By Andy Kekacs
Executive Director
Just five weeks after it was released, our online goals self-assessment for forest landowners has been used by 138 people.
The tool helps family forest owners to determine and prioritize their goals for woodland ownership. It also gives them an easy way to ask NSWOOA for the information and other resources they need to achieve their goals.
NSWOOA has begun to respond to the requests. Meanwhile, we're learning more about the changing interests and needs of family forest owners.
To date, 83 percent of the people who have used the goals tool owned forestland in Nova Scotia. About 49 percent owned 40 hectares of land or less, while 44 percent owned from 40.1 to 400 hectares.
Half of the landowners were younger than 56, while half were older. The age range of 26-45 years old was probably over-represented in the results, with 25 percent of those who tried the tool in that age bracket.
About 25 percent of the respondents (or their families) had owned their forestland for 0-5 years, 34 percent for 6-25 years, 9.1 percent for 26-50 years, and 31.8 percent for more than 50 years.
These numbers suggest that the goals assessment is attracting a wide variety of woodlot owners, somewhat weighted toward younger people but including many veteran or multi-generation owners.
We're not yet ready to offer a full report on our findings, but there is at least one interesting -- and somewhat unexpected -- twist.
Research projects across Canada and the United States have consistently found that most landowners rank non-economic values as more important than income from their woodlots. This is also true for owners who tried our self-assessment.
(Landowners were allowed to choose more than one goal or information need for the following questions, so the totals do not add up to 100 percent.)
"Restoring a natural forest ecosystem" and "protecting beauty and solitude" were identified as a first- or second-ranked goal of 53.1 percent of landowners who used the tool, while "improving wildlife habitat" was a first- or second-ranked goal of 51.9 percent.
However -- and this is important for NSWOOA's outreach effort -- economic issues were more frequently identified than non-economic topics as something that landowners are interested in learning more about.
Some 52.6 percent of owners wanted more information about "cutting firewood while improving the health and value of the forest," while 49.1 percent were interested in learning more about "earning income from selling wood" and 47.4 percent in "building value and providing a legacy for my heirs."
Of the non-economic values that were identified as primary goals for forest landowners, only "improving wildlife habitat" was listed among their top information needs, with 51.7 percent of owners saying they'd like to learn more about it.
We'll continue to monitor the responses and the written comments that we get from the goals assessment tool. These early results, however, suggest that it is premature to conclude that most landowners don't want to manage the wood on their land and build value over time.
