China’s new round of forest tenure reform since 2006 has devolved the land-use rights of collective forests to individual households. Since then, policymakers have advocated household forestland ...transfers and large-scale forest holdings to increase the efficiency and returns from forest management. At the same time, there has been a rapid growth in off-farm working opportunities in urban areas of China. It is therefore important to analyze the impact of this increase in off-farm employment on the forest management investments of households with different scales of forestland holding. Based on the framework of the new economics of labor migration theory (NELM) and data obtained from surveying 300 households in 5 rural counties in Zhejiang Province, alternative econometric models were used to estimate how off-farm work drives the intensity of rural households' investments in forest management. The findings reveal that households with large-scale forestland holdings (LHs) are usually willing to increase their investments in forest management due to the remittance effect of their off-farm employment. In contrast, households with small-scale forestland holdings (SHs) prefer to decrease their investments in forest management due to the out-migration effect of the growing off-farm employment opportunities. The results provide a clear explanation about the necessity of large-scale forest management under the backdrop of increasing out-migration of the labor force in China's rural areas. The paper concludes with recommendations for policymakers to develop initiatives that will promote and support large-scale forest management by households in rural China.
•We analyze how off-farm work drives household forest management.•Increased off-farm work reduces smallholders' management investments.•Increased off-farm income increases large-holders' management investments.•Increased off-farm work motivates large-scale forest operations in rural China.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Structural, economic, and climate changes human activity and the growing complexity of the business environment significantly affect the forestry sector, which faces the need to adapt to the ...dynamically changing environment by strategic development of appropriate resources and skills. In this paper, we attempted to take on the managerial lens of dynamic capabilities, i.e., the abilities to adapt to the changes in the business environment to analyze whether the forestry sector is able to strategically develop resources that influence adaptability. We have attempted to demonstrate how the resources of the forest enterprises affect the adaptability described by the dynamic capabilities construct. Bearing in mind the importance of State Forests, we collected data from 129 forest districts in Poland and applied the ordered logistic regression to identify models that show the impact of specific categories of resources onto the forestry sector adaptability, described by the construct of dynamic capabilities. The results suggest that the forest districts strategically investing in technological, as well as human resources and skills, have higher chances of maintaining and developing the ability to adapt to the constantly changing economic environment. At the same time, our findings show that financial, reputational, and marketable resources and skills have no impact on the adaptability of the State Forests National Forest Holding.
The Białowieża Forest is a contested transboundary forest massif in Poland and Belarus. Reflecting on transitions from value chains built on sustained yield forestry to ecotourism, we pioneer ...documentation of how country-specific legacies shape preferences toward increased forest protection at the expense of wood production. For both countries, we used a quantitative ordered logit model based on questionnaires to Polish and Belarusian ecotourism business owners to, for the first time, empirically study drivers of their preferences toward different Białowieża Forest values, and we used qualitative data to identify attitudes toward the expansion of protected areas in the Białowieża Forest. Whilst Belarusian ecotourism business owners supported increased area protection, the opposite was true for their Polish counterparts. The proportion of foreign guests co-varied with support toward increased area protection. Conversely, local origin, size of hospitality business, and role of foresters as customers decreased interest in area protection. The qualitative data revealed that narratives against extended area protection were spread in Poland but not in Belarus. The conflict over the conservation of the Polish part of the Białowieża Forest involves actors and stakeholders with competing interests. A solution is that this remnant massif of the once widespread European temperate lowland forest becomes subject to a regional planning and zoning perspective. Encouraging multiple value chains and evidence-based collaborative learning are key components.
In the early nonindustrial private forest (family forest) research literature, size of forest holding was identified as a critical variable impacting the propensity of family forest owners to invest ...in and manage small forest properties. This literature discusses relationships between size of forest holding and variables like forest owners' financial and asset positions, forest management objectives, use of a forest management plan and professional forestry advice, and use of forestry cost-share funding. Since then, the literature has expanded and now relates to the major problem of forest parcelization. We reviewed this literature for historical themes, technical considerations, and continuing ownership problems, emphasizing the current circumstances of forest parcelization and its historical roots in the size of forest holding problem. Many of the sociological, economic, financial, and technical relationships identified earlier as foundations of the size of forest holding problem are shown to be also fundamental to the parcelization problem in forestry. We suggest that today's parcelization issues are partially a continuation of the size of forest holding problem and that earlier research may be relevant to parcelization problems. We provide a detailed literature review that relates parcelization to the size of forest holding problem.
► In this study we demonstrate the applicability of dynamical modeling to thinning response, application of the island model genetic algorithm to estimating multiple objectives for thinning regimes ...of
Eucalptus fastigata, and application of Pareto optimality concepts to determining solutions for a multi-objective optimization problem where the objectives are incommensurable.
A stand-level optimisation problem formulated to determine a set of efficient thinning regimes satisfying two objectives, i.e. value production for sawlog harvesting and volume production for a pulpwood market, was demonstrated for a
Eucalyptus fastigata trial in Kaingaroa Forest, New Zealand. Genetic algorithms were used to estimate the set of efficient thinning regimes (i.e. regimes that occur when it is not possible to increase the achievement of one objective without reducing another) known as a Pareto frontier. Each thinning regime specified a unique combination of initial planting density; frequency, timing and intensity of thinning; final crop number; and rotation length. Specifications for the “best” regime in the Pareto set (i.e. the one that satisfied a balanced trade-off between value and volume production) were similar to those recommended through professional judgment based on pooled long-term field observations from different eucalypt species grown throughout New Zealand. The advantage of Pareto optimality was the ability of not only identifying a unique thinning regime, but equally efficient regimes each providing a different combination of value and volume production. Research on this approach has the potential of being applied to other forest sites, providing there is sufficient re-measurement data to reflect stand growth dynamics.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
During their occasional work on small forest holdings, forest owners often use tractors that are, as a rule, not intended for professional forest purposes. Due to their small size, these tractors are ...appropriate
for cultivating smaller agricultural areas and, with additional forestry equipment, also for forestry operations.
This paper analyses their performance at the capacity limits, since this type of use is possible but very limited due to their low technical characteristics. Here, a comparison is made between two AGT 835 T tractors produced in Slovenia, with the same basic characteristics but different types of the engine power transmission to the forest ground (comparison between a machine with a standard mechanical transmission system and a machine with a newer version of a hydro-mechanical transmission system). The analysis focuses on the wheel slip – this time only in the last meters of skidding when the slip reaches its peak and the tractors stop because of excessively demanding working conditions. Both tractors were used for skidding timber in the same working conditions – the same skid trail and the same load size. On the steepest section with a 27% longitudinal incline and under the load of 1 m, both tractors stopped due to excessively demanding working conditions. However, there was a fundamental difference between the two machines in the final section of skidding.
The mechanical transmission system enabled rotation of tractor wheels, which led to a multi-fold increase in slip values (remarkable 80% in the last metre of movement). Contrary to that, the system with hydro-mechanical power transmission resulted in a substantially lower wheel slip (no more than 31%). In the latter case the tractor stopped due to excessively demanding working conditions but the hydro-mechanical steering system reduced the wheel slip. It is important to know that the selected transmission system can significantly influence the efficiency of transmitting power to the ground surface – with a smaller slip, which is also important for the forest ground and the environment.
In Finland, management of biological diversity at the landscape level is complicated by the relatively small size of the holdings. To alleviate this problem, this study presents a hierarchical ...planning model that aims at combining spatial landscape-level ecological goals with holding-level owner-specific goals. The influence of ecological objectives extends across holding borders, but their impact is greatest in areas where they are least in conflict with the owners' goals. This feature, which results in minimum losses to individual landowners, can be called ecological efficiency. In the case study, the ecological objective was to cluster the breeding and foraging areas of flying squirrel (Pteromys volans). Other sets of objectives were related to individual holdings according to the various preferences of the forest owners. The forest plan produced by the presented planning model was compared with two other forest plans: 1) a combination of independent forest holding level plans, which were assumed to represent the outcome of the current planning tradition, and 2) an area-level plan, where the holding borders and holding-specific objectives were not taken into account. The same objective variables and objective weights were used in all plans. All the plans were produced for six planning areas (ranging from 404.6 to 984.9 ha) and 110 forest holdings (ranging from 0.6 to 449.8 ha) within these areas. The case-study results were promising: with the model presented here, the spatial structure of flying squirrel breeding and foraging areas could be improved with only minor losses in holding-level objectives. The spatial structure of the landscape after the 60-year planning period was very close to the area-level plan. This outcome was made possible by synchronizing the treatment proposals across forest-holding borders. The outcome of the model seems promising also from the practical standpoint: because the variation in the objectives of forest owners is efficiently taken into account in optimization, only rarely do the solutions suggest that the holding-level targets be compromised.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
The management of biological diversity at the landscape level in Finland is complicated by the relatively small size of the holdings and the fact that the habitats of species do not necessarily ...follow the holding borders. Therefore, there is a great need to develop such forest-planning approaches that aim at solving the problems that some species have faced due to modern forestry, including the fragmentation of old forests. One way to deal with fragmentation is to aggregate old forests into larger patches, a goal that may be achieved by excluding some areas from forestry operations or by restricting the intensity of treatments. In a planning area under multiple ownership, the sizes, shapes and relative locations of set-aside areas are important, since they affect the social equity of the proposed forest plans. In this study, the effects of two conflicting goals, i.e. the improvement of old-forest patterns, and the equal participation of forest owners were studied in a privately owned forest area in Finland. This was made possible through the examination of the consequences of alternative strategies to delineate areas set aside. The two main results of the study were, first, that it is difficult to reach these goals simultaneously, and, second, the time interval relevant in the management planning of private forestry is quite short with respect to efforts to change landscape structure significantly. However, in real planning situations, it is important to specify the locations of forest holdings whose owners are willing to acknowledge biodiversity values above the level defined in the legislation. In addition, ecologically important areas should be located and connected to the above information. According to the results of this study, it seems that a compensation system would facilitate the restructuring of the forest landscapes towards an ecologically enhanced structure.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
This study presents a practical harvest scheduling approach for multiple ownership planning. The approach has both spatial and non-spatial goals, namely, a spatial landscape-level goal to cluster ...ecologically valuable resources is considered simultaneously with timber production goals. Harvest scheduling is based on the location of the stand, on one hand, and on an economic variable depicting the cutting maturity of the stand, on the other hand. Proximity to valuable resources decreases the likelihood that the stand is cut. Therefore, harvests tend to be located outside potential resource clusters with small and isolated economically mature stands being cut first. In the application of the approach the landscape-level spatial objective was to cluster old forest stands (age⩾80) and simultaneously maintain a predefined cutting volume. A stand's economic cutting maturity was measured with value increment percentage. In the top-down application of the approach the timber harvest target was specified only for the whole planning area. In the bottom-up application it was specified separately for individual holdings, aiming at promoting the acceptability of the plan. The presented approach was clearly able to cluster old forest patches. In the case study area, the mean size of old forest patches increased from 3.4 to 5.7 ha in 30 years in the top-down plan, and to 4.6 ha in the bottom-up plan. An application of the current planning practice (referred to as the reference plan) decreased the mean patch size to 2.9 ha. The presented approach is easy to apply in forest planning practice.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
We used microdata from the 2005, 2010, and 2015 Censuses of Agriculture and Forestry conducted by Forest Producers’ Cooperatives (FOP) in Japan to assess the status of forest management, including ...forestry practices, timber production, and sales of forest products. Key results are as follows. The number of FOPs considered forestry management bodies increased between 2005 and 2010, but decreased between 2010 and 2015. The number of FOPs that had conducted planting, weeding, and non-commercial thinning over the previous five years decreased both between 2005 and 2010 and between 2010 and 2015. By contrast, the number that had conducted commercial thinning and final cutting over the previous five years increased between 2010 and 2015, with variation observed among regions. We observed an increase in the number of FOPs that had produced timber in their holdings during the previous year, from 6.1% in 2005, to 7.2% in 2010 and 8.5% in 2015; however, total timber volumes decreased. The percentage of FOPs that sold forest products during the previous year, including standing trees, logs, and mushrooms, also increased over time, from 11.9% in 2005, to 17.6% in 2010 and 22.9% in 2015. Changes in the percentage of FOPs that conducted commercial thinning, final cutting, timber production, and sales of forest products indicates an increase in forest management activities; however, the number of FOPs declined.
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