Reimagining Family Forest Conservation: Estimating Landowner Awareness and Their Preparedness to Act with the Conservation Awareness Index

land between 1982 and 2007 (USDA 2009a). As average parcel size shrinks and development pressure increases land values, timber harvesting revenues alone can not keep up with the costs (i.e., property taxes) of family forest ownership (D’Amato et al. 2010) and selling all or part of one’s land becomes the primary way to generate income from it (Finley and Kittredge 2006). Forty-four percent of family forests are owned by people 65 years of age or older and 23% of family forests are owned by people who say they intend to sell or transfer their land in the next 5 years (Butler 2008). With a significant proportion of forestland poised to change hands in the near future, a growing number of family forest owners will decide whether or not it stays forested. Conventional Metrics of Private Forest Conservation Commonly, private forest conservation progress is estimated by tracking the number of acres and landowners with forest management plans (USDA 2009b) because it is assumed that owners with plans for their properties are prepared to make informed land decisions. Despite decades of program promotion, only 4% of US family forest owners have written forest management plans (Butler 2008) and the Forest Service reports that just 2% of the 130 million ac of private forests in the northern United States have plans (USDA 2009b). At this rate of adoption it will take 144 years for all private forest owners in this region to have plans (Kittredge 2009). Such low participation suggests a disconnect between formal management programs and most landowners’ interests, raising doubts about the effectiveness of management plans at informing most landowner decisions and estimating broadscale conservation progress. Survey research indicates that for most landowners, their land meets their needs by providing privacy, scenery, and recreation, without active planning or management (Jones et al. 1995, Finley and Kittredge 2006, Bengston et al. 2009). Plans that include or emphasize active management are misaligned with these nonconsumptive values. Most family forest owners choose to forgo formal land planning because of its perceived irrelevance to their interests and instead only think about their land reactively when a decision needs to be made (Kittredge 2004). Consequently, these decisions are often made without adequate information or professional advice. In Massachusetts, e.g., 85% of landowners owning 79% of private forests are making critical land decisions without the guidance of management plans (Kittredge et al. 2008). We have developed a new tool for assessing landowners’ awareness of land options that offers an alternative way to measure forest conservation progress. Foundations of a New Forest Conservation Metric The Conservation Awareness Index (CAI), measures family forest owner familiarity with land options and estimates their preparedness to make informed decisions about their land. Other research has focused on landowner attitudes and motivations to predict participation in conservation programs (Mercker and Hodges 2007, Fletcher et al. 2009) and policies (Janota and Broussard 2008), but no prior research has quantified private landowner awareness of available conservation tools, practices, and sources of information. The CAI is designed to measure awareness as a behavioral precursor rather than to directly report or predict proconservation behavior. Behavioral theory supports the role of awareness and knowledge in producing behavioral change. According to the theory of bounded rationality (Simon 1991) and knowledge deficit theory (Schultz 2002), behavioral decisions are limited by information and knowledge. Consequently, acquiring knowledge about why or how to do something may compel behavioral change. Although most researchers agree that other factors influence behavior, such as intention, self-efficacy, emotion, and social context (Schneider and Cheslock 2003), awareness and knowledge remain foundational to decisionmaking. The awareness, knowledge, attitude, and practice behavioral change ladder (Anyaegbunam et al. 2004) and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen 1991) outline how basic awareness of a behavior leads to acquiring more knowledge about it, which may improve one’s attitude toward it and ultimately lead to its adoption. Rogers’ (2003) diffusion of innovations theory explains how new ideas and technologies spread through society when individuals first gain knowledge of the innovation, and then gather information about it, evaluate its merits, and finally implement and confirm it. Importantly, this theory stresses the influence of social norms and opinion leaders on innovation adoption. By assessing different components of conservation awareness, including elements of peer influence, the CAI is constructed to discern meaningful intermediate steps toward proconservation behavior and serves as an indicator of decisionmaking preparedness.