Characterizing owners of fast-growing forest plantations in South America’s afforestation systems

Abstract

The global adoption of policies promoting sustainable forest management faces challenges, particularly in nations with predominantly privately-owned forests. To address this, there is growing support for fast-growing forest plantations. Typologies of private forest owners emerged worldwide as a tool to understand forest management practices and the engagement with promotion policies considering socio-economic variables, behavior, and perceptions of forest activities. This study aimed to identify fast-growing forest plantation owner types based on socioeconomic factors and assess if these types matched with different forest management practices and attitudes toward forest promotion policies in South America. Using a case of study in Argentina, we carried out surveys among Eucalyptus forest owners (n = 74). We categorized them based on their production activities, forest plantation area, and years in forestry using Principal Component Analysis and cluster analysis. Following, we associated these groups with forest management variables and national promotion policies using indicator species analysis. We delineated eight groups: Large, Small and Integrated Forest Owners; Longstanding and New Agricultural-cattle ranching Forest Owners; Large and Small multi productive Forest Owners; and Citrus Forest Owners. Extra-forest productive activities emerged as the most influential variable in constructing our typology. Larger groups tended to exhibit significant associations with innovative management practices, while smaller groups did not. Longstanding forest owners favored maintaining traditional practices, whereas new recommendations were adopted primarily by newer owners. Overall, there was a general trend, but some groups exhibited non-linear associations, suggesting a combined effect of producer size, experience on forestry and productive culture.