A Look at the 2021 Forest Landowner Survey Results: Who Are Pennsylvania’s Woodland Owners?

By Allyson Muth, Director, James C. Finley Center for Private Forests at Penn State

In our world, woodland owners are a well-studied group of people. From the National Woodland Owners Survey that happens every five years to Penn State surveys that occurred in 2006, 2008, 2010, and, most recently, 2021, there are many attempts to understand landowner values, attitudes, and behaviors with regard to their privately owned land. With a majority of our state forested (59%) and a majority of that forest in private ownership (70% of which 54% are families and individuals—who are our primary interest), there are numerous decision-makers influencing the care and well-being of Penn’s Woods. And with hundreds of thousands of woodland owners, understanding their needs and goals helps organizations and agencies frame out better ways to assist.

Our most recent survey in 2021 was undertaken a slightly different way than usual. We wanted to understand how landowners of various-sized properties approached their ownership. Our random sampling methodology separated out the owners of forested properties of 10 acres and fewer and drew a quarter of our sample from that group, and then evenly distributed the remaining ownerships across three groups based on property size, each from which we drew a quarter of our sample. We wanted to ensure that we saw representation across all property sizes. With all Pennsylvania counties having digitized their parcel data, we were able to pull our sample from the full spectrum of ownership. While we see some gaps in the parcel data, we remain close to previous estimates of approximately 700,000 woodland owners in the state—about 450,000 woodland owners own properties of 10 acres or less; and about 250,000 own properties larger than 10 acres.

The majority of our landowners own their property in partnership with their spouse. With the primary decision-maker being asked to fill out the survey, our respondents were 74% male, but we did see variation across property sizes. Properties of 10 and fewer acres had women making up 33% of the decision-makers; while the largest properties over 50 acres had men comprising 84% of the decision-makers.

Like much of rural Pennsylvania, the woodland owners in the state are predominately white (88%). Prior iterations of the survey didn’t include race and ethnicity questions, so we are unsure about changes in trends of owners of diverse backgrounds, but we do see diverse ownership backgrounds of all property sizes.

Average age of our woodland owners in this survey iteration was 66 and held across all property sizes. We compare that to an average age of 59 in 2010, which may mean that more owners are holding on to their properties for longer than past generations, and this is reflected in their tenure of ownership—a majority (72%) have owned their land for longer than 10 years across all property sizes. Associated with that average age, we now see a plurality of landowners are retired (46%) with 38% working full time. This is a flip from 2010 where we had the plurality working full time. 65% of woodland owners have completed some level of education post-high school. The majority of owners live on their forestland, with this being a stronger trend for owners of smaller properties.

Pennsylvania woodland owners own their land for solitude, hunting, general enjoyment, and to enjoy wildlife. They spend their time in hunting and non-hunting recreational pursuits, undertake practices to enhance wildlife habitat, and conduct non-herbicide vegetation management (lots of mowing?).

46% of owners say they are willing or very willing to harvest trees. 62% have cut firewood off their properties. 32% have had a timber sale that produced income—this was more likely on larger properties—with the majority of those harvests occurring in the past 10 years. Reasons for harvesting include to improve forest health (lots of salvage harvests have been occurring in the last decade-plus), improve forest conditions, and for income. Harvesting landowners are generally happy with the outcomes of the harvest. However, of those harvesting, less than 25% are engaging a forester to assist with their harvests. And across the whole population, only 8% have written management plans.

Owners of larger properties are more likely to have sought advice from professionals or science-based information sources, like Penn State Extension, and more likely to have used a professional, such as a consulting forester, in managing their land. Across all ownerships, we see peers (friends, family, neighbors, and other woodland owners) acting as a big influence on landowner decisions.

With the 2021 survey, we wanted to delve more deeply into how people get help in caring for their woods and understand what might prevent them from getting help. New in this version were some questions about the trustworthiness of various organizations in supporting landowners stewarding their land. In those questions, we found that local organizations such as county conservation districts and woodland owners associations rate highly. Organizations with regulatory responsibilities such as the Department of Environmental Protection and the PA Game Commission rank lower. However, from this and other studies, we see there is a lot of skepticism at times toward the whole of the larger forestry community.

In addition to skepticism, other barriers are preventing landowners from getting help to care well for their woods—the bureaucracy involved in getting help or accessing resources can be a large deterrent and is often shared with us by landowners. Locating resources and navigating red tape can turn people off. The amount and extent of personal investment, such as time or financial resources, may prevent some from getting assistance. Sometimes landowners don’t feel their land needs assistance, and some landowners don’t feel that their land is worth the investment by the professionals to get help—a situation that is never true.

Additional research is ongoing that addresses the challenges professionals may have in helping woodland owners. Barriers, such as overcoming the large skepticism toward the whole of the community, prevent all of us from engaging fully with woodland owners—we have to prove ourselves trustworthy. For those working in state-funded organizations, there are real limitations in directly linking landowners and professionals. As well, the professionals are often brought in to respond to a threat or challenge and don’t have the opportunity to help a landowner be proactive in their planning.

Our studies have helped us answer some questions about the landowner population, but they’ve also raised new questions and considerations for the community available to help landowners care well for their land. Our job is now to take that understanding and create resources and opportunities that better assist members of the landowner community.

Forestry professionals balance decisions about managing a private resource—that has tremendous public benefit—with the current condition of the woods, the owners’ goals, values, and hopes  for the land, and expectations of keeping the forest intact and functional through sustainable practices, while recognizing that the forest is also an economic resource and may be an important source of income for owners. Each landowner approaches their ownership from a different lens, and the importance of the relationship between the owner and advice givers cannot be overstated. But we all own and help owners care for the land from the same lens—a place of connection and stewardship. This is abundantly clear in all of the work we do.