Private Forest Owner Expectations of Interest Associations: Comparative Analysis between Slovenia and Bosnia-herzegovina Očekivanja Privatnih Šumoposjednika Od Interesnih Udruženja: Komparativna Analiza Između Slovenije I Bosne I Hercegovine

Private forests in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are important resources for national economic development. Based on differences in the proportion of private forests, the countries differ substantially with regard to the role of private forest owners, as well as the conditions of owner interest associations in the forest policy processes. Since private forest owners are so diverse, there is a need to better understand their expectation for interest associations. Surveys were conducted in 2008 on random samples of private forest owners in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to examine the factors affecting their expectations. The study examined seven categories of expectations: silvicultural advice, harvesting advice, information about timber markets, information about legal regulations, information about strengthening entrepreneurship, support of forest road construction/maintenance and forest management training. Seven models were developed to examine the factors affecting each category of expectations. The results reveal that socio-demographic characteristics of private forest owners, ownership structure, and property conditions were associated with expectations. Three models (silvicultural advice, strengthening entrepreneurship and support of forest road construction/maintenance) were statistically significant in both countries. The strongest factor that influences the expectations for Slovenian private forest owners was education while in Bosnia-Herzegovina it was property size. Gender did not influence expectations of private forest owners in either country. Understanding the underlying factors influencing private forest owner expectations could aid in developing appropriate forest policy instruments to support owner cooperation within interest associations and improve private forest management. K e y w o rd s : private forests, interest associations, private forest owner expectations, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina Š. Pezdevšek Malovrh, D. G. Hodges, B. Marić, M. Avdibegović: PRIVATE FOREST OWNER EXPECTATIONS ... Šumarski list br. 11–12, CXXXV (2011), 557-566 558 METHODS OF RESEARCH – Metode Istraživanja and legal matters to European standards, including forestry. Due to the fact that more than one-half of Europe’s forests are privately owned, significantly contributing to wood supply, private forest ownership has a central position in almost all European forest policy debates (S c h m i t h ü s e n and H i r s c h , 2010). The long period of centrally planned economies in South-East European countries hindered the development of scientifically-based knowledge on private forest issues. During the period of socialism, private forests largely were unattended and even abandoned by both national forest policy makers and forest owners. With political change and the associated processes (e.g., privatisation, restitution, denationalisation), private forest ownership now is an emerging topic in national forest policy. At the same time, the complexity of international forest policy processes resulted in new modes of forest management in which private forests owners are mobilised as a very strong interest group at the national and international levels. The demands of society on forests, including those in private ownership, are changing rapidly, increasing the urgency for improved forest conditions. Thus, the formation of interest associations is one among the solutions for private forest owners but also a logical reaction to the increasing societal demands on private forests. However, private forest owners have not established interest associations in some South-East European countries; their fate still rests mainly with public forest administration. This is not in accordance with Pluralistic theory, according to which interests groups are reflection of the society with the various interests of its members (Tr u m a n , 1951). This theory also does not explain why private forest owners are not organized in these countries. According to the Theory of Collective Action (O l s o n , 1965), rational behaving individuals support an organisation that works for the interest of its members. On the other hand, if the number of potential members (in this case private forest owners) is very large, individuals behave quite rationally if they do not join interest associations – they simply benefit as “free riders”. The phenomenon of membership in private forest owner interest associations and particularly the expectations that members have from such associations is a core research problem discussed in this paper. Compared to central and western Europe, few studies have addressed this problem in South-East European countries. A number of analysts have compared private forests in several European countries, presenting different aspects of private forest ownership, management, and policy, including the issue of private forest owner interest associations (G r a y s o n , 1993; N i s k a n e n and V ä y r y n e n , 2001; H i r s c h et. al., 2007; H ä g g l u n d , 2008; S c h m i t h ü s e n and H i r s c h , 2010 ibid.). More recently, several authors have explored the issue of private forest owner associations in South-East European countries, including the preconditions for establishing independent interest associations and member expectations (P e z d e v š e k M a l o v r h et. al, 2011; N o n i ć et. al, 2011; Av d i b e g o v i ć et. al, 2010a; Av d i b e g o v i ć et. al, 2010b; G l ü c k et. al, 2010a; G l ü c k et. al, 2010b, P e z d e v š e k M a l o v r h et. al, 2010a; P e z d e v š e k M a l o v r h , 2010b; M i l i j i ć et. al, 2010; P e z d e v š e k M a l o v r h , 2006; P e z d e v š e k M a l o v r h , 2005). Nevertheless, a significant lack of knowledge on private forest ownership persists in these countries, particularly knowledge gained from comparative studies. Specific deficiencies in previous studies include understanding the expectations of private forest owners regarding interest associations (e.g. advices, services, lobbying etc.) and the socio-demographic characteristics affecting their expectations. Private forests are important resources for national economic development for both Slovenia and BosniaHerzegovina, particularly in rural areas. Based on the differences in the share of private forests (roughly 70 % of all forests in Slovenia and only 20 % in Bosnia-Herzegovina), the experiences with private forest owner associations are quite different. Slovenian private forest owners are relatively well organized by associations, while private forest owners in Bosnia-Herzegovina are poorly represented in national forest policy deliberations due to the lack of independent interest associations. Comparing the demands of private forest owners on their interest associations in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina can offer important information for key national forest policy actors, public forest administration, and private forest owners (particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the expectations of private forest owners for their interest associations in these two countries as well as understand how socio-demographic characteristics, ownership structure, and property conditions affect these expectations. Similar quantitative surveys were administered to private forest owners in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina with some variation to account for country-specific conditions. The surveys questioned owners about a range of issues related to private forest owners and management: gender, age, education, ownership structure, property size, fragmentation, harvesting activities, and expectations of their interest associations. The data were obtained from personal face-to-face interviews with randomly selected private forest owners. The surveys were conducted with some basic sample design concepts: Š. Pezdevšek Malovrh, D. G. Hodges, B. Marić, M. Avdibegović: PRIVATE FOREST OWNER EXPECTATIONS ... Šumarski list br. 11–12, CXXXV (2011), 557-566 559 – Because the majority of private forest owners in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina neither play an important role in national forest policy processes nor have a strong economic interests in managing their forests, the target population consisted of all private forest owners, not only the so called “active” ones. – Personal data about private forest owners (name, address, attributes of their property, etc.) were identified from the Land and Property Register in Slovenia and from local forest authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. – Sample size was adequate to achieve a 5 % sampling error at the 95 % confidence level. A systematic random sample was developed for the entire private forest owner population of Slovenia, although the primary focus was on selected forest ma na gement units of the Slovenian Forest Service where private forest owner associations exist. In order to identify 690 owners for interviews, owners were divided in strata according to property size (up to 0.99 ha, from 1 to 4.99 ha, from 5 to 9.99 ha, from 10 to 29.99 ha, and more than 30 ha). The sample within strata was dis proportionate to the property structure of Slovenian private forests (Forest management plans for regional units 2000–2010). Within each stratum, owners were divided into two groups of equal size: owners who were members of interest associations and those who were not. The questionnaire was pre-tested in 2007 and the survey was conducted from May 2008 through May 2009. The sample used in the analyses consisted of 322 owners, or a response rate of 46,6 %. (P e z d e v š e k M a l o v r h , 2010b ibid). The random sample for the door-to-door survey in Bosnia-Herzegovina was drawn from overlapping areas with the highest percentage of forest areas and the highest share of private forests. This ensured that the bulk of private forest owners were included. All municipalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina were ranked by these two criteria, so the most representative municipalities (five in the Republic of Srpska and four in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina) were identified. In order to identify 350 respondents to be interviewed, the list of all local communities (settlements), within 9 selec ted municipalities was created. In total, 35 settlements were randomly chosen from the list of all local communities (settlements) within the 9 aforementioned municipalities. We cooperated closely with the public forest administration and forest guards in the field to create lists of all private forest owners in each settlement, as well as to contact 10 per settlement once they were randomly selected from the lists. The questionnaire was pre-tested in March 2008 and the survey was conducted in May and June 2008. All data were summarized by descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, and selected measures of location and dispersion (mean and standard deviation). Multivariate logistic regression (logit models) (Hosmer and L e m a s h o w , 2000) was used to assess how certain forest owners and management characteristics were related to their expectations of interest associations, by means of the Enter algorithm (F i e l d , 2009). The following expectations of private forest owners from their interest associations were evaluated as dependent variables: (i) silvicultural advice, (ii) harvesting advice, (iii) information about timber markets, (iv) information about legal regulations, (v) information about strengthening entrepreneurship, (vi) support of forest road construction/maintenance and (vii) forest management training. Each dependent variable had binary (dichotomous) responses (1 = owners expect service from interest association; 0 = owners do not expect service from interest association). Separate logistic regression analyses were conducted for each dependent variable. The following independent variables were evaluated in logit models: (i) gender, (ii) age (less than 50, more than 50), (iii) education (primary school or less, high school, university or more), (iv) forest property size (less than 1 ha, more than 1 ha), (v) fragmentation (consolidate, fragmented), (vi) form of ownership (sole holder, joint ownership) and (vii) harvesting activities (harvest, do not harvest). Before running the analysis, we assessed the data for multicollinearity, using variation inflation factors (VIFs), which ensure that no high correlations exist when one independent variable is regressed on the other. The results of the diagnostics revealed that collinearity was not significant (no VIF exceeded 10). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION – Rezultati i diskusija Expectations of private forest owners of interest associations Očekivanja privatnih šumoposjednika od interesnih asocijacija The results show that private forest owners in both countries have very clear expectations of their interest associations. The expectations vary by country, however (Graph 1 and 2), not only because of differences in private forest owner preferences but also due to the different type of question used in country-specific questionnaires. Slovenian owners were asked ”From which institutions do you expect the services/advice (e.g., silvicultural and harvesting advice, training etc.)”, while private forest owners in Bosnia-Herzegovina were asked “Which service/advice do you expect from private forest owner interest associations”. In general, this has led to the lower absolute value of the results in Slovenia compared to Bosnia-Herzegovina. In both cases, multiple answers were obtained. Š. Pezdevšek Malovrh, D. G. Hodges, B. Marić, M. Avdibegović: PRIVATE FOREST OWNER EXPECTATIONS ... Šumarski list br. 11–12, CXXXV (2011), 557-566 560 Slovenian private forest owners were most interested in information about timber markets and forest management training; private forest owners in BosniaHerzegovina were most likely to expect support for forest road construction and maintenance as well as silvicultural advice. The most pronounced expectations of Slovenian private forest owners can be explained by the fact that the traditionally powerful Slovenia Forest Service is focused mainly on supporting forest management planning, harvesting, and silviculture. Private forest owners, therefore, are mainly oriented to the associations as a source of additional support on timber markets and training. Because of the extremely low density of forest roads in Bosnian forests, the expectation of private forest owners for support in forest road construction and maintenance is quite reasonable. Relatively high interest for silvicultural advice can be explained by the prevailing pattern of services offered to private forest owners by the Public forest administration (forest offices), which consists mainly of facilitating the necessary administrative procedures related to forest utilization. Graph 2. Expectations of private forest owners in Bosnia-Herzegovina of their interest associations Grafikon 2 Očekivanja privatnih šumoposjednika u Bosni i Hercegovini od njihovih interesnih asocijacija Graph 1. Expectations of private forest owners in Slovenia of their interest associations Grafikon 1 Očekivanja privatnih šumoposjednika u Sloveniji od njihovih interesnih asocijacija E x p e c t a t i o n s f r o m i n t e r e s t a s s o c i a t i o n s O če ki va nj a od in te re sn ih a so ci ja ci ja Share (%) – postotni dio Silvicultural advice Savjeti iz ulaganja Harvesting advice Savjeti iz iskorištvaanja Timber market Tržište drva Law regulations Zakonske odredbe Enterpreneurship Poduzetništvo Road support Podrška za puteve Training Edukacija 3,7