PRIVATE FOREST OWNERS IN SELECTED SOUTH-EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: IN SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION

UDK: 630*92(4) Social, economical and political changes in South-east European countries have led to significant shift from traditional pattern of forest policy to new, more complex paradigm when it comes to forestry and forest resources management. Among other things, this implies increasing of private forest owners’ heterogeneity which is reflected in changes of their expectations, objectives, attitudes and management practices. In this context, it is important to explore how private forest owners obtain information useful for forest management but also to analyze in which way their characteristics influence fulfilling of informational needs. The objective of this paper was to analyse sources of information that private forest owners are most likely to use, and to assess how owners’ characteristics, property conditions as well as management behaviour, affect it. Surveys were conducted in Bosnia-Herzegovina (n=350), Serbia (n=350), Croatia (n=350) and Slovenia (n=322) on random samples of private forest owners while the data were analysed by using logistic regression model. The paper examined five models of information providers: private forest owners associations (1), relatives (2), public forest administration (3), other owners (4) and public forest companies (5). Comparison between countries indicates the differences regarding to informational providers, caused mainly due to importance of private forests to their owners and different organizational structure of national forest sectors. Comparing to other countries, it seems that Slovenian private forest owners are more active in searching for information. Public forest administration is the most preferable provider of information in Slovenia while in Bosnia-Herzegovina these are public forest companies and public forest administration. In Serbia and Croatia the most common providers of information are public forest companies. Only Slovenian private forest owners use interest associations as the source of information. The traditional providers of information (other owners) are still important for private forest owners in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina at least. The results of logistic regression models reveal that forest property size, fragmentation, harvesting activities as well as owners’ age influence the source of information that private forest owners are most likely to use. The model 3 (pubic forest administration) is statistically significant in Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, while in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina the model 5 (public forest company) is significant. None of the models is statistically significant for Croatia. Besides, the model 4 (other owners) was statistically significant in Slovenia.