Private forest owners in the Western Balkans - ready for the formation of interest associations.

The Western Balkan countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia have in common that their private forests are significant resources for the development of market economy and private ownership. Although the share of private forests varies between 10% (Macedonia) and 47% (Serbia), and probably will increase when the restitution and privatization proces s will have been finished, the private forest owners are almost not represented in national forest policy due to the lack of independent interest associations. Private forest owners' interests are mainly in the hands of public forest administration. In all four countries there are very large numbers of private owners of predominantly small-scaled forests varying between 240, 000 in Macedonia and 800, 000 in Serbia. They are mainly males of an average age of 53 years and most of them live in rural areas in settlements with less than 5, 000 inhabitants. More than one half ofthem are farmers, lower-Ievel employees or unemployed. Regarding education, more than one half of them have high school or vocational college qualifications and one quarter elementary school qualification. The majority of private forest owners have inherited the forests and want to leave them to their children. Most private forest owners hold forest properties smaller than 1 ha. In addition, these properties are often fragmented into 2 to 7 parcels on average, most often in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mixed and coppice forests dominate and volume and annual increment per hectare are modest compared to state forests. The private forests are mainly used for domestic fuel wood and saw log consumption ; tourism, nature conservation and hunting are of minor importanee. Consequently, for about one half of the private forest owners the forest is again, as reflected in its contribution to the household income. In order to increase the efficiency of forest management, all forest owners are prepared to cooperate with other private forest owners, first and foremost in road construction and maintenance. Of second priority is cooperation in forest training for the respondents from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Croatia, and cooperation in sharing harvesting equipment for Serbian respondents. Almost all private forest owners are unsatisfied with the existing situation. They miss extension services of the public forest administrations and state forest enterprises for improving their forest management. Most forest owners miss advice in harvesting, support of road construction and maintenance and advice in silviculture, however, with different priorities in the four countries according to their special needs. Private forest owners are also much concerned that their interests are not appropriately represented in national forest policy by an independent interest association. In particular they expect such an association to fight for provision of financiai inc en tives, tax breaks and reformulation of the existing forest laws in the interest of private forest owners. The respondents suffer from restrictive legal regulations conceming private forest owners. Prescription to pay levies for timber harvests and permissions for harvesting and tree marking by the forest authority before felling are indicated as the most restrictive ones. Although private forest owners' organizations are very rare for the time being, the respondents are well aware about their tasks. The preconditions for the formation of private forest owners' associations for both extension service at the local and regional levels and interest representation at the national level are favourable. Between one and two quarters of the respondents are prepared to engage themselves in the formation of an interest group. They declare to join such an organization voluntarily ifthey may expect either economic advantages or positive performance of the organization or very low membership fee. In each of the four countries there is a critical mass of entrepreneurial forest owners who strongly support an association of private forest owners ; in Bosnia and Herzegovina the "drivers" amount to 55% of the respondents. A majority of two thirds of Bosnian private forest owners also support compulsory membership in accordance with the forest policy decision makers in this country, while the positions of both private forest owners and representatives of institutions in Serbia and Croatia are reserved in this respect. An explanation could be that in Serbia private forest owners' associations at the local level have been developing slowly during the last two years, and Croatia supports their formation by the Forest Extension Service, a department of the public forest administration. In Macedonia compulsory membership is most refused by the representatives of existing private forest owners' associations.