Anne Matilainen

Innovation Processes in Forest-related Recreation Services: The Role of Public and Private Resources in Different Institutional Backgrounds

This article examines innovation processes in forest recreational services on the basis of case studies in five European countries with differing institutional backgrounds of forest ownership and access rights. The analysis reveals that forest-related recreation services are developed under varying institutional conditions and on public as well as private land. Ideas for innovations in recreational services may come from within but often outside the forestry sector. Financing is provided from public and private sources. Both public and private spheres have important roles in providing natural, human and financial resources and usually a network of public and private actors are involved in innovation processes. Of particular importance are cross-sectoral interactions between forestry and tourism. Greater institutional support is needed for the development of forest-related recreation services because the field is at an early stage of development. It is concluded that support should focus on providing ideas and financial resources for product development and on facilitating cross-sectoral interaction between forestry and tourism actors. A particular need is seen for development of models for durable interaction between land owners and tourism operators on a regional scale.

Legitimating institutional choices in the forest ownership: building acceptability for jointly owned forests

Recent demographic changes in the forest-owner structure are suspected to have led to the increasing number of owners with no specific objectives for their forests. In addition, the continuous fragmentation of the forest holdings has increased the threat of the passiveness related to forest management. To decrease the tendency towards passiveness, new policy tools and initiatives have been suggested. In the Finnish context, the idea of an investor-based jointly owned forest has been introduced as facilitating the effective utilization of the forest resource. However, collective ownership has faced prejudice and scepticism among private forest owners. In order to expand, the forest owners need to see the idea of jointly owned forests as a socially legitimate. Thus, by adopting Van Leeuwen’s framework for analyzing the legitimation of new social practices, we examine how Finnish forest owners legitimate their participation in jointly owned forests. The qualitative data of the study consist of 20 in-depth interviews with private forest owners who have joined a jointly owned forest. Our study contributes to the recent discussion on jointly owned forests. We show how a change in the type of ownership results in moral, authoritative and rational justifications over the decision while simultaneously renewing the identity of the forest owner. Accordingly, we suggest that forest ownership is not only driven by rational prospects, but the moral and emotional nature of ownership should be better taken into account at the policy level and in structural designs when discussing the promotion of new types of forest ownership.

The Economic Significance of Hunting Tourism in East Lapland, Finland

ABSTRACT Uses of game resources are under constant debate. One such debate focuses on hunting tourism and its contributions to rural economics. To prioritize future investment and inform policy decisions, it is necessary to identify the full economic consequences of the operation of hunting tourism companies in rural areas. However, the true economic significance of these typically small-scale companies is not apparent when examined on an industrial scale. These companies may nevertheless serve as a sustainable solution to local-scale rural challenges. In this article, the regional economic significance of hunting tourism is estimated for the East Lapland sub-region of northern Finland through the use of Computable General Equilibrium simulation models. Although these models are known to effectively evaluate short- and long-term regional economic effects of industries such as tourism, they have not previously been applied to evaluate hunting tourism.