Article
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Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Segmenting Landowners of Shandong, China Based on Their Attitudes Towards Forest Certification
Version 1
: Received: 2 May 2018 / Approved: 3 May 2018 / Online: 3 May 2018 (09:21:17 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Tian, N.; Lu, F.; Joshi, O.; Poudyal, N.C. Segmenting Landowners of Shandong, China Based on Their Attitudes towards Forest Certification. Forests 2018, 9, 361. Tian, N.; Lu, F.; Joshi, O.; Poudyal, N.C. Segmenting Landowners of Shandong, China Based on Their Attitudes towards Forest Certification. Forests 2018, 9, 361.
Abstract
Forest certification is considered a viable market-based policy instrument to promote forest sustainability. It has an important role of play in meeting the objective of modern forestry development in China, which is to sustain ecological and environmental benefits of forests. To understand differences in attitudes, opinions, and interests in forest certification, this study segmented respondents of a landowner’s survey in Shandong, China based on their level of interest in participating in forest certification under different program requirements. Multivariate cluster analysis revealed three distinct groups: likely-, potential-, and unlikely-landowners. We further examined the heterogeneity of these groups in terms of their demographics, ownership characteristics, management objectives, and perceived benefits and challenges with adopting forest certification. The results suggested the necessity of differentiating landowners in formulating and designing specific motivation-based incentives and tailor outreach efforts and communication strategies to improve their interests in forest certification. Findings are useful and interesting to forest policymakers interested in promoting forest certification among landowners in China and other countries facing similar circumstances.
Keywords
forest certification; market segmentation; cluster analysis; motivation schemes
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Forestry
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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