Structure and motivation of the private forest owners in Northrhine-Westphalia
2001
Becker, G. | Borchers, J. | Mutz, R.
Northrhine-Westphalia has a total area of 910.000 ha of forests, two third of which (600.000) are owned by more than 150.000 individuals. Under these circumstances, a consistent forest policy is not possible if the private forestsare neglected. The natural potential, the ownership structure and the motivation of the individual owners have to be taken into account if important goals of the regional forest policy like environmental protection, nature conservation, recreation and the utilization of the forest as a renewable resource for the forest industrie shall be reached successfully. An extensive investigation has been carried out to collect these infomation. The natural data as well as the ownership structure was derived from the general forest inventory from 1996 (Landeswaldinventur) where a sample grid of 1x1 km delivered the relevant data. On more than 5.000 grid points which represent the private forest of Northrhine-Westphalia, the individual private owners of the forests at these grid points were identified (a total number of 3.230) and an inquiry with a questionnaire was carried out. In addition the owners of 1.000 small forest holdings (20 ha) at the respective grid points were interviewed by telephone. By this a total number of. 1.400 valid answers were obtained with represent 36 % of the total private forest area. - The results of the inventory and of the inquiry at the grid points were combined and mapped on a geographical information system (GIS).This allows all kind of detailed analysis. The results show among others that today many private forests are overstocked and represent a significant additional potential of harvestable timber. But not all private forest owners have high preferences in harvesting and income. Quite a big number (mostly owner of small holdings) give recreation and nature conservation an even higher priority. Proposals are made, how a future forest policy should be focused to address these findings.
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