may need to be adapted to the specific conditions of each country.
Approach and implementation
The project (part of ValoFor) has conducted a survey in the five participating countries - a survey has formed the basis of several Work Packages. Sampling and data collection have varied between countries as forest owner cadasters are administered in different ways. However, the final data material has been validated. Nevertheless, it shows the importance of having good and similar ownership cadasters in order to be able to predict the outcome of various policy measures at both national and EU level.