104 FOREST REPORT 2005
6.1 Forest owners
73% of the Swiss forest is publicly owned;
27% is in private hands.
There are almost a quarter of a million private forest owners in Switzerland. Each of them owns, on average, 1.3 hectares of forest, which is approx- imately the size of two football fields.
Increasing co-operation and improving mana- gement methods can make the enterprises more efficient.
Fragmentation into small lots
According to Swiss law, the for- est is freely accessible to every- one.Unlike in many othercoun- tries,inSwitzerland youwillfind no signsforbidding entry to the forest. Many people, therefore, do not realise that every piece of forest in thecountry belongs to someone.
But who are these forest owners? Three quarters (73%) ofSwitzerland’sforest is in pub- lichands,but thereare large re- gionaldifferences.In severalcen- tralandPre-Alpinecantons more than half of the forests are pri- vately owned, and there are al- most 3000private owners inSwit- zerland.Thefederal government owns less than one percent and all thecantons together only own 5%of theSwissforest.Incompar- ison, the local governments own largeareas of forest: the local mu- nicipalcouncils29%,and the lo- cal citizens’ associations 28%. A further 10% of forest land is in the hands of corporations and co-operative societies.
In many places theSwissfor- est isdividedup into very small lots. A public forest owner pos- sesses,onaverage,only 300hec- tares of forest.Infact,more than half the public owners own less than100hectares.Privateforests aredividedup into even smaller units.Eachof thealmost 250000 privateforest ownershasanaver- age ofonly 1.3hectares of forest.
This isanareacorresponding in size toabout twofootballfields.
But even these extremely small plotsare not always in one place but are further divided up into lots locatedindifferent places.
This extreme fragmentation makes efficient commercial use difficult. Owners of small for- est plotsfindit too expensive to manage their own forestry busi- ness.Forfinancial reasons many forest owners have got together toform larger economicunits or FURTHER INFORMATION
Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL 8903 Birmensdorf
Research Dept. FOREST Section Silvicultural strategies (0) 44/ 739 24 86
Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape SAEFL 3003 Bern
Forest Agency
Section Forest utilization and timber industry
(0) 31/ 324 77 78
105 6SOCIAL ECONOMY
businesses in recent years.There hasbeenhardly any change late- ly in the number of forest own- ers, but the number of forest enterprises has been declining continually.Thisdevelopment is likely toaccelerate in theforesee- ablefuture.
Management
Modern private forest enterpris- es have the know-how and the equipment to use timber effi- ciently.Forest enterprisesare in- creasingly contracting out vari- ousjobs in theirforests to other companies. These specialised companies often own the most technologically advanced timber harvesting machines,which they canuse tofullcapacity by doing the timber harvesting work for severalforest enterprises.The so- called “full harvesters” can fell, trimand de-bark the treesquick- er and cheaper than any forest workers. But it is not economi- cally viablefor eachforest enter- prise tobuy its own machines.
In order to improve their chances of survival, several for- est enterprises have found new sources of income by taking on contract work in areas outside theforest.For instance, they of- fer services, such as managing the local government’s building and construction office.
The federal forestry policies areaimedat supporting efficient structures in theforest economy, for example,by assistingco-oper- ationbetweenforest ownersand larger economicunits incorporat- ing several enterprises.Theforest owners are expected to take re- sponsibility, show initiative and takeadvantage of thefull range of opportunities available. The goal is to improve the economic performance of the forest econ- omy.
6.1.2 2
Lot partition
This extract fromomthe Land Register shows howw ffragmented foreestownershipis.
6.1.1
Who owns the Swiss forest?
Forestownersand how they share theSwiss forest.
■Private owners 27%
Public owners:
■Local municipalities 29%
■Local citizens’
associations 28%
■Corporations, co-operatives 10%
■Cantons 5%
■Federal government 1%
