Factors shaping consulting foresters' services to family forest landowners

Abstract

Consulting foresters provide a wide range of services to forest landowners. These services play a crucial role in meeting the many goals of forest landowners and maintaining sustainable, healthy forests. There is limited information about the extent to which foresters engage in consulting work to fulfill the forest management objectives of family forest landowners (FFLs). Using the online survey tool Qualtrics, we sent survey questions to registered foresters from West Gulf Coastal Plain regions of the United States (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas). In this study, we described registered foresters' employment level of practicing consulting work (full-time vs part-time) and used a dichotomous logistic regression model to quantify the practice of consulting forestry by foresters (full-time vs. part-time), impacts of foresters' socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., age and income), landowners' forestland characteristics (e.g., forest types- pine and mixed), and services requested by landowners (e.g., site preparation, planting, thinning, and timber sale) on the choice of practicing consulting foresters. Results indicate about two-thirds (63 %) of the respondents were practicing as full-time consultants, and the remaining were considered part-time. Full-time foresters had a higher number of clients and clients with larger pine forestland (p < 0.05). In addition, consultant income was negatively significant with the level of employment (p < 0.05). Designing and developing outreach programs that facilitate awareness of and use of the benefits of technical services provided by consulting foresters could improve forest management returns among FFLs.

Keywords

• Consulting foresters
• Family forest landowners (FFLs)
• Survey
• Employment