D1.2 Key factors influencing forest practitioners’ decisions

This report seeks to improve the understanding about factors and processes influencing forest
practitioners’ management decisions by presenting the findings of (i) a literature review on factors
influencing forest practitioners’ decisions and (ii) a qualitative interview study.
The literature review applied a thematic grouping of key factors influencing forest management
decisions. The primary outcome of the review are descriptions of the three internal factors (i.e.,
factors related to the characteristics of the forest practitioners) and seven external factors (i.e.,
factors related to the socioecological context in which the forest practitioner operates). In addition,
two knowledge gaps emerged from the literature review. Firstly, studies are limited in scope in
that they typically only represent private forest owners from Northern and Central Europe.
Secondly, few studies conceptualize the interrelationships between the factors that influence
forest management decisions.
The interview study targeted 19 forest practitioners from 6 European countries (i.e., Finland, Italy,
Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Romania). The study answered the following research
questions:
1. What objectives do European forest practitioners have?
2. What forest management practices do European forest practitioners implement?
3. Which factors influence these objectives and management decisions?
Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) was used to analyse the data. The analysis resulted in a
coding framework listing the different (i) forest management objectives, (ii) forest management
activities, and (iii) factors influencing forest decisions discussed across the interview cases.
Several forest practitioner objectives were identified from the data. These could be typified as five
different categories (i.e., regulatory objectives, provisioning objectives, cultural objectives,
biodiversity objectives, climate objectives). Twenty-nine forest management activities were
identified from the data. These were subsumed into seven subcategories (i.e., regeneration,
harvest, conservation, stand management, land-use change, population control, agroforestry).
Twenty-one factors influencing forest decisions were identified from the data. These were
subsumed into eight subcategories and grouped as agent-based factors (organizational structure,
values, resources), structural factors (societal norms, governance, markets), and ecological
factors (disturbances, biophysical). Crosstabulation between the influencing factors and
management objectives and activities shows that all eight subcategories influenced a wide variety
of forest management decisions. No single factor was uniquely influential to any one specific
management activity or objective.
Lastly, descriptive summaries of each interview were drafted to deepen the understanding
between influential factors and forest management decisions and determine if factors were
enabling or hindering forest management objectives and activities. However, the summaries could
not ascertain the strength that factors had towards influencing the forest management decision.
Therefore, in the proposed next steps, the research will operationalize the influential factors as
behavioural factors in a predictive behavioural model guided by the theory of reasoned action.
The model will be tested using data from a survey study targeting forest practitioners across 13
European countries.