Non-industrial private forest owners' management decisions

This thesis addresses the question of whether and how owner and property characteristics of non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners affect their attitude toward a financial risk and if the attitude toward risk affects the harvesting decisions and discusses differences in attitude toward risk from a gender perspective. Further, the thesis investigates the owner and property characteristics’ effects on objectives of ownership The hypothesis tested here, that the owner and property characteristics affects the attitude toward risk and objectives are largely based on data gathered through a mail survey to NIPF owners in two counties in Northern Sweden. The results reveal that owner and property characteristic affects the formation of the NIPF owners’ attitude toward risk and also their objectives of ownership. The result revealed that NIPF owners vary to a large extent in the subjective judgements that they do about the expected returns from a mature forest stand as compared to investment alternatives outside forestry. This is also true for their judgements about the risk. The analysis further revealed that the preference for risk had a significant impact on the decision to conduct final felling. The NIPF owners who indicated that they were neutral towards the financial risk taking were more likely to have conducted final felling than those averse to the risk and those that indicated that they were risk seeking were even more likely to have conducted felling However, there are also indications that the NIPF owners might have difficulties in incorporating considerations about risk into their forest management planning. The results of this thesis can be used to further understand previous findings about relationships between owner and property characteristics of NIPF owners and their management decisions. The study points to important links between the owner and his or her decisions. These underlying mechanisms are important knowledge if the aim is to understand the management decisions made by NIPF owners