Available online at www.notulaebotanicae.ro
 Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
 Print ISSN 0255-965X; Electronic 1842-4309
 Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici
 Cluj-Napoca
 Policy Options for Private Forest Owners in Western Balkans:
 A ualitative Study
 Mersudin AVDIBEGOVI?1), Dragan NONI?2), Stjepan POSAVEC3), Nenad PETROVI?2), Bruno 
MARI?1), Vojislav MILIJI?2), Silvija KRAJTER3), Florin IORAS4), Ioan Vasile ABRUDAN5)
 1)University of Sarajevo, 20 Zagrebacka St., 71 000 Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegoina; mavdibegoic@hotmail.com
 2)University of Belgrade, 1, Kneza Vi?eslava St., 11030 Belgrade, Serbia; dnonic@eunet.rs
 3)University of Zagreb, 25, Sveto?imunska St., 10000 Zagreb, Croatia; posavec@sumfak.hr
 4)Buckinghamshire New University, Queen Alexandra Road, Bucks HP11 2JZ-High Wycombe, United Kingdom; Florin.Ioras@bucks.ac.uk
 5)Transilania University, 1 Sirul Beethoen St., 500123 Braso, Romania; abrudan@unitbv.ro
 Abstract
 Private forest owners start to play an important role in Western Balkans? forestry and they are essential to the successful implementation 
of environmental policies. Little is known about how forest policy can support private forest owners in these countries and therefore this 
study was conducted though a qualitative method, based on personal interviews with representatives of 54 stakeholders that include 
state forest authorities and administration, private forest owners associations, forest science and research and private sector in Bosnia 
Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. e results show signicant homogeneity across the region towards creation of independent interest 
forest owners associations based on nancial support. Regression analysis identied stakeholder attitudes as signicant predictors of 
policy preferences and also identied owners of production forest as more supportive of such policies.
 Keywords: Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, forest owners associations.
 Introduction
 Countries in Western Balkans (Fig. 1) have embarked 
on a free market economy aer almost 50 years of centrally 
planned one. Forest was considered a state asset during the 
socialist period and aer the political and state changes 
that were encountered in the ex Yugoslavia area the newly 
formed states started to return back the forest to the right-
 ful owners. Private forests are nowadays an important item 
for consideration in the forest policy and strategy of Bos-
 nia Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.
 Forests in Serbia cover approximately 2.2 million ha, 
which corresponds to 29.1% of the country?s territory. 
Share of private and state forests in Serbia, according to 
the latest available data is almost equal. Area of private for-
 ests is 1.058.400 ha, which is approximately 47% of total 
forest area (Bankovi? et al., 2008). 
Forest cover in Croatia amounts to 2.572.957 ha, out of 
which 581.770 ha (22.6%) are privately owned (?avlovi? 
et al., 2005). Almost all (99% or 576.832 ha) of private 
forests are production forests. 
About 52% of the surface of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
(BiH) is covered by forest and forest lands (Visnjic et al., 
2009). BiH is divided in two entities: the Federation of 
BiH (FBiH) which is divided in 10 cantons, the Repub-
 lika Srpska (RS) and forestry is regulated dierently in 
the two entities. e private forest in RS covers 228.874 
ha and respectively 293.563 ha in FBiH, which represent 
20% of the total national forest area (Anon, 2003).
 e private forest ownership in Western Balkans is 
characterized by high fragmentation of properties, large 
number of forest lots and large number of forest owners 
along with insucient organization of forest manage-
 ment. More than 72% of owners have properties smaller 
than 1 ha, 26% own properties sized from 1 to 10 ha and 
only 2% of total number of forest owners have forest prop-
 erties bigger than 10 ha (Martinic et al., 2009). Legislation 
frame is not adequate to the situation as it reects mostly 
the administration and management needs of state owned 
forests. Private forest owners have little will to join an as-
 sociative structure such as a Private Forest Organization 
(PFO). Under such circumstances there are many chal-
 lenges that need immediate attention (e.g. sound manage-
 ment of private forests, establishment and management of 
PFOs), but there are some more comprehensive problems 
that go beyond the scope of forestry (e.g. ownership rights, 
rural development etc.), which should be addressed as they 
have a strong impact on private forest management. 
Despite the fact that democratic changes have occurred 
in Western Balkans more than 8 years ago and the number 
of private forest area exceeds 2,2 million in the case study 
countries, still the organization of forest owners is in an in-
Avdibegoi?, M. et al. / Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
 258
 of associations with the aim of providing common goods. 
e dierence is that members of large groups, which Ol-
 son calls ?latent groups?, do not see a clear interest in pro-
 viding common goods on their own expense and oen act 
as ?free riders?. Members of latent groups oen expect that 
common goods will be provided at the expense of some-
 one else, which like them recognize the importance of the 
association. Based on Olson?s theory, large number of pri-
 vate forest owners in Western Balkans, can be considered 
today as latent groups. 
Methodology
 e authors of this article conducted ?in-depth? in-
 terviews with a qualitative analysis methodological ap-
 proach ( Jones, 1985; Lamnek, 1995; Gl?ck and Mayer, 
1996; Neuman, 2006) as part of the PRIFORT project 
that was nanced by the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture 
and Forestry, Environment and Water Management. is 
methodology was used for assessing the attitude of forest 
policy makers and representatives of relevant institutions 
and organizations towards the establishment and develop-
 ment of forest owners associations in Bosnia Herzegovina, 
Croatia and Serbia 
e interviewed stakeholder groups were categorized 
in (a) public administration and public forest enterprises, 
(b) forest science and research organisations, (c) associa-
 tions of private forest owners and private forest enterprises 
and (d) other interest group in the forestry sector. e 
total number of respondents was 54, with an overall re-
 sponse rate of 56%.
 e survey covered the following topics: (i) private 
forest management and sustainability, (ii) forest owners? 
homogeneity/diversity, (iii) legislative support for devel-
 opment of forest owners? associations, (iv) state and non-
 state nancial support, (v) voluntary versus obligatory 
membership of private forest owners association (PFOA), 
(vi) presence of a national umbrella association of private 
forest owners associations and (vii) services to be supplied 
by the PFOA. 
e independent variables considered were individual 
characteristics of landowners and their forests. Such char-
 acteristics consist of landowners attitudes, types of forest 
and socio-demographic variables.  
Attitudes examined in this paper included ownership 
motivation and responsibility related to owning and sus-
 tainability in the Western Balkans: legacy, nancial sup-
 port, forest owner sustainability responsibility (continu-
 ous regression factor scores).
 Two forest type variables were used according to the 
main management goal of the forest: production and con-
 servation.
 Individual characteristics included several socio-de-
 mographic characteristics: age, education (measured with 
categories of high school, technical school, university 
degree), income (measured with categories of less than 
cipient stage. A possible scenario for the region that is sup-
 ported by international donors such as the World Bank, 
UNDP, is the establishment of independent voluntary 
forest owners association, which would represent owners? 
interests (World Bank, 2009). 
However, beside voluntary organization of forest own-
 ers, in some European countries, such as Austria and Slove-
 nia, there are owners organizations with obligatory mem-
 bership for all forest owners from a certain territory. In 
addition, there are forest owners associations established 
on the principle of selective incentives, especially nancial 
ones (Nonic et al., 2006).
 e main goal of forest owners associations should be 
the representation of forest owners interests and establish-
 ment of partnerships between dierent groups of forest 
owners, along with denition and promotion of their mu-
 tual interests, and participation in forest policy processes. 
is could enable forest owners to take an active role in 
formulation of related laws and other relevant forestry 
documents, which has not been the case yet in Western 
Balkans.
 According to the Group theory (Bentley, 1949; 
Latham, 1952), which claims that all people, with a com-
 mon interest will associate for representation of those in-
 terests, it can be assumed that strong association of forest 
owners in Western Balkans should be established. Howev-
 er, at present situation is dierent, since there is very little 
done towards establishment of such organization in the 
case study countries.
 e theory of collective action, tried to explain such 
phenomena (Olson, 1965). is theory suggests that small 
and large groups do not behave in the same manner. Ac-
 cording to this theory, every association exists in order 
to serve the interests of its members. However, large and 
small groups do not behave the same during establishment 
Fig. 1. Western Balkans map
Avdibegoi?, M. et al. / Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
 259
 ?5,000, ?5.000-10,000, ?10,000-15,000, ?15,000-20,000, 
?20,000-30,000 and more than ?30,000 per year), politi-
 cal anity, residency (absent or resident forest owner, di-
 chotomous) and land tenure 
e dependent variables in this analysis were the main 
tools that inuence de establishment and development 
of forest owners? associations: (i) public support, and 
(ii) only private forest owners support. e dependent 
variables were ranked on a scale from 1 to 5, with the fol-
 lowing meaning: 1-not important, 2-of little importance, 
3-somewhat important, 4-important and 5-very impor-
 tant. A separate regression was conducted for each depen-
 dent variable.
 Multiple linear regression was used to assess the 
stakeholders attitude in shaping private forest policy to-
 wards the establishment and development of private for-
 est owners associations in Western Balkan countries. A 
model-building approach was used in order to identify 
a predictive model that accounts for the most variance 
for the proposed policy tools while attempting to isolate 
the greatest change in variation due to one or more sets 
of variables (Schneider and Ingram, 1990). ree models 
were constructed based on the considered variable groups: 
(i) attitude, (ii) attitude and forest type and (iii) attitude, 
forest and socio-demographic type. e tolerance for vari-
 ance ination factors (VIF) was set not to have high cor-
 relation when one independent variable is regressed on the 
others (VIF<10). 
Results and discussions
 e results of multiple linear regression for the three 
models considered (Model 1-attitude variables, Model 
2-attitude and forest type variables, Model 3-attitude, for-
 est type and socio-demographic variables) in the case of 
public support policy and private support for forest own-
 ers associations are presented in Tab. 1 and Tab. 2.
 In the case of public support policy (Tab. 1), the ini-
 tial model, which used only the attitude variables to ex-
 plain policy preferences regarding support tools, had an 
R2 of 0,252. e attitude variables of nancial support 
and legacy seemed to be signicant. For these variables, as 
attitude importance increases, the support for the policy 
tool increases. Model 2 included forest type (production, 
conservation) indicating that having production forest in-
 creases availability of support. Model 3 added in the socio-
 demographic characteristics. e R2 was 0.408 for the full 
model.
 e regression analysis for private forest owners sup-
 port policy (Tab. 2), model 1 had an R2 of 0.341 and all at-
 titude variables somehow signicant (especially the nan-
 cial support). e full model (Model 3) had an R2 of 0.442 
with production and residential status being signicant 
variables but not the owners right on land use. 
Subsequently analyses were conducted to explore if 
dierences exist between owners of production and con-
 servation forest. e comparison revealed that production 
forest owners did not dier from conservation forest own-
 ers on attitude regarding ownership motivations except for 
sustainability is result indicates somehow contradictory 
that production forest owners value owning the forest for 
sustainability more than conservation forest owners. Pro-
 duction forest owners appear to be conscious of the fact 
that their actions on their forestland can aect the sustain-
 ability and they appear to value that responsibility.
 For both types of policy tools analysed by this article, 
variables that appeared to be signicant in the prediction 
of forest policy decision preferences were nancial support, 
motivation for owning land (legacy), shared responsibility 
for conserving land (public support) and forest type. 
e variable with the strongest inuence on policy 
tools was the nancial support and forest type. is nd-
 ing indicates that those landowners who view their forest 
as a long-term nancial asset are more supportive of asso-
 ciation and lobbying the policy decision makers. 
e large number of private forest owners in each of 
the three countries is certainly an explanation for the lack 
of PFOAs in accordance with Olson?s approach of collec-
 tive action but not a sucient one. In Western Balkans it 
was found that the forest laws currently do not fully sup-
 port private forest owners on achieving sustainable man-
 agement of their forests. 
Tab. 1. Results of multiple linear regression for public support 
policy
 Variables Model 1
 Model 
2
 Model 
3
 Attitudes Legacy 0.248* 0.202* 0.228*
 Financial support 0.401** 0.423** 0.430**
 Owners right 
on land use -0.064 -0.054 -0.022
 Landowner 
sustainability 
responsibility
 0.117 0.138 0.037
 Shared responsibility 
(owner/state) 0.098 0.106 0.094
 Forest type Production - 0.165** 0.294**
 Conservation - -0.110 -1.118
 Socio-
 demographic Age - - -0.091
 Education - - -0.005
 Political anity - - 0.087
 Income - - 0.085
 Tenure - - -0.073
 Residential status - - -0.241*
 Statistics F Statistic 8.145 6.768 4.562
 p-value <0.001 <0.001 <0.001
 df 52 46 32
 R2 (adjusted) 0.252 0.292 0.408
 (0.230) (0.252) (0.323)
 *Signicant variables at p<0.05; **signicant variables at p<0.001
Avdibegoi?, M. et al. / Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
 260
 It was found that the individual private forest owners 
are not a homogeneous group. ey dierentiate accord-
 ing to the size of their forest property and its fragmenta-
 tion, contribution to owners? annual income, awareness of 
legal regulations on forest management, and also with re-
 gard to their education and residential statues. e drivers 
for creation of a PFOA are the owners of relatively large 
forest estates who regard their forest as a gain and they see 
the association as a mechanism to provide resources to the 
interest association. Such a support scenario for a PFOA 
was found in all three countries, particularly in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. 
Conclusions
 is article ndings demonstrate that policies that 
support private forest owners within the Western Balkans 
appeal to the ownership motivations and attitudes about 
sustainability responsibility. e policy makers in the 
Western Balkans need to create an emphasis on the im-
 portance of forest as an investment for the future. While 
stronger attitudes correlate with support for the types of 
policy tools presented in this article, the nature of the at-
 titudes identied as signicant suggest that voluntary/
 symbolic approaches to policy may have a support from 
private forest owners in Western Balkans.
 Most of the participants interviewed by the authors 
consider that the best approach for private forest owners? 
association is a voluntary approach, but they claim that 
this can be done only if nancial initiatives are provided.
 Based on the study, it can be concluded that there are 
certain changes in policy makers? attitudes towards the 
role and signicance of private forest owners and the need 
for their association in order to communicate with a het-
 erogeneous group. ere is a need for direct (nancial) 
support and know how towards creating viable forms of 
association of private forest owners in Western Balkans. 
References
 ANON (2003). National Environnemental Action Plan BiH, 
Federal Ministry of Physical Planning and Environment, 
Sarajevo.
 Bankovi?, S., M. Medarevic and D. Panti? (2008). National 
forest inventory of the Republic of Serbia. 1st ed. Ministry 
of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of the 
Republic of Serbia, Directorate of Forests, Planeta Print.
 Bentley, A. (1949). e Process of Government. Evanston, IL: 
Principia Press.
 ?avlovi?, J, S. Posavec and M. ?por?i? (2005). Small-scale 
private forest management in Croatia, Faculty of Forestry, 
University of Zagreb.
 Gl?ck, P. and P. Mayer (1996). Provision of Recreation: Market 
Place Versus Financial Incentives. Vienna.
 Jones, S. (1985). Depth Interviewing. In: Walker, R. (Ed) 
Applied ualitative Research. Aldershot; Brookeld, VT, 
Gower pp45-55.
 Lamnek, S. (1995). ualitative Sozialforschung, Band 2: 
Methoden und Techniken. 3. Au., Beltz, Psychologie 
Verlags Union, Weinheim pp35-124.
 Latham, E. (1952). e Group Basis of Politics. Ithaca, NY. 
Cornell University Press. 
Martinic, I., S. Posavec and E. Sporcic (2009). Time of intensive 
changes in environmental and forest legislation for Croatian 
forestry. In: Proceeding of the 10th International Symposium, 
IUFRO 6.13.00, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
 Neuman, W. L. (2006). Social Research Methods: ualitative 
and quantitative approaches. 6th ed. Boston, M. A. et al. 
Allyn and Bacon pp378-417.
 Nonic, D., N. Tomic, J. Markovic, P. Herbst and D. Krajcic 
(2006). Organisation of private forest owners in Serbia 
compared to Austria, Slovenia and other Central European 
countries. In: Organization of Private Forest Owners in 
the Central European Countries, IASCP Europe Regional 
Meeting ?Building the European Commons: from Open 
Fields to Open Source?, Brescia, Italy.
 Olson, M. (1965). e Logic of Collective Action. Public 
Goods and the eory of Groups. Harvard University Press, 
Cambridge.
 Schneider, A. and H. Ingram (1990). Behaviour assumptions of 
Tab. 2. Results of multiple linear regression for private forest 
owners support policy
 Variables Model 1
 Model 
2
 Model 
3
 Attitudes Legacy 0.178* 0.152* 0.238*
 Financial support 0.334** 0.342** 0.347**
 Owners right 
on land use -0.182* -0.168* -0.100
 Landowner 
sustainability 
responsibility
 0.237* 0.276* 0.149
 Shared responsibility 
(owner/state) 0.165* 0.171* 0.198*
 Forest type Production - 0.068 0.150*
 Conservation - -0.071 -0.089
 Socio-
 Demographic Age - - 0.158
 Education - - 0.138
 Political anity - - -0.096
 Income - - 0.087
 Tenure - - -0.061
 Residential status - - -0.148*
 Statistics F Statistic 12.138 10.068 5.462
 p-value <.001 <.001 <0.001
 Df 52 46 32
 R2 (adjusted) 0.341 0.369 0.442
 (0.316) (0.335) (0.362)
 *Signicant variables at p<0.05; ** signicant variables at p<0.001
Avdibegoi?, M. et al. / Not. Bot. Hort. Agrobot. Cluj 38 (1) 2010, 257-261
 261
 World Bank (2009). Roots for good forest outcomes: an 
analytical framework for governance reforms. Report No. 
49572-GLB. Washington.
 policy tools. Journal of Politics 52:510-529.
 Visnjic, C., S. Vojnikovic,  F. Ioras, M. Dautbasic, I. V. Abrudan, 
D. Gurean, A. Lojo, T. Trestic, D. Ballian and M. Bajric 
(2009). Virgin Status Assessment of Plje?evica Forest in 
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici 
Cluj-Napoca 37(2):22-27.