Municipal governments' perspectives on forest ownership: Insights from Czechia.

Abstract

Municipal ownership accounts for a large proportion of the forest area in some European countries. Research on local government forestry objectives has so far focused on green spaces in and near built-up areas, and on countries with relatively low shares (< 5%) of municipal forest land. We performed a nationwide quantitative survey of preferences of municipalities in Czechia, a country where they own a major share (17%) of forest land. Here we show that municipalities prioritise recreation and certain environmental objectives over income generation, even in non-urban contexts. However, local governments also emphasise continuity, potentially-albeit inadvertently-prolonging a pre-existing focus on timber production. We found surprisingly little variation in the importance given to recreation across various municipal characteristics.