Private forest owners' communication networks: Exploring the structural basis for cross-boundary cooperation

Sustainable management of forests must include private forestland and private forest landowners. The number of family forest owners (10.4 million) creates a significant challenge for sustainable management of forests. But the challenge goes beyond the number of people involved because sustainable management of forest ecosystems also requires coordination of management across ownerships and physical scales over time. How can the cross-boundary collaboration needed to achieve such coordination be achieved on family forestland? This study addresses this question through identifying the structure and basis of two sets of Wisconsin private forest owners' forest related communication ties to gain an understanding of how these ties can contribute to, or interfere with, cross-boundary collaboration. Thirty-one Wisconsin private forest owners participated in semi-structured interviews. Seventeen participants in were members of a Wisconsin Family Forests alliance. The second set of participants was comprised of fourteen forest owners in an adjoining township who were not members of WFF.This dissertation is organized into four chapters. The first chapter establishes the rationale for this research. It also provides an overview of the theoretical frameworks that guide the study and a review of the private forest owner literature. Chapters two and three are structured as individual manuscripts. The second chapter discusses the dimensions underlying participating forest landowners' choice of communication partner. The questions addressed are: to whom do forest landowners go when seeking advice or information regarding their woodlands and what characteristics influence the selection of an individual as an information source. The third chapter examines the communication networks of study participants as they relate to forest-based issues. The analysis of network structure advances our awareness and knowledge of private forest owners as individuals embedded in a social structure. In chapter four, the results from chapters two and three are discussed in relation to the potential for cross-boundary cooperation among private forest owners.