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Small-Scale Forest Related Activities in the Everyday Life of the Finns: Results of Time-Budget Studies

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Abstract

The availability of human time and the factors affecting its allocation play an important role in the individual choices between daily activities. It can be claimed that the allocation of time for various forest related (household or recreational) activities provides one common yardstick to examine the significance of forest uses in the everyday life of ordinary people. This paper examines the time allocation of ordinary Finns (aged 10 years or over) outside of their work or school hours to selected forest-related small-scale activities derived from household needs or recreational purposes at the turn of the millennium (1999–2000), and investigates the factors affecting the time spent on forest work performed by Finnish population outside of the labour market. It was found that about 3% of total human available time was allocated in outdoor recreation or related activities. Spatially, 22% (52 h/person/year) of total time was allocated in forest-based, 23% in water-based and the rest in mixed environment-based activities. The time spent on the consumptive nature-based recreation activities, including recreational fishing and leisure time forest work, was 43 h corresponding 19% of total time of the activities studied. The estimated time spent on forest work was higher than found in earlier studies. The amount of time used in forest work was highest among farmers, aged 60 and over, pensioners and unemployed persons. An unexpectedly large proportion of time was spend in the fuelwood production and consumption chain from forest to fireplace. The precise observations within the fixed time frame are the major advantages of the time-budget method, which however demands substantial resources for implementation.

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  1. Faculty of Forest Sciences, University of Joensuu, Joensuu, Finland

    Olli Saastamoinen & Matti Vaara

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  1. Olli Saastamoinen
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  2. Matti Vaara
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Correspondence to Olli Saastamoinen.

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Saastamoinen, O., Vaara, M. Small-Scale Forest Related Activities in the Everyday Life of the Finns: Results of Time-Budget Studies. Small-scale Forestry 8, 425–445 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-009-9093-3

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