Skógræktarritið - 15.05.2001, Page 121

owners living outside of the com-
munity belong to this group. In
order to set in motion activity in
the forests belonging to this
group, it must be done in other
ways than by helping the group
itself to become active.
In our quantitative study based
on a questionnaire to 15% of all
forest owners on the west coast
who have sold timber the last 20
years (52% answered, see
Amdam et al. 2000) we found the
following situation (table 1). The
group «Forest active» is divided
into two since some of them sell
some timber. This grouping of
forest owners is based on an-
swers to two questions "I have
great interest in forestry’’ and "Do
you expect (plan) to log timber
for sale during the coming sea-
son?” (Scale I no - 6 yes). The
criteria for being commercially
active are high interest in forestry
and plans for logging (answer 5
and 6 on both questions), while
the forest active have high inter-
ested in forestry (5 and 6) but
low probability for logging (1-3).
The forest active with sale an-
swered that logging was proba-
ble (4-6), but they were not high-
ly interested in forestry (3 and 4).
The group passive with potential
is interested in forestry to some
extent (3 and 4), but has no
plans for logging for sale (1-3).
The group passive with little per-
sonal potential is not interested
in forestry (1 and 2). As expected
the active forest owners have big-
ger forests then the passive. (We
have reasons to believe that the
group passive with little personal
potential and the other passive
groups are underrepresented due
to not answering our question-
naire, see Amdam et al 2000).
Very little of the forest on the
west coast of Norway is owned
by people not living in the local
community (under 10% of our
responders). Activity in forestry is
Table I. Forest ownership on the West Coast of Norway.
Type of forest ownership % of responders %offorest area Average foæst area (ha) perforestowner
Passivewiöi little pensonal potential 12 8 263
Passivewith potential 30 24 333
Foiest active 23 23 43,1
Foiestactive.sale 7 9 513
The commercialty active 16 26 64.6
No answer: 12 10 35,9
Total: 100 (N=975) 100 41,4
Table 2. Activity in agriculture by group of forest owners.
Agricultureas: Main household Part household income income No agriculture inoome Sum foiestowners (N)
Commerdal active 63% 23% 14% 100% 164
Forest active, sale 58% 19% 22% 100% 72
Foiest active 49% 26% 25% 100% 224
Passivewilh potential 43% 30% 27% 100% 327
Passive witíiout pofóntial 39% 23% 38% 100% 145
Sum: 49% 26% 25% 100%
closely connected to activity in
agriculture with the majority of
forest owners selling timber
commercially also active in agri-
culture (table 2). Very few how-
ever, have forestry as a major
income. Only 3% of all forest
owners on the West Coast earn
more then 20% of household
income from forestry, 7% be-
tween 11 and 20% and 12%
between 6 and 10%. 78% of
housholds get less than 5% of
their income from forestry. Of all
the responders 48% had agricul-
ture and forestry as main in-
come, 20% manufacturing indus-
tries, 22% services and 10% other
main incomes (pensions etc).
In general the division into five
groups as in table 2 also func-
tioned as a ranging of forest
activity where the commercially
active forest owner had highest
activity and the passive without
potential had lowest regarding;
own forest work, plan for forest
use and activity, equipment for
forestry, planting and cultivation,
sale of timber and wood, public
support for forest activities like
road building and participation
in local forest owner organisa-
tions.
Institutional capacity-building
These challenges regarding
development of forestry on the
west coast of Norway can be
compared to the concept of insti-
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SKÓGRÆKTARRITIÐ 2001 l.tbi