Vincent Upton

The physical, economic and policy drivers of land conversion to forestry in Ireland

Land use change is fundamentally a product of the interaction of physical land characteristics, economic considerations and agricultural and environmental policies. Researchers are increasingly combining physical and socio-economic spatial data to investigate the drivers of land-use change in relation to policy and economic developments. Focusing on Ireland, this study develops a panel data set of annual afforestation over 2811 small-area boundaries between 1993 and 2007 from vector and raster data sources. Soil type and other physical characteristics are combined with the net returns of converting agricultural land to forestry, based on the micro-simulation of individual farm incomes, to investigate land conversion. A spatial econometric approach is adopted to model the data and a range of physical, economic and policy factors are identified as having a significant effect on afforestation rates. In addition to the financial returns, the availability and quality of land and the implementation of environmental protection policies are identified as important factors in land conversion. The implications of these factors for the goal of forest expansion are discussed in relation to conflicting current and future land use policies.

Are Forest Attitudes Shaped by the Extent and Characteristics of Forests in the Local Landscape

Forest policy is increasingly accounting for public attitudes and preferences. However, attitudes vary across the population and are linked to the characteristics of individuals and their relationship to forests. This study examines whether the extent, ownership, and composition of forests in respondents’ localities influence their expressed attitudes and rankings of forest outputs from a household survey. Forest cover in a 5-km buffer surrounding respondents was identified using a geographic information system (GIS) and the effects of forest cover and other key respondent variables were tested using ordered logit models. The results suggest that forest cover does influence attitudes and that the nature of the effects differs based on composition and ownership. A division in attitudes was also identified between members of farming households and urban areas. In addition to describing the potential formation of attitudes, the results highlight the trade-off between commercial and noncommercial management that may be required to improve attitudes toward forestry.