Characteristics of Minnesota's nonindustrial private forest landowners

The shift of fiber production from public to private forestlands has made nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) lands an important source of timber for the forest products industry and an important source of non timber benefits for the public. To meet the public's demand for a reasonably priced timber and non timber resource, NIPF lands must be made more productive with forest management assistance. Nonetheless, landowner interests have only recently been incorporated into the NIPF policy development process. Thus, forest management programs targeted at NIPF landowners have failed to generate widespread interest. One viable approach is to target programs at groups of landowners with shared characteristics. This way the most number of landowners is reached effectively and efficiently. This study evaluates the characteristics of Minnesota's NIPF landowners and the relationship of these characteristics to forest management and forest management-program participation. The rationale for this project is therefore to identify landowner characteristics that underlie forest management behavior. Unlike other studies that examine the relationship between landowner characteristics and participation in specific management programs, this study used a random sample of Minnesota NIPF landowners. Landowners with holdings greater than 5 acres were included in the analysis. Some variables were collapsed to make general inferences about the relationship between NIPF landowner management behavior and management incentives. Minnesota NIPF landowners are concerned with the sustainability of their land as forestland. Most are active forest managers and most managers manage without the use of Management Assistance . A good deal of Unassisted Management is conservation management—tree planting, forest regeneration, and management to improve the environment. Moreover, most, including cost-share assistance users, are willing and able to implement forest management without financial assistance. Age is an important characteristic in explaining management behavior and conservation values. Tax incentives are most relevant to landowners. Nonetheless, few take advantage of them. This study suggests ways to increase the number of landowners adopting forest management programs but it falls short of confirming whether forest Management Assistance does increase the output of forest goods from NIPF land. This would be an important future study.