The Social Structure of Family and Farm Forestry in Alabama

1. The Social Structure of Family and Farm Forestry in Alabama John Schelhas, USDA Forest Service and Robert Zabawa, Tuskegee University

2. Private Forests /Public Benefits • Decisions made by private landowners • Public benefits • Timber supply • Forest Health • Watershed benefits • Biodiversity • Global Climate • Public policies aim to influence private forests

3. Research on NIPFs • Social and economic characteristics • Diverse in characteristics, ownership objectives, amount and type of forest, ~20% farmers • Attitudes and values • Not unlike general public • Forest management practices • Vary in knowledge & use of professional forestry techniques, many with limited management • Use of assistance • Limited; access problems for minority landowners

4. We need more effective ways to reach private forest landowners • Most research and programs has tended to focus on individuals • Social structure may be key • Social groups, institutions, processes, and relationships • Nascent field: • Bliss research on forest landownership in AL • Community forestry—generally assumes or plans to build certain social institutions

5. Macon County, ALEscambia County, AL Macon Escambia **** Research in process ****

6. Why a Structural Approach? • Much of human experience is relational • Cannot understand by studying only attributes of individual actors • Structures less “visible” but not less important than individual actors • We tend to consider our own society’s structure “normal”

7. Structuring factors and processes • History • Proximity • Interests, values, attitudes • Class • Race and ethnicity • Gender • Power

8. Elements of a Structural Approach • Household Ownership and Livelihood Strategies • Historical Patterns of Land Ownership and Use • Social Embeddedness

9. Household Ownership andLivelihood Strategies • Culture of forest ownership can be family-centered rather than as economic enterprise • Farm families hold land by acquiring more land, off-farm employment, spouse employment. • Variation by race and ethnicity • What do forest landowners do ? • How does it influence forest management?

10. Household Ownership andLivelihood Strategies (cont.) • NIPF owners are advanced in age • May lead to parcelization (threat to management) • Landowners may also be concerned about treasured family resource • African-American land loss • Life course and family forest land?

11. Life Course?? • Decisions may be made in complex household and family contexts • How does life course (e.g. age) affect ownership? • Are there cycles? • Can we intervene positively? • e.g. Business Entities and Estate Planning

12. Historical Patterns of Land Ownership and Use • History of Alabama • Creeks ceded land • Replaced by antebellum system of plantation and slavery • Sharecropping • Decline of agriculture / Return of forest • New South (urban)/Old South (land based)

13. Contrasting Histories • Macon County: • Black-belt soils, agricultural history • Majority African American • At edge of urbanizing South • Escambia County • Forestry history • African Americans arrived for forestry jobs • Poarch Band of Creek Indians

14. Demographics

15. Demographics (cont.) MaconEscambia1990 20001990 2000 Race One race -- 99.3% -- 98.9% White 13.8% 14.0% 68.5% 64.4% Black 85.6% 84.6% 28.3% 30.8% Am. Ind. 0.1% 0.2% 2.9% 3.0% Asian 0.4% 0.4% 0.2% 0.2% Other 0.1% 0.4% 0.1% 0.1% Two or more races -- 0.7% -- 1.1% Ethnicity Hispanic 0.4% 0.7% 0.5% 1.0%

16. Farm Size

17. Number of Farms

18. Land in Farms

19. Forest Land Ownership

20. Forest Land by Size Class

21. Projected Urban Growth1992-2020 Wear and Greis 2002

22. Projected Forest Change 1992-2020 Wear and Greis 2002

23. Social Embeddedness • Culture: Values, Attitudes, Behaviors • Researchers have asked: “Are forest owners a distinct community?” • Barbara Rogoff says people participate in multiple cultural communities. • Interplay between cultural and social structure • Values, attitudes, norms, and behaviors are formed in context and emerge from social position

24. Social Embeddedness (cont) • Three approaches: • Mental and cultural models of individuals • Construction of values • Motivational force of values • Social networks • Who people talk to • Where they get advice • Forest and Land Use Practices • Role race and ethnicity

25. Race and Ethnicity • Creek land loss, cultural reemergence, land acquisition • African American: • Great migration • Return migration (Stack 1996) • Forests and Cultural Values Hypotheses • White: nuclear family? • African American: intra-family, across generations? • Native American: inter-family, communal?

26. Conclusions • We know that: • Relatively few landowners have formal forest management plans • Values of landowners differ from values of forestry professionals • Many landowners pay little attention to forest land except when timber harvested

27. Conclusions (cont.) • We believe that careful mapping of: • Social networks • Values • Practices • Institutions • Will provide new insights for: • Forest management • Assistance • Extension