The main objective is to study the forest owners’ decision-making processes and decision support to understand the factors behind the behavior that leads to or hinders the forest management solutions that aim for multifunctionality of forests.
Climate change, biodiversity degradation and turbulent global economy are challenging the traditional timber-oriented forest management and related value chains. Forests are largely owned by private family forest owners in Northern Europe and the provision of ecosystem services, wood included, is based on mostly voluntary actions. Therefore, landowners’ attitudes, goals, knowledge, guidance and the operational environment play a focal role in reaching sustainability goals. The research methods include forest owner and forest expert interviews and surveys to understand the role of internal drivers with the combination of external factors in decision-making processes related to forest planning.
