Stakeholders' preferences and the assessment of forest ecosystem services: a comparative analysis in Italy

A. Paletto, G. Giacovelli, G. Grilli, J. Balest and I. De Meo
Additional contact information
A. Paletto: Consiglio per la Ricerca e la sperimentazione in Agricoltura - Forest Monitoring and Planning Research Unit (CRA-MPF), Villazzano, Trento, Italy
G. Giacovelli: Consiglio per la Ricerca e la sperimentazione in Agricoltura - Forest Monitoring and Planning Research Unit (CRA-MPF), Villazzano, Trento, Italy
G. Grilli: Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
J. Balest: Consiglio per la Ricerca e la sperimentazione in Agricoltura - Forest Monitoring and Planning Research Unit (CRA-MPF), Villazzano, Trento, Italy
I. De Meo: Consiglio per la Ricerca e la sperimentazione in Agricoltura - Agrobiology and Pedology Research Centre (CRA-ABP), Florence, Italy

Journal of Forest Science, 2014, vol. 60, issue 11, 472-483

Abstract: Values are qualities and beliefs orientating human actions and they change according to socio-economic variables such as gender, culture, education and income. Incorporating stakeholders' values and attitudes in the forest planning is essential for reducing conflicts among forest users and ensuring successful formulation and implementation of the plans. The paper focuses on the analysis of stakeholders' attitudes and preferences to the forest ecosystem services considering three types of attitudes: biocentric attitudes, social-altruistic attitudes, and individual attitudes. The stakeholders' preferences were analysed in four case studies in Italy, characterized by different socio-economic structures and relationship between people and territory. Socio-economic attributes were tested as predictors of stakeholder preferences. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect opinions and preferences from altogether 327 stakeholders' involved in forest planning. Results show that different background and culture influence the priorities given to forest ecosystem services. The study suggests paying attention to the evaluation of stakeholders' preferences to forest ecosystem services when defining forest management guidelines, which could contribute to reduce the distance between communities and decision makers.

Keywords: ecosystem values; environmental attitudes; decision making process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jfs.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/85/2014-JFS.html (text/html)
http://jfs.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/85/2014-JFS.pdf (application/pdf)
free of charge

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:caa:jnljfs:v:60:y:2014:i:11:id:85-2014-jfs

DOI: 10.17221/85/2014-JFS

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Forest Science is currently edited by Mgr. Ilona Procházková

More articles in Journal of Forest Science from Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ivo Andrle ().