How private are Europe’s private forests? A comparative property rights analysis

Liviu Nichiforel, Kevin Keary, Philippe Deuffic, Gerhard Weiss, Bo Thorsen, Georg Winkel, Mersudin Avdibegović, Zuzana Dobšinská (), Diana Feliciano, Paola Gatto, Elena Gorriz Mifsud, Marjanke Hoogstra-Klein, Michal Hrib, Teppo Hujala, Laszlo Jager, Vilém Jarský, Krzysztof Jodłowski, Anna Lawrence, Diana Lukmine, Špela Pezdevšek Malovrh, Jelena Nedeljković, Dragan Nonić, Silvija Krajter Ostoić, Klaus Pukall, Jacques Rondeux, Theano Samara, Zuzana Sarvašová, Ramona Elena Scriban, Rita Šilingienė, Milan Sinko, Makedonka Stojanovska, Vladimir Stojanovski, Nickola Stoyanov, Meelis Teder, Birger Vennesland, Lelde Vilkriste, Erik Wilhelmsson, Jerylee Wilkes-Allemann and Laura Bouriaud

Land Use Policy, 2018, vol. 76, issue C, 535-552

Abstract: Private forests are widespread in Europe providing a range of ecosystem services of significant value to society, and there are calls for novel policies to enhance their provision and to face the challenges of environmental changes. Such policies need to acknowledge the importance of private forests, and importantly they need to be based on a deep understanding of how property rights held by private forest owners vary across Europe. We collected and analysed data on the content of property rights based on formal legal requirements existing in 31 European jurisdictions. To allow a comparison across jurisdictions, we constructed an original Property Rights Index for Forestry encompassing five rights domains (access, withdrawal, management, exclusion and alienation). We documented substantial variation of the private forest owners’ rights, and notably to i) make decisions in operational management and the formulation of management goals, ii) withdraw timber resources from their forest, and iii) exclude others from the use of forest resources. We identified broad relations between the scope for decision making of private forest owners and jurisdictions’ former socio-political background and geographical distribution. The variation in the content of property rights has implications for the implementation of international environmental policies, and stresses the need for tailored policy instruments, when addressing European society’s rural development, the bioeconomy, climate change mitigation measures and nature protection strategies.

Keywords: Property rights; Index; Private forests; Europe; Comparative analysis; Forest management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:76:y:2018:i:c:p:535-552

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.02.034

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