Do ownership structures effect forest management? An analysis of African American family forest landowners

Noah Goyke, Puneet Dwivedi and Marc Thomas

Forest Policy and Economics, 2019, vol. 106, issue C, -

Abstract: Complex ownership structures like absentee ownership and heirs' property could affect management of forestlands owned by African American family landowners in the southern United States. The Theory of Planned Behavior offers a framework for understanding the role of ownership structures, along with other landowner characteristics on forest management intentions and behaviors. We used data from surveys of African American forest landowners in Georgia to inform logit models of legacy goals, management goals, management activity and management planning. Older landowners, male landowners, and landowners who had received professional advice were significantly more likely to have legacy goals, while landowners who did not report obstacles to management were more likely to have management goals. Ownership structures did not have a significant effect on landowners' goals, nor did they have a significant effect on management activities. However, absentee ownership, along with technical advice, significantly affected management planning. Results suggest that rather than the ownership structure, the most important factor in determining forest management is professional advice. The trust and personal relationship between landowners and forest professionals ultimately determine the engagement level of African American forest landowners in sustainable forest management.

Keywords: Absentee landowners; Heirs' property; Theory of planned behavior; U.S. South (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934119302084
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:forpol:v:106:y:2019:i:c:14

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2019.101959

Access Statistics for this article

Forest Policy and Economics is currently edited by M. Krott

More articles in Forest Policy and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().