Private forest landowners’ awareness of forest boundaries: case study in Japan

Abstract

We explore Japanese forest landowners' characteristics that affect the awareness of the boundaries of their forest lands. Such information can serve as foundational forest management information that will be used in decision making by future generations. We focus on the owners' awareness of the forest boundaries and examine its relationship with the owners' characteristics. This is one of the first studies covering all forest landowners and their awareness at the municipal level in Japan, focusing on a municipality's forest landowners. The results of this study suggest that forest landowners who are young, women, non-members of forest landowners' co-operative associations, and absent from the municipality tend to be unaware of their forests' boundary lines, location, and land area.