Municipal governments’ perspectives on forest ownership: Insights from Czechia

TL;DR

Czech municipalities prioritize recreation and environmental goals over making money from forests, even though they own a large share of forest land.

Contribution

This study provides new insights into municipal forest management priorities in a country with significant local forest ownership.

Findings

Municipalities prioritize recreation and environmental objectives over income generation.

Local governments emphasize continuity, maintaining a focus on timber production.

There is little variation in the importance of recreation across different municipal characteristics.

Abstract

Municipal ownership accounts for a large proportion of the forest area in some European countries. Research on local government forestry objectives has so far focused on green spaces in and near built-up areas, and on countries with relatively low shares (< 5%) of municipal forest land. We performed a nationwide quantitative survey of preferences of municipalities in Czechia, a country where they own a major share (17%) of forest land. Here we show that municipalities prioritise recreation and certain environmental objectives over income generation, even in non-urban contexts. However, local governments also emphasise continuity, potentially—albeit inadvertently—prolonging a pre-existing focus on timber production. We found surprisingly little variation in the importance given to recreation across various municipal characteristics.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-025-02231-8.

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