Shaping forest communication in the European Union: public perceptions of forests and forestry

Over the last few decades, crucial changes have taken place in the views and demands on forests by society at large. This includes the increased environmental awareness and recreational interests of society. These changes also affect the public’s way of looking at the traditional role of forests as producers of raw materials. At the same time the urge to re-orient societies towards increasingly ‘bio-based economies’ results in higher demands for raw material, not only for increasingly sophisticated products, but also for renewable energy.

These changes in public opinion and related societal demands have profound effects on the forest sector, including forest policy makers, forest owners and managers, and the forest industry. Forest owners increasingly cease to be the suppliers of a crude raw material and become service providers, with a multitude of needs to respond to, including the provision of a highly regarded renewable resource. Forest owners face new opportunities to respond to and become engaged in increasingly integrated value-added production and the appropriate governance of resource use. It requires new knowledge and new capabilities to adequately respond to such changing structural conditions and the opportunities that arise with them. These groups experience the need for increased communication and improved marketing and public relations skills to meet the new demands of society. First and foremost, however, it requires an increased understanding of and an effort to listen to society, both consumers and the public at large.

To further investigate trends in public perception of forests and forestry, the purpose of the study is fivefold: (1) to provide the Commission with a thorough analysis of existing surveys about public perceptions on forests and forestry in the EU; (2) to find out the views of key stakeholders (forestry experts, government officials, NGOs, forest owners, etc.) with regard to public opinion on forests and forestry and gather inputs on how public understanding and communication on the role of forests and forestry may be improved; (3) to apply the knowledge obtained to design, execute, and analyse the results of a public survey in the EU-27 countries; (4) to formulate conclusions on how public awareness of the role of forests and forestry in addressing new challenges in European society may be improved; and (5) to design a questionnaire which may be included in Eurobarometer surveys on public opinion in the EU.