Policy Options for Private Forest Owners in Western Balkans: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Private forest owners start to play an important role in Western Balkans’ forestry and they are essential to the successful implementation of environmental policies. Little is known about how forest policy can support private forest owners in these countries and therefore this study was conducted though a qualitative method, based on personal interviews with representatives of 54 stakeholders that include state forest authorities and administration, private forest owners associations, forest science and research and private sector in Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. The results show significant homogeneity across the region towards creation of independent interest forest owners associations based on financial support. Regression analysis identified stakeholder attitudes as significant predictors of policy preferences and also identified owners of production forest as more supportive of such policies.

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Available online at www.notulaebotanicae.ro
Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
Print ISSN 0255-965X; Electronic 1842-4309
Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici
Cluj-Napoca
Policy Options for Private Forest Owners in Western Balkans:
A Qualitative Study
Mersudin AVDIBEGOVIĆ1), Dragan NONIĆ2), Stjepan POSAVEC3), Nenad PETROVIĆ2), Bruno
MARIĆ1), Vojislav MILIJIĆ2), Silvija KRAJTER3), Florin IORAS4), Ioan Vasile ABRUDAN5)
1)University of Sarajevo, 20 Zagrebacka St., 71 000 Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; mavdibegovic@hotmail.com
2)University of Belgrade, 1, Kneza Višeslava St., 11030 Belgrade, Serbia; dnonic@eunet.rs
3)University of Zagreb, 25, Svetošimunska St., 10000 Zagreb, Croatia; posavec@sumfak.hr
4)Buckinghamshire New University, Queen Alexandra Road, Bucks HP11 2JZ-High Wycombe, United Kingdom; Florin.Ioras@bucks.ac.uk
5)Transilvania University, 1 Sirul Beethoven St., 500123 Brasov, Romania; abrudan@unitbv.ro
Abstract
Private forest owners start to play an important role in Western Balkans’ forestry and they are essential to the successful implementation
of environmental policies. Little is known about how forest policy can support private forest owners in these countries and therefore this
study was conducted though a qualitative method, based on personal interviews with representatives of 54 stakeholders that include
state forest authorities and administration, private forest owners associations, forest science and research and private sector in Bosnia
Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. The results show significant homogeneity across the region towards creation of independent interest
forest owners associations based on financial support. Regression analysis identified stakeholder attitudes as significant predictors of
policy preferences and also identified owners of production forest as more supportive of such policies.
Keywords: Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, forest owners associations.
Introduction
Countries in Western Balkans (Fig. 1) have embarked
on a free market economy after almost 50 years of centrally
planned one. Forest was considered a state asset during the
socialist period and after the political and state changes
that were encountered in the ex Yugoslavia area the newly
formed states started to return back the forest to the right-
ful owners. Private forests are nowadays an important item
for consideration in the forest policy and strategy of Bos-
nia Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.
Forests in Serbia cover approximately 2.2 million ha,
which corresponds to 29.1% of the country’s territory.
Share of private and state forests in Serbia, according to
the latest available data is almost equal. Area of private for-
ests is 1.058.400 ha, which is approximately 47% of total
forest area (Banković et al., 2008).
Forest cover in Croatia amounts to 2.572.957 ha, out of
which 581.770 ha (22.6%) are privately owned (Čavlović
et al., 2005). Almost all (99% or 576.832 ha) of private
forests are production forests.
About 52% of the surface of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(BiH) is covered by forest and forest lands (Visnjic et al.,
2009). BiH is divided in two entities: the Federation of
BiH (FBiH) which is divided in 10 cantons, the Repub-
lika Srpska (RS) and forestry is regulated differently in
the two entities. The private forest in RS covers 228.874
ha and respectively 293.563 ha in FBiH, which represent
20% of the total national forest area (Anon, 2003).
The private forest ownership in Western Balkans is
characterized by high fragmentation of properties, large
number of forest lots and large number of forest owners
along with insufficient organization of forest manage-
ment. More than 72% of owners have properties smaller
than 1 ha, 26% own properties sized from 1 to 10 ha and
only 2% of total number of forest owners have forest prop-
erties bigger than 10 ha (Martinic et al., 2009). Legislation
frame is not adequate to the situation as it reflects mostly
the administration and management needs of state owned
forests. Private forest owners have little will to join an as-
sociative structure such as a Private Forest Organization
(PFO). Under such circumstances there are many chal-
lenges that need immediate attention (e.g. sound manage-
ment of private forests, establishment and management of
PFOs), but there are some more comprehensive problems
that go beyond the scope of forestry (e.g. ownership rights,
rural development etc.), which should be addressed as they
have a strong impact on private forest management.
Despite the fact that democratic changes have occurred
in Western Balkans more than 8 years ago and the number
of private forest area exceeds 2,2 million in the case study
countries, still the organization of forest owners is in an in-

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Avdibegović, M. et al. / Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
258
of associations with the aim of providing common goods.
The difference is that members of large groups, which Ol-
son calls “latent groups”, do not see a clear interest in pro-
viding common goods on their own expense and often act
as “free riders”. Members of latent groups often expect that
common goods will be provided at the expense of some-
one else, which like them recognize the importance of the
association. Based on Olson’s theory, large number of pri-
vate forest owners in Western Balkans, can be considered
today as latent groups.
Methodology
The authors of this article conducted „in-depth“ in-
terviews with a qualitative analysis methodological ap-
proach (Jones, 1985; Lamnek, 1995; Glück and Mayer,
1996; Neuman, 2006) as part of the PRIFORT project
that was financed by the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry, Environment and Water Management. This
methodology was used for assessing the attitude of forest
policy makers and representatives of relevant institutions
and organizations towards the establishment and develop-
ment of forest owners associations in Bosnia Herzegovina,
Croatia and Serbia
The interviewed stakeholder groups were categorized
in (a) public administration and public forest enterprises,
(b) forest science and research organisations, (c) associa-
tions of private forest owners and private forest enterprises
and (d) other interest group in the forestry sector. The
total number of respondents was 54, with an overall re-
sponse rate of 56%.
The survey covered the following topics: (i) private
forest management and sustainability, (ii) forest owners’
homogeneity/diversity, (iii) legislative support for devel-
opment of forest owners’ associations, (iv) state and non-
state financial support, (v) voluntary versus obligatory
membership of private forest owners association (PFOA),
(vi) presence of a national umbrella association of private
forest owners associations and (vii) services to be supplied
by the PFOA.
The independent variables considered were individual
characteristics of landowners and their forests. Such char-
acteristics consist of landowners attitudes, types of forest
and socio-demographic variables.
Attitudes examined in this paper included ownership
motivation and responsibility related to owning and sus-
tainability in the Western Balkans: legacy, financial sup-
port, forest owner sustainability responsibility (continu-
ous regression factor scores).
Two forest type variables were used according to the
main management goal of the forest: production and con-
servation.
Individual characteristics included several socio-de-
mographic characteristics: age, education (measured with
categories of high school, technical school, university
degree), income (measured with categories of less than
cipient stage. A possible scenario for the region that is sup-
ported by international donors such as the World Bank,
UNDP, is the establishment of independent voluntary
forest owners association, which would represent owners’
interests (World Bank, 2009).
However, beside voluntary organization of forest own-
ers, in some European countries, such as Austria and Slove-
nia, there are owners organizations with obligatory mem-
bership for all forest owners from a certain territory. In
addition, there are forest owners associations established
on the principle of selective incentives, especially financial
ones (Nonic et al., 2006).
The main goal of forest owners associations should be
the representation of forest owners interests and establish-
ment of partnerships between different groups of forest
owners, along with definition and promotion of their mu-
tual interests, and participation in forest policy processes.
This could enable forest owners to take an active role in
formulation of related laws and other relevant forestry
documents, which has not been the case yet in Western
Balkans.
According to the Group theory (Bentley, 1949;
Latham, 1952), which claims that all people, with a com-
mon interest will associate for representation of those in-
terests, it can be assumed that strong association of forest
owners in Western Balkans should be established. Howev-
er, at present situation is different, since there is very little
done towards establishment of such organization in the
case study countries.
The theory of collective action, tried to explain such
phenomena (Olson, 1965). This theory suggests that small
and large groups do not behave in the same manner. Ac-
cording to this theory, every association exists in order
to serve the interests of its members. However, large and
small groups do not behave the same during establishment
Fig. 1. Western Balkans map

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Avdibegović, M. et al. / Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
259
€5,000, €5.000-10,000, €10,000-15,000, €15,000-20,000,
€20,000-30,000 and more than €30,000 per year), politi-
cal affinity, residency (absent or resident forest owner, di-
chotomous) and land tenure
The dependent variables in this analysis were the main
tools that influence de establishment and development
of forest owners’ associations: (i) public support, and
(ii) only private forest owners support. The dependent
variables were ranked on a scale from 1 to 5, with the fol-
lowing meaning: 1-not important, 2-of little importance,
3-somewhat important, 4-important and 5-very impor-
tant. A separate regression was conducted for each depen-
dent variable.
Multiple linear regression was used to assess the
stakeholders attitude in shaping private forest policy to-
wards the establishment and development of private for-
est owners associations in Western Balkan countries. A
model-building approach was used in order to identify
a predictive model that accounts for the most variance
for the proposed policy tools while attempting to isolate
the greatest change in variation due to one or more sets
of variables (Schneider and Ingram, 1990). Three models
were constructed based on the considered variable groups:
(i) attitude, (ii) attitude and forest type and (iii) attitude,
forest and socio-demographic type. The tolerance for vari-
ance inflation factors (VIF) was set not to have high cor-
relation when one independent variable is regressed on the
others (VIF<10).
Results and discussions
The results of multiple linear regression for the three
models considered (Model 1-attitude variables, Model
2-attitude and forest type variables, Model 3-attitude, for-
est type and socio-demographic variables) in the case of
public support policy and private support for forest own-
ers associations are presented in Tab. 1 and Tab. 2.
In the case of public support policy (Tab. 1), the ini-
tial model, which used only the attitude variables to ex-
plain policy preferences regarding support tools, had an
R2 of 0,252. The attitude variables of financial support
and legacy seemed to be significant. For these variables, as
attitude importance increases, the support for the policy
tool increases. Model 2 included forest type (production,
conservation) indicating that having production forest in-
creases availability of support. Model 3 added in the socio-
demographic characteristics. The R2 was 0.408 for the full
model.
The regression analysis for private forest owners sup-
port policy (Tab. 2), model 1 had an R2 of 0.341 and all at-
titude variables somehow significant (especially the finan-
cial support). The full model (Model 3) had an R2 of 0.442
with production and residential status being significant
variables but not the owners right on land use.
Subsequently analyses were conducted to explore if
differences exist between owners of production and con-
servation forest. The comparison revealed that production
forest owners did not differ from conservation forest own-
ers on attitude regarding ownership motivations except for
sustainability This result indicates somehow contradictory
that production forest owners value owning the forest for
sustainability more than conservation forest owners. Pro-
duction forest owners appear to be conscious of the fact
that their actions on their forestland can affect the sustain-
ability and they appear to value that responsibility.
For both types of policy tools analysed by this article,
variables that appeared to be significant in the prediction
of forest policy decision preferences were financial support,
motivation for owning land (legacy), shared responsibility
for conserving land (public support) and forest type.
The variable with the strongest influence on policy
tools was the financial support and forest type. This find-
ing indicates that those landowners who view their forest
as a long-term financial asset are more supportive of asso-
ciation and lobbying the policy decision makers.
The large number of private forest owners in each of
the three countries is certainly an explanation for the lack
of PFOAs in accordance with Olson’s approach of collec-
tive action but not a sufficient one. In Western Balkans it
was found that the forest laws currently do not fully sup-
port private forest owners on achieving sustainable man-
agement of their forests.
Tab. 1. Results of multiple linear regression for public support
policy
Variables
Model
1
0.248*
0.401**
Model
2
0.202*
0.423**
Model
3
0.228*
0.430**
Attitudes Legacy
Financial support
Owners right
on land use
Landowner
sustainability
responsibility
Shared responsibility
(owner/state)
Production
Conservation
-0.064-0.054-0.022
0.1170.1380.037
0.0980.1060.094
Forest type-
-
0.165**
-0.110
0.294**
-1.118
Socio-
demographic
Age---0.091
Education
Political affinity
Income
Tenure
Residential status
F Statistic
p-value
df
R2 (adjusted)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-0.005
0.087
0.085
-0.073
-0.241*
4.562
<0.001
32
0.408
(0.323)
Statistics8.145
<0.001
52
0.252
(0.230)
6.768
<0.001
46
0.292
(0.252)
*Significant variables at p<0.05; **significant variables at p<0.001

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260
Tab. 2. Results of multiple linear regression for private forest
owners support policy
It was found that the individual private forest owners
are not a homogeneous group. They differentiate accord-
ing to the size of their forest property and its fragmenta-
tion, contribution to owners’ annual income, awareness of
legal regulations on forest management, and also with re-
gard to their education and residential statues. The drivers
for creation of a PFOA are the owners of relatively large
forest estates who regard their forest as a gain and they see
the association as a mechanism to provide resources to the
interest association. Such a support scenario for a PFOA
was found in all three countries, particularly in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
Conclusions
This article findings demonstrate that policies that
support private forest owners within the Western Balkans
appeal to the ownership motivations and attitudes about
sustainability responsibility. The policy makers in the
Western Balkans need to create an emphasis on the im-
portance of forest as an investment for the future. While
stronger attitudes correlate with support for the types of
policy tools presented in this article, the nature of the at-
titudes identified as significant suggest that voluntary/
symbolic approaches to policy may have a support from
private forest owners in Western Balkans.
Most of the participants interviewed by the authors
consider that the best approach for private forest owners’
association is a voluntary approach, but they claim that
this can be done only if financial initiatives are provided.
Based on the study, it can be concluded that there are
certain changes in policy makers’ attitudes towards the
role and significance of private forest owners and the need
for their association in order to communicate with a het-
erogeneous group. There is a need for direct (financial)
support and know how towards creating viable forms of
association of private forest owners in Western Balkans.
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*Significant variables at p<0.05; ** significant variables at p<0.001

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