The temporal aspect of the counselling for small-scale forest owners after the storm in Sweden 2005

Abstract

The organisations affected by the severe storm in southern Sweden 2005 have gained much experience useful for future forest management. The aim of this study was to describe the temporal aspect of counselling for small-scale forest owners after the storm. How well organised were the affected organisations, concerning this type of catastrophic incident? The results showed that the organisations were not prepared for such large damages and the extra amount of work. Qualitative methodology was used to describe the counselling for small-scale forest owners as assessed by professional foresters. Sixteen semi-structured open-ended interviews with professional foresters from different organisations in the affected region of Götaland were conducted and analysed. From the foresters acting and described course of events, the temporal acting of the organisations were divided into three phases of planning: the emergency phase, the reprocessing phase, and finally, the reflection phase. The emergency phase consisted of the time closest to the storm and the next three months. During this period, the actors worked hard to keep up existing business contacts networks and developing new business relationships. During the second phase, the storm organisations were put up and the amount of personnel engaged reached the highest level. The reflection phase started nine months after the storm and was characterised by a decrease in emergency cases and personnel. The results indicated that normal instructions were not enough to solve a crises situation such as this. There were temporal similarities in how the affected organisations solved the situation. The actions of the organisations after the storm followed a natural pattern from earlier experiences of solving catastrophic incidents. It was suggested that instructions for catastrophic incidents should follow the suggested three temporal phases. Thus, the time for each phase is shortened and the possibilities of adapting counselling to the needs of the small-scale forest owners‘ increases as much as possible under prevailing situations

Keywords

farm forestry; NIPF owner; organisation theory; professional foresters

Published in

Scandinavian Forest Economics
2006, number: 41, pages: 105-113

Conference

Proceedingsof the Biennial Meeting of theScandinavian Society of Forest Economics

SLU Authors

• Ingemarson, Fredrik

  • Department of Forest Products, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Hugosson, Mårten

  • Department of Forest Products, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/9208