IDENTIFICATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL TYPES AND ORGANIZATION TYPOLOGY

Two major organizational types can be described which provide the basis for a general typology of organizations of forest owners:

1. Informal organization type, where no organizational body and therewith no central control or disposition of resources exists.

The following subtypes can be identified:

informal arrangements which include agreements (without contract) concerning the use of resources by clearly defined owners of the resources (example: joint use of a tractor by two neighbors).

management by contract with specific contract based arrangements regarding the use of resources between clearly defined partners.

certification, where guidelines for the use of resources by an unspecified number of partners are established, setting standards for forest resource management.

joint forest management with contract based agreements between a well defined number of owners of forest land to create a larger joint property by the merger of smaller individual units.

2. Formal (corporate) organization type with various levels of central control and disposition of resources.

The main subtypes are:

personal partnerships - This describes an organization consisting of a fixed number of individuals, who jointly agree how to dispose of the available resources. No organizational bodies or committees are involved, all decisions are made by the members assembly.

corporation, association, co-operative and related forms - These organizational types do not depend on the existence of specific owner of the resources, but the control and disposition of resources (decision making on investments and activities) is carried out by the official bodies (e.g. board of executives, manager, chairman) of the organization.

The corporate type can be classified according to the main function, differentiating between organizations with mainly an economic motive, organizations with a mainly political purpose, and organizations with mainly an information sharing purpose.

In economic interest associations the economic activities are limited to joint marketing and/or supply purchase. The members still manage their properties on their own and the individual ownership of land remains. This is also the case for production associations. However, in general, forest management covers the borders of individual properties though larger parcels may be still managed individually.

In the case of Corporate Forest / Community Forest the individual ownership is transferred into shares for members. The entire membership area is then jointly managed.

Annex 2 builds a general organization typology by sorting existing organizational options for small forest owners by their major functions and level of forest management co-operation. The typology is derived from the basic data on forest owners’ organizations in 17 countries in Europe which are listed in detail in Annex 1.

Annex 3 describes the advantages and disadvantages of each organization type from the forest owners’ perspective.