Shifting forest landownership interests over the life-course of female forest landowners in rural Georgia, United States.

This qualitative study uses open-ended responses from ninety-four female forest landowners in Georgia, United States, to analyze their unique experiences with forest landownership. By focusing on the most frequently mentioned themes – forest management and income, family legacy, and conservation - we expose a broad range of female forest landowners' experiences. Acknowledging that these three themes might be relevant to any forest landowner and age group, we draw a typology based on life-course junctures to show that the focus on specific aspects of their forest landownership shifts with age. We conceptualized three age-based typologies of female forest landowners: (1) pre-retirement (<65) female forest landowners who mainly focused on forest management and generating additional forest-based income; (2) post-retirement (65–74) female forest landowners who shift their attention to family connections and legacy planning; and (3) elderly (>75) female forest landowners who focus more on forest conservation. We also show that the interests of male forest landowners differ substantially from female forest landowners, whose interests consistently centered around forest management topics such as maintenance, timber harvest, and taxation throughout their life-course. Our findings offer important insights into female forest landowners in the southern United States. • Life-course analysis shows that the priorities over female forest landowners vary depending on their age. • Pre-retirement (<65) female forest landowners focus mostly on forest management and generating forest-based income. • Post-retirement (65–74) female forest landowners shift their attention to legacy planning. • Elderly (>75) female forest landowners focus most on forest conservation. • Compared to females, males are considerably more likely to report experiences related to forest management and income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]