The Project Goal
The goal is to improve our understanding of the social and economic forces affecting tourism and recreation on private lands in the Northern Forest. This information is an essential component of regional planning for economic stability, environmental sustainability, and community vitality in an environment of change.Objectives
- Examine the rate and nature of changing land tenure involving both land sales among private parties and sales of large forest industrial parcels, and the effects of these changes on access.
- Determine the attitudes of landowners toward recreational access, landowner compensation,and tourism development; and estimate the incidence of posting of private lands.
- Analyze and evaluate the coverage of limited liability recreation statutes of Northern Forest states and their impacts on landowner decisions.
The Web Forum
A website was developed to involve stakeholders in the initial research process. Stakeholder information is a valuable exploratory tool used to further inform researchers on the intricacies of the issue. Stakeholders came from a diverse group of interested parties including: private landowners, state agencies, recreational outfitters and organizations, conservation agencies, and recreationists themselves. Stakeholder and stakeholder groups were sent an email inviting them to participate in the forum, and to pass on the invitation to others who might be interested in the topic. For this reason, all those interested in the topic were allowed to respond in the forum, adding to the diversity of interested parties. Over 550 individuals responded to the forum, allowing researchers to fine tune their research questions for the mail survey portion of the project. Click here for Web Forum Results
Landowner Surveys
Private Land Owner Survey
A mail survey was used to gain knowledge of landowner behaviors and attitudes throughout the Northern Forest. This mail survey was sent to landowners in 6 randomly selected towns in each of the four Northern Forest States. In each town 100 landowners were surveyed. Landowners were selected proportionately based on the ratio of resident to non-resident owners in the individual towns, and also selected proportionately to parcel size in each town.The Towns
| Maine | New Hampshire | New York | Vermont |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashland Canaan Farmington Greenville Otis Sumner |
Carroll Clarksville Dalton Dummer Gorham Stratford |
Denmark Elizabethtown Hope Long Lake Schroon Lake Stratford |
Irasburg Kirby Lunenburg Morgan Norton Sheldon |
