Our relationships with forests define the future forests: a case of national institutions and personal perceptions of private forest owners and forest professionals in Finland

Description

Our attitudes toward forests can be defined as human-forest relationships. These relationships are the result of our national context, the society where we live, cultural background, family and individual aspects, and of course, forests surrounding us. Human-forest relationships combine both historical and modern values and practices, reflecting the constantly evolving global, national, communal, and individual aims for future forests.
Several disciplines have scrutinized people’s relationships with surrounding nature from various viewpoints, although partly disregarding forests’ unique characters and importance for societies and local communities. Our ongoing research asks what kind of relationships with forests are defined in national institutions, and expressed among private forest owners and forest professionals. The importance of research results lies especially in two grounds to which human-forest relationships affect, firstly, the acceptance or changes of current forest management practices, and secondly, activities in mitigating climate change securing our common future.
The main data consist of selected national forest institutions and around 100 in-depth interviews of private forest owners and forest professionals. Qualitative data are analyzed in a theoretical framework consisting of both new institutionalism and phenomenological and narrative approaches in a multidisciplinary combination of social sciences, forest policy, and ethnology.
Preliminary results reveal emerging changes in forest institutions that strengthen non-economic aims. Both private forest owners and forest professionals are partly in a state of confusion pondering what are the right institutions and actions for a sustainable future. We discuss the human-forest relationships that exist both at the national level and among individual stakeholders. We aim also to clarify the importance of existing human-forest relationships for conflict resolution and sustainable forestry.

Period	2 May 2022 → 6 May 2022
Event title	XV WORLD FORESTRY CONGRESS: Building a Green, Healthy and Resilient Future with Forests
Event type	Conference
Location	Coex, SeoulShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International