Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (November 8, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (November 13, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 2004. / Appendix includes reprints of four papers and manuscripts co-authored with others. Also issued electronically via World Wide Web in PDF format.

Detailed information about the services and associated fees provided by consulting foresters informs forestland owners about the range of management practices available to them and their related costs. This information also allows consulting foresters to compare their fees and services with others. Mississippi’s consulting foresters completed a survey used to determine what management services they provided to landowners and the related fees for those services in 2012 - 2013. The survey addressed a comprehensive array of management services, aggregated by topic such as forest management, timber sale administration, timber cruising, and other management activities. Summary statistics determine the range of services Mississippi consultants provide and the associated fees. Further analysis determined if consultant characteristics such as years of experience and membership in professional organizations such as the Society of American Foresters and the Association of Consulting Foresters were associated with differences in services offered and fees charged.

When restored to full ecological function, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests are among the most diverse forest ecosystems in the world. For the last several decades, substantial amount of efforts has taken place on public land, comparably less work has been accomplished on private lands towards longleaf pine restoration. The overall goal of this research was to examine the factors influencing the application of prescribed fire for ecological restoration on private land. This research employed both qualitative and quantitative method to explore challenges and opportunities for restoring the ecosystem. The survey examined interest among the forest landowners and general public regarding longleaf pine restoration management using prescribed fire. Key informant interviews examined factors associated with the decision making for the use of prescribed fire. Research findings have implications for designing and implementing policy instruments and improving landowners’ decision regarding processes.

This study models the timber market entry decisions of nonindustrial private landowners. It involves examining reservation prices both for harvesting timber from existing forest land and for afforestation of marginal agricultural and abandoned land. An important conclusion drawn from these models is that financial returns are not the only drivers of these decisions. Preferences for amenities derived from forests and farmland are also important. An empirical model follows which characterizes willingness to accept for various landowner groups in Virginia and Mississippi. We identify preferences and characteristics of landowners and features of forest sites that are important to the unobserved price specific to each landowner. Estimation results are also used to assess the size of payments needed to encourage harvesting or conversion from agricultural to forest uses with 50% probability. The determination of reservation prices for landowners in different regions aids in forecasting potential timber supplies from NIPF lands that are either actively managed for timber production or are not, as well as from marginal land not yet in forests, under different policy and pricing scenarios. Furthermore, it gives insight into evolving land use patterns. / Ph. D.

Recent emphasis on producing energy from woody biomass has raised questions about the impact of a vibrant wood-to-energy market on the southern wood supply chain, which consists of forest landowners, forest industry mills, and harvesting contractors. This study utilized two surveys of southern wood supply chain participants and a designed operational study of an energywood harvest to investigate the impact of an expanded wood-to-energy market on each member of the southern wood supply chain. First, a survey of consulting foresters was conducted to examine how harvest tract size, forest ownership, and forest industry structure have changed within the U.S. South and how foresters expect the wood-to-energy market to impact the wood supply chain in the future. Second, this study employed a mail survey of forest landowners, forest industry mills, and wood-to-energy facilities from the thirteen southern states in order to investigate expected competition for resources, wood supply chain profitability, and landowner willingness to sell timber to energy facilities. Third, this study conducted a designed operational study on a southern pine clearcut in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina, with three replications of three harvest prescriptions to measure harvesting productivity and costs when harvesting woody biomass for energy. The three treatments were: a Conventional roundwood only harvest (control), an Integrated harvest in which roundwood was delivered to traditional mills and residuals were chipped for energy, and a Chip harvest in which all stems were chipped for energy use. Results from the two surveys suggest that timber markets are inadequate in many areas of the South as a result of expanded timber supply and reduced forest products industry capacity. Only 12% of responding landowners and foresters had sold wood to an energy facility, indicating that wood-to-energy markets are non-existent in many areas of the South. Nonetheless, 98% of consulting foresters and 90% of landowners reported a willingness to sell timber to an energy facility if the right price were offered. Consulting foresters expected wood-to-energy facilities to provide an additional market for wood, and not displace forest products industry capacity. However, two-thirds of consulting foresters, wood-to-energy facilities, and private landowners expected competition between mills and energy facilities while 95% of fibermills (pulp/paper and composite mills) expected competition. Fibermills were much more concerned about competition for resources and increases in wood costs than any other member of the southern wood supply chain. The operational study documented the challenges facing some harvesting contractors in economically producing energywood. Onboard truck roundwood costs increased from $9.35 green t-1 in the Conventional treatment to $10.98 green t-1 in the Integrated treatment as a result of reduced felling and skidding productivity. Energy chips were produced for $19.19 green t-1 onboard truck in the Integrated treatment and $17.93 green t-1 in the Chip treatment. Energywood harvesting costs were higher in this study than in previous research that employed loggers with less expensive, more fuel efficient equipment. This suggests that high capacity, wet-site capable loggers may not be able to economically harvest and transport energywood without a substantial increase in energywood prices. This study suggests that the southern wood supply chain is in position to benefit from a vibrant wood-to-energy market. Landowners should benefit from an additional market for small-diameter stems. This study shows that high production, wet-site capable loggers should not harvest energywood until prices for this material appreciate considerably. Wet-site loggers have very expensive equipment with high hourly fuel consumption rates and this study documented that energywood production was not sufficiently high to offset the high hourly cost of owning and operating this equipment. Nevertheless, a wood-to-energy market should benefit harvesting contractors in general because unless the forest products industry contracts further, loggers can continue to harvest and deliver roundwood to mills as they do at present and those properly equipped for energywood harvesting at low cost may be able to profit from a new market. The forest products industry has the largest potential downside of any member of the southern wood supply chain. This study documents widespread anticipation of competition between the forest products and wood-to-energy industries. However, to date there has been minimal wide-scale competition between the forest products and wood-to-energy industries. It is possible that the wood-to-energy industry will complement, rather than compete with the forest products industry, and thereby benefit each member of the southern wood supply chain. / Ph. D.

This research project developed a prototype model for optimizing silvicultural investment on an industrial ownership in central Maine. The model was based on the Model I harvest scheduling formulation of Johnson and Scheurman (1977). The linear programming based model incorporated a choice of three objective functions (cost minimization, present net worth maximization, and woodflow maximization) subject to limited land area, investment levels, and required woodflows. The model incorporated data from a 150,000 acre study area but was developed with the intention that it be easily expandable to the entire 920,000 acre ownership as data becomes available. The study also considered the possibility of moving the ownership to a more balanced age class distribution. This consideration is overshadowed at the present time by an impending softwood shortage. / Master of Science

An experiential forest and wildlife management training program, based on the adoption-diffusion model, was conducted for 49 nonindustrial private forestland (NIPF) owners. Participant-owners were surveyed 6 months after their training to monitor adoption and diffusion activity. Owners who were nominated by local natural resources professionals adopted significantly more management innovations than those owners not nominated. Farmers demonstrated the most adoption and diffusion activity, business people the least. Farmers and business people were more oriented towards timber production objectives than others, professionals were more oriented towards wildlife management objectives. An a priori developed predictive opinion-leadership model was not correlated with either adoption or diffusion activity. Owners living less than 8 km from their tract spent significantly more time in dissemination efforts than others, as did those who had voluntarily stated an intrinsic motivation to "share what they learned" upon application to the project. Those owners who had gained extensive knowledge from past contact with natural resource professionals were significantly more active in adoption-diffusion activity than others, and those with self-perceived high interpersonal skills engaged significantly more peer owners in diffusion efforts than did others. Size of forest ownership, time residing in a community, primary objectives for owning forestland, and number of local leadership positions held had no significant effect upon adoption diffusion activity by NIPF owners. A significant and negative correlation was found between an owner's self-perceived level of education and one-onone diffusion outreach activity. NIPF owners were generally ambivalent about involvement in informal resource management clubs. It is suggested that future educational projects conducted for NIPF owners be scheduled for late winter or spring versus the fall season, particularly if a short (6 mo.) monitoring of adoption and diffusion activity is a constraint. This investigator hypothesizes that the same methodology used in this study of adoption-diffusion behavior of NIPF owners would be effective in instructing opinion-leading, professional change agents about adoption diffusion theory and techniques. / Master of Science

The purpose of this study was to analyze landowner perceptions of an ecosystem management program proposed by The Nature Conservancy. This creation of this program, The Forest Bank, is an attempt to protect the unique ecological and biological resources of the Clinch River Valley of Southwest Virginia. This study analyzed the attitudes and characteristics of landowners that contribute to their decision to enroll in such a program. Data were collected by a 8-page mail questionnaire sent to 2000 landowners in a five-county area of Southwest Virginia. The final sample size resulting from this effort was 816 landowner surveys, representing an overall response rate of 45%. Two separate analyses were undertaken with respect to this data, each representing a unique and informative approach to landowners and The Forest Bank. The first analysis summarizes how landowners perceived the individual components of the program, their level of interest in enrollment, and what types of landowners would be most likely to express interest in such a program. Twenty-three percent of landowners expressed interest in enrolling in The Forest Bank at some time. In general, those interested in enrollment perceived the individual components of the program differently than those who were not interested in enrolling. Landowners who expressed enrollment interest were more likely to be younger, more affluent, more educated than those who did not express interest in enrollment. The second analysis employed a structural equation model in order to determine what attitudes and motivations influence attitudes toward an ecosystem management program such as The Forest Bank. Variables such as attitudes toward property rights, environmental attitudes, trust in sources of information, and level of community attachment were included in this model. Results indicate that while attitudes toward property rights and the environment were not as important as previous literature suggested, landowner reasons for owning land were key indicators in determining attitudes toward The Forest Bank. Results from this study provide valuable information to managers and researchers concerning landowner attitudes toward ecosystem management and their level of interest in enrolling in an ecosystem management program. This information will help managers better understand how landowners perceive individual components of these types of programs, as well as determining the types of landowners who would be interested in enrolling. These findings can then be used to tailor programs that are more consistent with landowner objectives, and to better understand the complex attitudes and characteristics of private forest / Master of Science