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Š. Pezdevšek Malovrh, L. Zadnik Stirn, J. Krč: INFLUENCE OF OWNERSHIPAND PROPERTYSTRUCTURE ... Šumarski list br. 3–4, CXXXIV (2010), 139-149 port, 2007, 2008).The effects of inefficient private forest management are reflected in the decreasing economic value of forests, low utilization of site potentials, lower exploitation of financial funds for forest investments, low value and marketing of timber and unutilised forest functions. In addition, forest owners tend to be passive and unwilling to cooperate (Mori et. al., 2006). Providing the owners with a fresh incentive for forest management is therefore one of the key issues of private forest resources mobilization.The solution lies in the activities related to encouraging cooperation among forest owners, which has become extremely important due to increased pressures of competition and a changing position in global markets, brought about by globalization and rapid economic progress and a dynamic market. Several millions of forest owners are members of different forest associations. Their cooperation is not limited to an exchange of information and education but also results in better vertical cooperation between the owners and the government, commercial com pa nies/ corporations, the market, etc. (Kittredge,2005). The experiences of the countries with a tradition of forest owners’ cooperation (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria and Germany) reveal a story of success. Forestry cooperation among owners in private forests began in Scandinavia through forest owners’societies as early as 1910.Their aim was to provide certain services to their members, ranging from planning to performing silvicultural and harvesting works and logging (Sennblat, 1989).Today the main goal of private forest owners’ organizations is lobbying for the owners, primarily in the fields of forest policy, timber marketing and taxes as well as the transfer of ownership (Valkonen, 2001, Toivonen etal., 2005, Wild-Ecketal., 2006). Particularly encouraging for private forest management worldwide is the increasing number of associations for forest owners as a means of cooperation between forestry experts and forest owners since these associations provide technical and professional assistance, spread information and educate the owners in different fields of forest management. In addition, they spread the information about the development of forests and the rural areas among the laymen and increase the awareness of the importance of forests(Lindestav, et al., 2003, Stordal et al., 2005, Feliciano, 2006, Men des,2006,PezdevšekMalovrh,2005, 2006, Avdibegović, etal. 2010). The supposition is that the willingness of private forest owners to cooperate primarily depends on the personal interests, which are linked with the owner’s needs and socio-economic status on the one hand, and are limited with the state of the forest and its size on the other. In the starting phase of joining forest owners and with some examples of good practice already present, it is crucial to find out which characteristics of forest owners and which conditions influence the owners’ willingness to cooperate. Considering the diversity that characterizes Slovenian privately-owned forests we decided to focus our research on analysing how the age of forest owners and the ownership and property structure affect their willingness to cooperate; these factors had proved crucial in preliminary analyses. The aim of the paper is to find out, using of surveys analyzed by logistic regression, how certain characteristics linked with forest owners affect their willingness to cooperate and which group of private forest owners shows the highest willingness to join associations. Ownership and property stru cture in Slovenian forests Vlasnička i posjedovna struktura šuma u Sloveniji The property structure of Slovenian privately-owned forests was analysed on the basis of forest management plan 2001–-2010.The analysis revealed that 58.4 % of owners have a forest property smaller than 1 ha and that this property accounts for 16.2 % of the forests in Slovenia. In terms of size such property is comparable to the property bigger than 30 ha, which is nonetheless owned by merely 0.6 % of all owners. Hence, the two categories of forest property, privately-owned forests smaller than 1 ha and those bigger than 30 ha, account for less than a third of all privately-owned forests in Slovenia. It can therefore be claimed that in Slovenia the most important categories in terms of size of property are those between 1 and 30 ha as they represent over a quarter of Slovenian forests size-wise as well as ownership-wise. Slightly over 6 % of private owners own between 5 and 9.99ha which covers just below one fifth of private forests in Slovenia.The last quarter of private forests is the size range from 10 to 29.99 ha, owned by 3.7 % of forest owners. Another important factor in property structure is the number of spatially separated plots. Namely, a certain forest property may not always be in one piece. Consequently, in forest management it is not only the size of the property that is important but also the fragmentation of property that is of major concern (Medved, 2000). Based on prior research (Winkler,Gašperšič, 1987, Medved,1991, Medved,2000, PezdevšekMalovrh, 2006) it has been established that the average number of spatially separated plots is increasing and according to the latest data, owners, on average, possess property on three different locations. The situation in ownership structure was analysed on the basis of the data provided by the land and pro |