The potential of small-scale owners' associations for sustainable forest management: the case of the Czech Republic.

Small-scale owners constitute an essential share of private forest ownership, and their decision-making significantly affects nature conservation and landscape formation. From economic and environmental viewpoints, forest owners' associations are one of the most effective ways to manage small-scale forest property. Using the example of the Czech Republic, this paper focuses on small-scale forest associations' potential in sustainable forest management. For the qualitative study, the authors interviewed small-scale owners to elicit how they perceived joint management through associations and what they considered their most significant benefits and values. The findings indicate that although small-scale owners realize the importance of associations for joint forest management, they are reluctant to join or form them. Their restraints mainly result from insufficient awareness. Improving the communication strategy amongst forest policy players with small-scale owners as stakeholders on the one side and state authorities on the other is vital. The positive approach could also be reached by inevitable changes in legislation and subsidy schemes because, as they are set now, they provide little opportunity for small-scale owners to associate. The findings, however, indicate a shift from small-scale owners perceiving the forest purely economically to understanding its socio-ecological values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]