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Support for forestry is strong among Finns |
The Finns' support for forestry is strong. No matter how the question is put to them, four out of five state that they support forestry activity. An interesting aspect about the Finns' attitudes on forests is that they are very definite; only a few percent of the responses fall into the category "don't know".
Since 1993, the Finnish Forest Association has commissioned a survey called Metsä ja puu (Forest and Timber) to find out the Finns' attitudes on forests. The survey is implemented by the market research company Taloustutkimus Oy, and the wording and order of its questions has remained identical from the beginning. New questions have been included, of course, but they are added at the end of the survey, to ensure the comparability of response distributions.
The number of interviewees has been about one thousand at each time, only in the newest one the number was 2004. This means that the maximum statistical error margin is, with the probability of 95%, 2.2 percentage points in each direction. The next survey is scheduled for the end of 2011.
Reliance on forest professionals for information
In the most recent survey from May and June, 2009, four out of five Finns believed that Finland's prosperity will depend on forests even in the future. Nine out of ten considered that Finnish forest management is very good or fairly good. Three out of four would make the utilisation of forests more effective in order to improve employment rates and maintain the standard of living.
On the other hand, over one half of Finns believe that forest felling and forest management pose a threat to the abundance of animal and plant species. Totally nine out of ten respondents think that there are enough forests for recreation, like picking berries and mushrooms in Finland.
Forest professionals are considered reliable not only as managers of forests, but also as sources of information on forestry and forest biodiversity safeguarding. Among the environmental organisations active in Finland, the greatest trust is placed in the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, FANC.
Children and youngsters have a straightforward relationship to forests
Finnish Forest Association conducts also a survey on the informedness and attitudes on forests of children between the ages of 6 and 18. The most recent survey dates back to the spring of 2006.
According to the latest survey Finnish children and youngsters continue to have the same straightforward relationship to forests as the previous generations. The majority of children visit forests to ski, hike, pick berries or mushrooms or just to play. Half of the respondents would like to visit forests more often than they do at the moment. In the main, their attitudes towards modern forest management is favourable.
Children and young continue to receive most of their forest information through schools. The role of parents as providers of forest information has decreased across the years. Only a minor share of the respondents receive forest information from forest professionals.
Forest owners have multiple goals
There are nearly 900,000 private, non-industrial, so-called family forest owners in Finland, including those who share the ownership of a forest farm in one way or another. Private individuals own about 60 percent of Finland's forests.
According to studies by the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners MTK, the majority of them have multiple goals regarding their forests. The income from timber production and economic security are the main goal for most of them, but one half of the forest owners also place value on other advantages derived from the forest. One fifth rates the recreational value of their forests as the main advantage.
Surveys
 Metsä ja puu (Forest and Timber) -survey 2009
 Youth's attitudes 2006
Survey on teachers' attitudes to forests 2007 |
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