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The Influence of Multiple Ownership Interests and Decision-Making Networks on the Management of Family Forest Lands: Evidence from the United States

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Abstract

A national assessment of how the number of parcel owners influence family forest land management and use decisions in the US was conducted using a subset of the US Forest Service’s National Woodland Owner Survey Dataset. Seventy-two percent of single parcel family forest land ownership respondents of at least 4.05 ha had multiple owners. The extent to which past land management practices and future intentions for the land are influenced by the number of owners of an individual parcel was evaluated. We also examined how landowner decision-making networks are related to past practices and future intentions. Contrary to previous findings, our research suggests that having more than one owner does not necessarily reduce the likelihood that a variety of different forest management activities, including commercial timber harvesting or wildlife habitat improvement, will occur. Moreover, we found that one-owner forested parcels are less likely to have experienced activities like harvesting, invasive plant removal, fire hazard reduction, wildlife habitat improvement, and cost-share program participation than parcels with two or more than two owners. We also found that family member involvement in landowner decision-making has a minimal effect on past and planned land management actions, while the involvement of a forester or land manager in decision-making increases the likelihood many land management actions have been or will be undertaken.

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Notes

  1. Personal communication, Carlton County, MN Land Commissioner, June 7, 2013.

  2. For additional details on sample design and survey administration, refer to Dickinson and Butler (2013) and Butler et al. (2016b).

  3. Per Butler et al. (2016a), non-response bias checks of the response data were performed. Specifically, telephone follow-up interviews were conducted with 11.7% of mail survey non-respondents. No statistically significant differences were found between mail and phone respondents in terms of forest holding size or cost-share program participation. Mail respondents were found to be more likely to have obtained a management plan and received forest management advice. Findings should be interpreted with these points in mind.

  4. The NWOS does not collect information for more than the respondent except for demographic information (retirement status, occupation, age, gender, education, race and ethnicity) for up to two owners.

  5. These categories were chosen to represent the numbers of owners for two reasons. First, the distribution of owners in our dataset is heavily skewed towards one and two-owner parcels, with only 16% of the records containing parcels owned by three or more individuals. Thus, creating categories of ownership numbers at finer divisions than one, two or more than two is difficult to justify. Secondly, we believe that these groupings of owners have practical significance that might shed insight their forest management actions (e.g., solo owners, two owner-ownerships (many of which might represent married couples), and three plus owners (representing an ownership arrangement outside of a marriage structure).

  6. Note, the response category ‘business partner’ was not used in creating either the Family or the Professional variables as there was no way to discern whether a business partner might be a family member, a professional, or other categorization. Fifty-six respondents indicated the use of a business partner.

  7. Four-hundred thirty-nine respondents indicated only people other than themselves were involved in decision-making for their forestland. These respondents were not included in our analysis since, by their response to this survey question, they were not part of the decision-making structure for their land and we were interested in examining the marginal influence of family and/or professional involvement on a landowner’s decision-making.

  8. Dropping the ‘Don’t Know’ responses resulted in the removal of 129, 463, and 517 observations for the cost share, easement, and tax program participation models, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station and the University of Minnesota’s Agricultural Experiment Station (Project MIN-42-054 and MIN-042-065), as well as Brett Butler (US Forest Service) and Jaketon Hewes (Family Forest Research Center—University of Massachusetts Amherst) for facilitating access to the National Woodland Owner Survey data. We are grateful for constructive comments on earlier versions of the manuscript from Brett Butler, David Kittredge, and Lynne Westphal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USDA Forest Service, 1992 Folwell Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Stephanie A. Snyder

  2. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, 301 K Green Hall, 1530 Cleveland Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Michael A. Kilgore

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  1. Stephanie A. Snyder
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  2. Michael A. Kilgore
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Correspondence to Stephanie A. Snyder.

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Snyder, S.A., Kilgore, M.A. The Influence of Multiple Ownership Interests and Decision-Making Networks on the Management of Family Forest Lands: Evidence from the United States. Small-scale Forestry 17, 1–23 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-017-9370-5

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