LAUSR

Small-scale properties are the prevailing ownership category in Slovenian private forests. Owners are becoming increasingly diverse with predominant multifunctional management orientation which has led to underutilisation of wood potentials over the past decades. We surveyed forest-related stakeholders (24) to understand their perceptions on factors affecting private forest management. We used their perceptions, as opposed to the actual barriers, to understand what needs to be changed in forest policy. This study is based on the latest (private forest owners) PFOs typology conducted in Slovenia which resulted in types of engaged and detached forest owners. A typology based framework for data collection and analysis was performed using six pre-set categories from operational environment. We followed the Simple Multiple-Attribute Rating Techniques method to evaluate the most important private forest management hindering factors. The results showed that stakeholders perceived only minor differences between owner types according to hindering factors. The psychological factors were perceived as the crucial category separating the two types, suggesting that detached owners are more substantially driven by personal decisions, which follow recent societal changes. The group of economic factors was recognized as the most important category for both types suggesting that forest policy should prioritize profit-oriented management strategies. The results imply that owner-specific forest policy may not be the priority for stakeholders and that the problems of private forest management can be solved with the implementation of innovative and active policy measures, which take into account multifunctional forest management orientation of PFOs, their characteristics and ownership trends.