Norrskog’s distance forest owners, their experience of current services and demand for services in the future

Abstract

Urbanization has reduced the population in rural areas while the urban population has increased in Sweden. As a consequence, also the number of distance forest owners increases continuously and today they own one third of Sweden's privately-owned forests. The purpose of this study was to describe the forest owner cooperative Norrskog’s distance forest owners, their perception of Norrskog's current services and their demand for services in the future. Data was collected through a web-based and a postal questionnaire. The results showed that the average age of Norrskog's distance forest owners was 63 years, a large proportion lived in metropolitan areas and a majority had more than 500 km to their forest property. Most of them owned their forest property together with relatives, 67 % were quite or very satisfied with their forest management, although most of them thought they had little knowledge of forest management. According to forest ownership, management of the family's land was valued the highest along with the feeling of ownership. Maximum yield and growth were valued the lowest. It was found that the forest owners in general were satisfied with the services offered by Norrskog. Thinning and precommercial cleaning got the highest average rating values and forest management plan and property valuation got the lowest. Among services for the future, - documentation of implemented silvicultural measures in the forestry plan was the most popular. Among Norrskog's distance forest owners many generational changes will likely occur soon. The new owners may be more interested in new ways of communication and services and therefore Norrskog should broaden its service portfolio to ease distance forest ownership