%0 Articles
%T Perceptions, realities and forest communication
%A Fabra-Crespo, Miguel
%D 2015
%J Dissertationes Forestales
%V 2015
%N 199
%R doi:10.14214/df.199
%U http://dissertationesforestales.fi/article/1983
%X In the relationship between forestry and society, the societal demands influence forestry more than the internal development targets within forestry sector. Therefore the way to create maximum understanding between the forest sector and society is to create the future together. Hence, communication has become a key element in present-day forestry. Communication on forest issues is even more crucial than in other areas because tertiary sector (services) and environmental values are much more relevant for the urban population than primary forest production.


The main objective of this research is to bring further knowledge to forestry actors to better communicate with society. Subobjectives are to analyse the influences of and on public perceptions (article I), to analyse how public opinion differs from forest policy views (article II), to model the lobbying strategies of stakeholders (article III), and to examine mass media to monitor the public debate (article IV). The research was conducted in several stages, and it was oriented to be not only theoretical, but to be mostly based on practical cases in Spain, Finland and Europe.


Material and methods used throughout the research have been diverse. Theoretical discussion, literature review and statistical analysis (article I and II), questionnaires and interviews (article III), and content analysis methods (article IV) have been carried out.
One result is the detection of the difficulty to distribute new messages throughout society because journalists in the media and teachers at schools have generally been reluctant to accept the messages from foresters (article I). Another result is the highlighting of a large gap between the forest policies implemented by government and public views (article II). A third result is that experienced communication organizations and sectors shall be benchmarked much more by the forest sector (article III). The last result is that messages related to forest fires require deeper reflection and debate and should not be tied only to risk and emergency concepts (article IV).