IT-based mobilization of milieu-bound forest owners: Bi-production of innovative tools by research and practice

摘要

Despite numerous policy efforts the number of inactive small private forest owners is growing. In this persistent problem the existing research in private forest owners provides little support. We suggest a now approach in "IT-based activating of forest owners" which applies bi-production of forest policy research and IT-practices. The weaknesses of the existing research about European forest owners is proved by a literature review revealing that either the theory of behavior or the designed types of forest owners are too weak to identify relevant factors driving forest owners activities. The IT-based activating approach combines forest policy research with IT-practices. Forest policy research provides data about milieus of forest owners. The IT-practice designs and runs a platform which catches the attention of forest owners based on milieus as a starter for communicating facts about forest management and management services. The German example of the "Waldhilfe" illustrates the innovative approach and reveals some risks of the basically promising concept.