Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research

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An Empirically Based Typology of Private Forest

Owners in Denmark: Improving Communication
Between Authorities and Owners
Tove Enggrob Boon , Henrik Meilby & Bo Jellesmark Thorsen
To cite this article: Tove Enggrob Boon , Henrik Meilby & Bo Jellesmark Thorsen (2004) An
Empirically Based Typology of Private Forest Owners in Denmark: Improving Communication
Between Authorities and Owners, Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 19:S4, 45-55, DOI:
10.1080/14004080410034056
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14004080410034056

Published online: 05 Nov 2010.

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Date: 30 November 2016, At: 05:42

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4): 45
/55, 2004

An Empirically Based Typology of Private Forest Owners in

Denmark: Improving Communication Between Authorities and
Owners
TOVE ENGGROB BOON, HENRIK MEILBY and BO JELLESMARK THORSEN
Department of Economics, Policy and Management, Danish Centre for Forest, Landscape and Planning, The Royal Veterinary
and Agricultural University, Copenhagen, Denmark
Boon, T. E., Meilby, H. and Thorsen, B. J. (Department of Economics, Policy and Management,
Danish Centre for Forest, Landscape and Planning, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural
University, Copenhagen, Denmark). An empirically based typology of private forest owners in
Denmark: improving communication between authorities and owners. Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl.
4): 45
/55, 2004.
For policy instruments to be effective, they should motivate forest owners to adjust behaviour in
agreement with forest policy objectives. It may therefore be beneficial to know the motivations of
private forest owners. Often, forest owners are assumed to constitute an entity, although
statistics and structural changes indicate increasing heterogeneity. Instead, forest owners can be
divided into types, i.e. groups that include forest owners with similar attitudes, and where
attitudes of each group differ from those of other groups. Based on a survey among private
forest owners in Denmark, three types of owners were identified: (1) the classic forest owner to
whom the forest has economic importance; (2) the hobby owner who enjoys work and recreation
in the forest; and (3) the indifferent farmer to whom the different values provided by the forest
are equally (un)important. Implications of this typology for forest policy formulation and
implementation are discussed. Key words: Cluster analysis, communication, forest policy, private
forest owner, typology.
Correspondence to: T. E. Boon, e-mail: tb@kvl.dk

INTRODUCTION
In Denmark, forests cover 11% (486 000 ha) of the
land area. Forests are important sources of tangible
and intangible public and private benefits, e.g. recreation (Jensen & Koch 1997), biodiversity conservation,
groundwater and soil protection (Wilhjelmudvalget
2001), whereas the economic importance is limited
(forestry contributes 1 of the total gross domestic
product, 146 mioeuro). As 49% of the Danish forest
area (224 000 ha) is privately owned (24 900 owners)
(Larsen & Johannsen 2002), the decisions of private
forest owners are crucial for the provision of these
multifunctional benefits.
Various policy instruments, including subsidy
schemes, taxation, regulation and information, are
used to motivate private forest owners to provide
common goods. Yet, the effectiveness of these
instruments depends on their ability to motivate forest
owners to adjust behaviour in agreement with
forest policy objectives. To assess this ability, it is
useful to know the motivations of private forest
owners.
Often, forest owners are implicitly assumed to
constitute an entity, although this is not supported
# 2004 Taylor & Francis ISSN 1400-4089

by forest statistics. One-third of the privately owned

forest area in Denmark is owned by only 1% of the
private forest owners, i.e. the 238 forest properties
larger than 100 ha (Fig. 1). Conversely, one-third of
the forest owners (8400), each owning less than 2 ha,
share only 4% of the private forest area (Larsen &
Johannsen 2002).
In addition, structural changes during recent decades imply that the forest owner group becomes
increasingly diverse. These changes have been described for a variety of countries and it can be assumed
that they parallel the situation in Denmark. In
Finland, Sweden and Germany the forest owner
structure has changed into relatively more non-farming owners (Ripatti & Jarvelainen 1997, Lidestav &
Nordfjell 2002, Hardter 2002), more female owners
(Ripatti & Jarvelainen 1997, Lidestav & Nordfjell
2002), relatively older owners (Ripatti & Jarvelainen
1997) and relatively more forest properties being
shared by groups of owners (Ripatti & Jarvelainen
1997, Karppinen 1998a ). Such increased structural
heterogeneity can be expected to be accompanied by
diversification of forest owner objectives, attitudes and
practices related to forest ownership. Studies do
indeed
show
attitude
differences
between
DOI: 10.1080/14004080410034056

46

T. E. Boon et al.

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

Fig. 1. Distribution of forest area and number of properties by size categories for private, personally owned forest properties.

owners, divided by gender (Lidestav 1998, Lidestav &

Ekstrom 2000), agricultural affiliation (Hardter 2002,
Lonnstedt 1989), forest size (Boon 2003) or organizational affiliation (Lidestav & Nordfjell 2002).
The aim of this study was to identify groups of
owners based on their ownership motivations, operationalized as their forest ownership objectives. Such
segmentation will allow for improved and targeted
communication between forest authorities and forest
owners.

Research objective
Based on the first representative survey of Danish
private forest owners objectives and practices, a
typology of private forest owners in Denmark is
presented. The typology will be compared with similar
typologies from other European countries. The aim is
to provide a better understanding of what rationales
motivate various types of forest owners and discuss
how that knowledge may influence forest policy
formulation and implementation.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Typologies are mental tools
Typologies are sets of ideal types that an observer can
use as mental tools to simplify and organize a complex
picture of reality. Typologies describe typical patterns

that tend to repeat themselves, but they do not

describe individuals (Dahl 1997).
Typologies can be based on theoretical assumptions
about fundamental attitude dimensions, e.g. cultural
theory (Thompson et al. 1990). Alternatively, typologies can be based on empirical evidence, in the form of
either qualitative (Madsen 2002, Busck 2002) or
quantitative data, e.g. statistical analysis of survey
data (Dahl 1997, Karppinen 1998a, Pregernig 2001).
Such empirical typologies can be developed inductively, as most forest owner typologies, or be used to
test an already designed theoretical model empirically,
e.g. Karppinen (1998b, 2000) who, by testing Pietarinens (1987) nature value theory, does not find strong
correlation between forest owners objectives and
values.

Forest owner typologies

Forest owner typology studies are almost exclusively
based on ownership objectives. Table 1 provides an
overview of such studies. The main factors separating
owners in the mentioned studies are: (1) the contribution of forest earnings to household income; (2) the
perceived importance of economic, environmental and
recreational benefits from the forest; (3) the perceived
importance of the forest as a legacy; (4) the perceived
importance of the forest as a place to do forest work,
for self-employment and/or as a hobby. Comparison

Study

Economist

Multiobjective

Self-employed

Recreationist

Passive/resigning owner

Becker et al. 2000

Economically orientated .
Financially motivated, property
and investment

Universally interested .
Evenly motivated, i.e.
indifferent

/

/

30
59

39
26

/

/

The ecological type.

Motivated by recreation,
natural experiences, nature
conservation and
management
31
15

Disinterested owner. No
objectives are important, except
want to keep forest in family
ownership. Not member of forest
owner organization, not in
agriculture. Lives far from forest,
resides in town/city

% of respondents
% of area
Bieling 2004

% of respondents
% of area
Karppinen 1998a
% of respondents
% of area

/

43
60

/

/

/

/

Conceptually interested
owner. Values personal
experience: own wood
supply, recreation, family
inheritance. Lives close to
forest, agricultural
affiliation, member of forest
owner organization. Main
income outside forestry
37
23

Investor. Older, larger forest,

not residence by forest,
college/academic education
13
14

Multiobjective owner. Resides

by forest, older, larger area

Self-employed owner. Young,

resides by forest, family concerns,
no higher education
30
31

Recreationist . Smaller area,

non-farmer, part-time
residence
31
21

Timber producer. Values timber

and investment, forest part of
farm and estate will be passed on
to children. Recreation not
important. Relies on timber
income. Older

Kuuluvainen et al. 1996 Investor. Forest as asset, source

of sales income and economic
security
% of area
20
Volz & Bieling 1998

26
33

20
17

Multiobjective owner. Values

/
timber and investment, but
also recreation and owner
gratification. Relies on timber
income

Recreationist . Values
recreation. Timber and
investment less/not
important. Owns smaller
forest, has higher education
and higher income

Passive owner. No value to

timber and investment or
recreation, but appreciates to
own forest (owner gratification).
Has smaller forest and lower
income

Multiobjective owner. Values

both monetary and amenity
benefits
36

Recreationist . Emphasizes
non-timber and nonmonetary values
18

/

/

The resigning owner. Distrusts

policy. Forest of no real value
to owner, only work and worries

Homo oeconomicus. Calculatory, The traditionalist . Influenced

optimizing
by handed-over values. The
responsible owner. Acts to
hand over forest to children

Self-employed owner.
Employment and labour income
26
The idealist . Emotional type. Lives
for/with agriculture. Likes to see
forest grow, forest work and
independence

/

Typology of private forest owners in Denmark

Kline et al. 2000a, b

Economically interested .
(Conceptually interested
Wood sales, investment, financial owner )
security. Proud of forest, as
mirror of self

/

/

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

Table 1. Forest owner types in previous research

47

48

T. E. Boon et al.

shows that the owner types of these studies tend to fall

within the following five categories.
. The economist owner type is primarily financially motivated, partly through sales income,
partly by seeing the forest as an investment object
and as providing economic security. Some studies
add pride (Bieling 2004) and forest as a legacy
(Kline et al. 2000a, b ) to this owner types
motivations.
. The multiobjective owner is motivated by financial, but also recreational, environmental and other
values related to forest ownership.
. The recreationist owner primarily values nontimber and non-monetary values, such as recreation, nature conservation and management. This
owner type represents the consumption-orientated
owner, to whom the forest is a source of personal
benefit, whether it is personal wood supply, recreation or keeping the forest in family ownership. This
owner type generally owns less forest than the
economist and the multiobjective owner types,
and his or her main income comes from outside
forestry. Part-time or no agricultural affiliation is
more common here relative to other owner types.
. The self-employed owner type values the forest
as a place to work for leisure and/or to obtain
labour income, and likes to see the forest grow in
his or her hands.
. The passive owner type is the type of owner for
whom no objectives are really important, except
simply to own the forest and keep it in the family.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This paper is based on results from a country-wide
survey among private forest owners in Denmark. The
survey was designed by the Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute, assisted by Statistics Denmark which collected the survey data by mail
questionnaire. The population consisted of all privately owned forest properties with an area of 2 ha or
more. The population was based on Forest Statistics
2000 (Larsen & Johannsen 2002), where the civil
registration number of all forest owners was registered.
Thus, companies and firms were omitted from the
population. The distribution of all private, personally
owned forests to size categories is illustrated in Fig. 1.
The sample was composed as illustrated in Table 2.

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

Data collection
The questionnaire was distributed by post at the
beginning of February 2002; reminders with questionnaires attached were sent in late February and
again in mid-March 2002. The questionnaire included
27 questions concerning:
. the forest (size, location, percentage of broadleaved
and coniferous forest)
. the forest owner (age, gender, income level, affiliation to agriculture, type of ownership, duration of
ownership, distance from home to forest, sources of
forestry information and advice, use of subsidy
schemes, decision making, and whether a plan or a
register of the forest existed)
. perception of the importance of forest benefits
(economics, hunting, recreation, etc.)
. forest management activities
. attitudes towards tree species choice, regeneration
methods, and use of pesticides.
The questions were prepared on the basis of a
literature review of similar studies, interviews with
forest owners, and advice from a group of forest owner
representatives and other forestry experts.

Data
Questionnaires were distributed to 1986 forest owners,
of whom 63 were omitted from the sample as nonrelevant, as the recipients stated that they did not own
any forest. Of the remaining 1923 forest owners 1553
responded and, hence, the response rate was 80.8%.
Analysis of the frequencies of non-response showed no
significant difference between categories (gender, age
or forest size class). The high response rate is ascribed
to the great interest among the respondents regarding
the issues dealt with in the survey.

Table 2. Composition of the sample

Stratum, size
(ha)

Population
(n )

Sample
(n )

Selection
(%)

]/100
99.9
/32.0
31.9
/14.0
13.9
/6.5
6.4
/2.0
Total

238
619
1 701
3 584
9 761
15 903

238
460
440
410
460
2 008

100
74.3
25.9
11.4
4.7

/

Typology of private forest owners in Denmark

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

Statistical methods

49

inter alia , the applied algorithm. As a first step in the

analysis, different hierarchical clustering procedures
were tried out using the procedure CLUSTER of the
SAS software package (SAS 1990, p. 519). Here, the
aim was to create a typology where each owner
category includes a reasonable proportion of the
population, sharing a broad range of characteristics.
A small group of owners may share a few rare
characteristics, but this does not mean that they
should be distinguished as a special owner type. In
addition, it presumably does not make sense to
imagine that some true and unique typology of forest
owners exists. Forest owners may be grouped at
various levels of detail and the task was to identify
groups that are sufficiently different and, yet, each
cover a broad range of almost similar opinions.
Therefore, methods yielding clusters of not too
different size were preferred. Methods based on the
least-squares criterion tend to do this, so the number
of clusters was determined using Wards minimum
variance method, which also proved to produce quite
similar results whether or not standardization was
carried out. Based on the agglomeration schedule and
a dendrogram, a three-cluster solution was found to be

This paper is primarily devoted to a description and

discussion of policy issues related to the values and
interests of private forest owners. Hence, the applied
statistical method will not be described in mathematical detail here, but instead a brief description of how
the analysis was undertaken and a discussion of
possible limitations of the method are provided.
The typology should group forest owners according
to their stated view of the significance of various
benefits provided by the forest. The questions in
Table 3 form the basis of the typology. These 16
questions all emphasize various benefits that may be
perceived as important to forest owners. All questions
were answered using the same five-level ordinal scale,
where 1 corresponds to very important, 2 to
important, 3 to neither/nor, 4 to not important
and 5 to absolutely not important. The distribution
of answers is shown in Table 3.
Clustering routines are most appropriate for continuous numerical data and all routines are biased
towards identifying clusters with certain characteristics. Thus, the results of a cluster analysis depend on,
Table 3. Survey questions used for cluster analysis

Percentage of answers
Question
no.

Question

12

A forest provides a range of benefits to the

owner. How important are each of the
Very
Neither/
following benefits to your forest ownership? important Important nor

Absolutely
Not
not
No
important important answer

The forest as an investment object

Earnings from wood production
Earnings from renting out the hunting
Earnings from Christmas trees and greenery
Regulating annual household income through
delay/realization of forest earnings
Side employment for employees/myself
(Fuel) wood/timber for household
consumption
The forest is the familys legacy
My identity as forest owner
The forest is used as entertainment for
business relations
It is my hobby to tend the forest (forest work)
It is a place for me to go hunting as a hobby
To hike, pick berries, watch birds and other
recreation
Landscape value and aesthetics of the forest
Diversity of flora and fauna
Public access to outdoor life and recreation

12a
12b
12c
12d
12e
12f
12g
12h
12i
12j
12k
12l
12m
12n
12o
12p

2.44
1.41
1.15
6.03
0.56

18.12
10.37
7.63
15.59
3.71

29.77
27.82
26.64
23.43
27.73

24.99
33.25
28.99
24.10
27.31

19.38
22.14
30.39
25.76
34.61

5.30
5.00
5.2
5.09
6.08

2.48
7.11

16.92
30.16

25.39
21.94

27.99
20.77

21.75
16.70

5.47
3.31

6.86
2.76
0.84

19.57
13.42
1.95

30.16
31.82
26.43

16.07
25.23
24.79

19.52
21.11
39.40

7.82
5.66
6.59

13.10
18.28
18.88

41.33
25.01
47.10

21.13
15.00
13.98

12.36
16.71
7.85

8.30
19.19
7.59

3.78
5.81
4.61

22.54
30.82
5.65

53.41
51.20
19.18

12.91
9.34
30.01

3.92
2.29
18.64

2.85
2.72
20.53

4.37
3.63
5.99

50

T. E. Boon et al.

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

appropriate. Similar results were obtained using the

nearest centroid sorting algorithm (a k -means
method) in the procedure FASTCLUS of the SAS
software package (SAS 1990, p. 823). The results
presented here were obtained using the latter algorithm. Three clusters were applied and incomplete
observations were excluded from the analysis, implying that only 1220 of the 1553 observations could be
clustered. Owing to the applied scale of measurement,
outliers were not considered an issue. The resulting
three clusters are described below with regard to their
sociodemographic characteristics.

RESULTS
General description of forest owners
The cluster analysis resulted in three clusters. The first
of these is termed the classic forest owner (633
observations); the second group is termed the hobby
owner (363 observations) and the third group is
termed the indifferent farmer (224 observations).
To describe the differences between the three
clusters the cluster means of the 16 variables/answers
used in the cluster analysis were applied (see Table 3).
The cluster means are reported for the three clusters in
Table 4, and in Fig. 2 the cluster means are plotted
along with the mean responses of those 1396
/1469
respondents who answered one or more of questions
12a
/12p. The mean values are also shown for those

333 ( /1553
/1220) observations that were not included in the analysis owing to incomplete responses.
As will appear from the graph, aspects concerning
the recreational and aesthetic values of the forest are
considered more important by most owners than, for
example, economic values and public recreation opportunities. However, to most indifferent farmers the
only aspects that have some sort of importance are the
aesthetic value of the forest and the diversity of flora
and fauna. Except for hobby work, hobby hunting,
recreation, flora and fauna, all the suggested values
are considered more important by the classic forest
owners than by any of the other groups. In contrast to
this, the hobby owners consider the recreational and
aesthetic values most important. Similarly, except for
hunting rent, greenery earnings and income regulation, the indifferent farmers consider all values less
important than anybody else does. The hobby owners
find hunting rent, greenery earnings and income
regulation even less important than the indifferent
farmers do. As will appear from Fig. 2 the two clusters
differing most from each other are the classic forest
owners and the indifferent farmers. Hobby owners
resemble indifferent farmers with regard to their
attitude towards the economic aspects of being a
forest owner, whereas they are similar to classic forest
owners with regard to their attitude towards recreational and aesthetic issues. With regard to issues
related to their identity as forest owners, hobby owners
have intermediate attitudes.

Table 4. Mean values of responses in questions 12a
/12p for the three clusters
Ownership objective
Financial importance
Investment
Wood earnings
Hunting rent
Greenery earnings
Income regulation
Sideline
Household use
Legacy
Identity
Representation
Hobby work
Hobby hunting
Recreation, etc.
Landscape aesthetics
Flora and fauna
Public recreation access

12a
12b
12c
12d
12e
12f
12g
12h
12i
12j
12k
12l
12m
12n
12o
12p

Classic owner

Hobby owner

Indifferent farmer

2.76
2.69
3.01
2.56
3.20
2.78
2.75
2.43
2.81
3.68
2.30
2.71
2.13
1.70
1.69
3.03

3.52
4.03
4.25
4.09
4.34
3.77
3.21
3.28
3.52
4.15
2.20
2.21
1.85
1.75
1.60
3.50

3.80
4.09
4.04
3.80
4.37
4.17
3.87
4.04
4.30
4.65
3.75
4.23
3.47
2.74
2.56
3.85

The perceived importance of an objective decreases with increasing response value.

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

Typology of private forest owners in Denmark

51

Fig. 2. Mean response values for the whole material (all observations), for the three clusters, and for incomplete observations,
which were not included in the cluster analysis. Response values: 1 /Very important to 5 /Not important at all.

Typology of forest owners

In the following, the characteristics of each of the
three types of forest owners are described (see also
Tables 4 and 5).
The classic forest owner. Forest owners of this type
more often emphasize the importance of forest income
generation to forest ownership than the two other
owner groups. They also more frequently attach
importance to the forest as a legacy. Forests have
higher economic importance to this owner group than
to the two other groups, but these owners also value
the environmental and recreational aspects of forest
ownership. On average they spend more days in their
own forest (145 yr 1) than do the other two groups.
The classic owner group includes 51.9% (633
respondents) of the applied part of the sample (1220
respondents) and the forest area owned by this group
makes up 77.1% of the corresponding area (74 899
ha). If the composition of the sample is taken into
account (see Table 2) and incomplete observations
are distributed proportionally to the three owner
groups, the estimated share of classic owners in the
original population of private forest owners in
Denmark is 39% and the share of the private forest
area is 62%.
The average area of forest possessed by owners in
this group is greater than those of other groups, as the
average forest size is 91.2 ha. This group includes the
largest proportion of owners who perceive themselves
primarily as full-time forest owners (14%). This
owner type owns relatively more deciduous forest than
coniferous forest compared with the other owner

groups, and it is also more frequently found in the

eastern parts of Denmark.
This group shares characteristics with the economists described earlier, particularly as identified by
Kline et al. (2000a , b). It also shares characteristics
with the multiobjective owner, as this group tends
also to value the environmental benefits of forest
ownership.
The hobby owner. Forest owners of this type more
often attach importance to the forest as a place for
hobby activities than the other owner groups do,
whether it is their hobby to tend the forest and do
forest work, to go hunting or simply to recreate. Like
the classic forest owner, owners of this type also value
the aesthetic and biodiversity aspects of their forests,
whereas they perceive their forest to be of far less
financial importance than classic forest owners do.
This group includes 29.8% of the applied part of the
sample (1220 respondents) and the forest area owned
by the group makes up 13.1% of the area. Taking the
composition of the sample into account and distributing incomplete observations proportionally, the estimated share of hobby owners in the original
population of private forest owners is 34% and the
corresponding share of the private forest area is 23%.
The average forest area possessed by this owner type
is the smallest among the three groups, the average
forest size being 26.9 ha. In addition, forests owned by
this owner group have the lowest share of deciduous
species. The hobby owner tends to have a weaker
agricultural affiliation than the other two owner types,
particularly the indifferent farmer, in terms of owning

52

T. E. Boon et al.

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

Table 5. Owner and forest characteristics by owner clusters

Characteristic

Classic owner

Hobby owner

87.2
12.8a
52.3a
19.5a
26.9a
73.1a
91.2a
46.3a
533.9a

85.7
14.3a
51.6a
17.2b
15.7b
84.3b
26.9b
28.7b
531.3a

Type of ownership
One person (%)
The family (%)
Other (%)
Residence by forest (%)

76.9a
19.6a
2.8a
77.4a

70.5b
25.3b
2.5a
74.7a

73.2ab
21.4ab
4.5a
78.1a

Agricultural affiliation
Own agricultural land (%)
Agricultural education (%)
Full-time farmer (%)
Full-time forest owner (%)
Grew up on farm with forest (%)
Grew up on farm without forest (%)

82.0a
59.7a
35.2a
14.2a
58.8a
16.0a

77.1a
44.1b
30.0a
4.1b
43.3b
20.9b

83.5a
63.4a
47.3b
7.6b
50.0b
27.7b

Days spent annually in forest (total)

142a

125b

80c

Days spent annually on

Hunting
Recreation/outdoor life
Work in the forest

9a
64a
51a

10a
63a
29b

3b
37b
28b

Forest map exists (%)

36.2a

17.9b

13.4b

Long-term planning exists (%)

18.2a

8.3b

7.1b

Main decision maker (%)

Forest owner
Forest owner with family, friends, co-owners
Forest owner with forestry expert
Family, friend, expert or other

33.0a
17.4ab
43.6a
5.4a

44.3b
22.0a
28.1b
4.1a

45.5b
15.2b
29.0b
7.6a

7.6a

5.8b

4.1c

Men (%)
Women (%)
Mean age (yrs)
Mean duration of ownership (yrs)
East of Storeblt (%)
Jutland and Funen (%)
Mean forested area (ha)
Deciduous species share of area (%)
Mean household income (1000 DKK yr 1)

Silvicultural activity index+

Indifferent farmer

84.4a
15.6a
53.6a
19.8a
12.5b
87.5b
32.9b
36.4c
503.6a

From 0 /no activity within the past 5 yrs, to 14 /on average 14 different activity types within the past 5 yrs (e.g. cutting
firewood, clear-cutting, harvesting greenery and Christmas trees, soil preparation).
Different letters (a, b, c) are used for values that are significantly different at the 5% level.

farmland (77%), agricultural education (44%), own

perception of being a full-time farmer (30%) and
having grown up on a farm (64%). Hobby owners
slightly more often tend to have family-owned forests
and to live further away from the forest than do the
other two groups. They also spend more days in the
forest (125 yr 1) than the indifferent farmer (80 yr 1),
but fewer than the classic forest owner (145 yr 1).
Since, on average, hobby owners live further away

from their forest, the frequent visits are the more

remarkable.
This group shares characteristics with the recreationist as well as the self-employed owner types
described earlier.
The indifferent farmer. Forest owners of this type
are characterized by being generally more indifferent
towards various benefits of being a forest owner than
the other two groups. The only aspects that have some

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

sort of importance are, as mentioned above, the

aesthetic value of the forest and the diversity of flora
and fauna.
This group includes 18.4% (224) of the applied part
of the sample and the forest area owned by the group
makes up 9.8% of the area. Taking the composition of
the sample into account and distributing incomplete
observations proportionally, the estimated share of
indifferent farmers in the original population of
private forest owners in Denmark is 27% and the
corresponding share of the private forest area is 15%.
This owner type is characterized by its strong
agricultural affiliation compared with the other
groups. As many as 84% own agricultural land, 63%
have an agricultural education and 47% of the
respondents primarily see themselves as full-time
farmers (compared with 35 and 30% of the respondents in the other two groups). Although on average
owning slightly more forest land (32.9 ha) than the
hobby owners (26.9 ha), representatives of the indifferent farmer spend fewer days in their own forest (80
days yr1 on average). In particular, less time is spent
on recreation, whereas working days are as frequent
for the indifferent farmer as for the hobby owners.
This is noteworthy as indifferent farmers more frequently than the other two owner types live close to
their forest property.
This group shows similarity with the passive owner
described earlier, but also with the universally interested owner identified by Becker et al. (2000).
Owners not included in these clusters. Owing to
missing or incomplete responses, as many as 766
(38.6%) of the owners in the original sample (see
Table 2) were not included in the above clusters. Out of
these, 433 were non-respondents. The area owned by
owners not included in the clusters makes up 37.1% of
the total forest area included in the sample. The
average forest size in this group is 57.6 ha. As will
appear from Fig. 2, the average responses of those 333
respondents who did not respond to all 16 questions in
Table 3 are similar to the overall sample averages and
it therefore seems reasonable to assume that their
distribution to the three owner types is similar to that
of the rest of the sample.
Consequences of sampling for clusters
The clustering procedure was based on a forest owner
sample with overrepresentation of owners of large
tracts of land compared with the population of forest
owners (see Table 2). This was done to ensure a

Typology of private forest owners in Denmark

53

sufficient sample of those relatively few, large owners

owning the main share of the forest area. Analysis of
the current clustering showed that the smaller the
forest area of an owner, the more owners fell within
the cluster of hobby owners or indifferent farmers, and
the fewer fell within the cluster of classic owner.
Owners of the smallest forest areas fell equally within
the three clusters, whereas most of the large forest
owners fell within the cluster of classic owners.
If the cluster procedure had been carried out on a
sample representative of the population of forest
owners, the many small forest owners would have
dominated the sample and, thus, the resulting clusters.
This would have been likely to homogenize the three
clusters and, eventually, the classic owner cluster
might have fallen out.

DISCUSSION
The forest owners could be segmented into distinct
subgroups that could be clearly differentiated by their
ownership objectives. As a consequence, forest policy
and advice need to be formulated for and targeted at
these distinct target groups. A discussion follows on
how the results may be interpreted and what implications they may have for the choice of forest policy
tools and forest management advice for each of the
three forest owner groups.
The classic forest owner
This group of owners is of significant political interest
as it represents a great share of the forest area. This
group can be motivated by financial instruments,
including the provision of compensation or subsidies
for undertaking specific measures to increase recreational values or to protect the environment or
particular species. However, as they have a strongly
felt and fairly diverse set of objectives and values
attached to their ownership and forest property, they
will only react to financial instruments to the point
where they feel that the relative loss of other objectives
outbalances further publicly compensated initiatives.
At any rate, the many different objectives and the
seemingly more professional approach in pursuit of
goals observed in this group of forest owners may
imply that society will find many social objectives
taken well care of. This is likely to be true for issues
such as preserving landscape and aesthetic values,
preserving biodiversity hotspots and wildlife management. One important issue where the preferences are

54

T. E. Boon et al.

likely to differ may be the recreational values and

various particular uses of the forest by the public. This
issue was debated intensely in Denmark during the
1990s.
This group is likely to be well represented by, for
example, the Danish Forest Association, an organization that involves many forest owners, particularly
owners with estates larger than average.
The hobby owner
The hobby owner is the second largest owner group.
This owner type is motivated not so much by financial
concerns, but rather by his or her basic interest in the
forest. Financial instruments may influence this owner
type to undertake actions in accordance with his or
her objectives, but they may be unnecessary. Information and extension services may be equally effective
and more efficient, e.g. instructing forest owners how
to improve biodiversity and undertake nature restoration.
The finding that this owner group is less motivated
by considerations concerning the economic returns of
their forest is a repeated phenomenon in the literature.
For example, Lonnstedt (1989) finds that non-farmers
have less financial inducements to cut, and letting the
forest grow is therefore a fair and easy alternative.
The organization to represent this group may be the
Danish Forest Association, but it may also be reached
through Danish Forestry Extension or DDH, a
consultancy firm.
The indifferent farmer
The indifferent farmer own smaller forests, on average,
and not much of the land in total. As the indifferent
farmer to a lesser extent pursues explicit goals in his or
her forest management and seems to put less weight on
typical externalities demanded by society, he or she
represents perhaps the most difficult forest owner type
for policy makers to influence. It may therefore be
worthwhile for forest policy makers to try to identify
forests owned by this group and see whether these
forests represent particularly interesting forest types,
or can be considered average forest, in which case the
problem of reaching these owners becomes less
important.
This group of owners could probably be reached
through, for example, farmers associations. The
Danish Forest Extension Service organizes a considerable number of smaller forest owners, but the indifferent farmer group may not show enough interest

Scand. J. For. Res. 19(Suppl. 4) (2004)

in the forest to be willing to pay even the rather limited

amount for the expertise of this extension service.
Future research
Further analyses of the data used in this study may
produce significant information on forest owner types
and characteristics. First, the data should be investigated to assess the degree to which the identified types
differ with respect to the use of information channels,
extension services and organizational associations.
Second, owing to incomplete responses, a rather large
group of forest owners (333 respondents) was not
associated with any of the three owner types. Further
analyses may reveal whether they, or a sufficiently
large subset of them, share enough characteristics to
represent a separate, fourth owner type, or whether
they can be associated with the three existing owner
types as assumed here. Finally, the actual practices of
forest owners should be investigated, as an attitudebased owner typology improves the effectiveness of
policy instruments only to the extent that forest owner
attitudes and actual behaviour are causally linked.
Such causality is questioned, by Bieling (2004), for
instance, who found that forest owners perceive their
own management as close to nature, irrespective of
their actual practices and the state of the forest, and
Egan & Jones (1993), who found only a weak relationship between owner attitudes and actual practices.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful for the comments on this paper made
by Dr Claudia Bieling, Freiburg University, and by
participants at the IUFRO Conference on the Forest
Policy/Forest Science Interface in Frederiksdal, Denmark, June 2003.
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