Southern Wisconsin Landowner Study

By Jim Dalton, Fourth Quarter 2002

Background

In Wisconsin, some 260,000 nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners hold 11 million acres—61% percent of all forestland—and account for 64% of all timber harvested during the past 15 years. Landowners across the state have a variety of options for learning about and managing their forestland. The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of membership in landowner organizations and/or participation in the Managed Forest Law program (MFL) on forest management planning and behavior.

Approach

We conducted a self-administered mail survey of 850 current NIPF landowners in Iowa, Richland, and Sauk counties beginning in September 2001. Our randomly selected sample was drawn from four different sources: membership records from the Sustainable Woods Cooperative (SWC) and the Wisconsin Woodlands Owners Association (WWOA), MFL enrollees, and forest property owners identified on Iowa, Richland, and Sauk Counties tax rolls. Our useable response rate was 70%. Since our sample was not intended to be representative of all landowners in the three-county region, our findings are limited to comparison between MFL participants, members of organizations, and those involved in neither.

Findings

Management planning
Management planning is considered by many foresters to be a critical first step on an NIPF owner’s path to good stewardship. Since the MFL requires management plans for enrollment, 100% of MFL enrollees reported having a management plan. Of non-MFL enrollees and non-members in the study area, 19% had written management plans; for NIPF owner organizational members not in the MFL, 64% had written plans.

Forest practices
MFL enrollees, regardless of NIPF organization membership, were more likely to engage in forest management practices in the last three years than those who were not enrolled in MFL and were not members of NIPF organizations. Non-MFL enrollees that were members of WWOA and/or SWC had similar levels of management activities to those enrolled in the MFL.

Self-reported management activities MFL enrollees, members and non-members Non-MFL, members
Non-MFL, nonmembers

• Written management plan 100% 64% 19%
• Improved wildlife habitat (last 3 years) 71% 64% 43%
• Harvested timber (last 3 years) 40% 38% 22%
• Planted trees (last 3 years) 67% 56% 37%
• Thinned the forest (last 3 years) 78% 79% 52%

Conclusions

Our complete findings (not reported here) suggest that members of SWC, WWOA, or both in the study area were more likely to engage in a wider range of management practices (e.g., invasive species control, recreational improvements, property improvement) than all others. However, the MFL does ensure that management planning will occur. Also, traditional forest practices are more likely to occur on MFL lands than on the lands of non-MFL enrollees and non-members of WWOA and SWC.

The USDA Forest Service Wood Education and Resource Center and the Renewable Resources Extension Act funded this study.