The effects of information on Danish forest visitors' acceptance of various management actions

Abstract

Two national surveys show that information on why a given forest management practice has been implemented (e.g. fencing) can make that specific practice more acceptable to the forest visitor. In addition different ways of disseminating information are investigated. The surveys on the forest preferences of the Danish adult population are aimed at providing an input for the multiple-use oriented forest management teams who have to take the wishes of the population and their visitors into account. Data were collected through representative postal questionnaire surveys of 2826 individuals (response percentage 89.4 per cent) in 1977/1978; and from 2916 individuals (response percentage 83.7 per cent) in 1993/1994. The 'Experimental Method' was used: black-and-white photos and verbal stimuli which were pairwise or groupwise alike except for one factor were used to represent different forestry and recreation-related topics.