SEE PEER REVIEW

INTRO:

The authors outline a large scale survey of forest owners and forestry professionals in Finland, in terms of their attitude to ecosystem service based approaches to forest management. They use nudge theory (made famous by David Halpern and the Behavioural Insights Team) to test whether attitudinal change can be brought about by shifts in the linguistic presentation of information about continuous cover forestry.

MERITS:

The application of nudge theory and behavioural analysis techniques is still relatively new in the natural resource management literature and this is a large scale example of how these practices could potentially be used to increase adoption of government forestry guidelines.

CRITIQUE:

The authors' hypothesis highlights an assumption that information deficiency is the primary reason why forest owners and professionals are less inclined towards ecosystem services/forest-based approaches. This abstract fails to justify the importance of this barrier in comparison with the influence of alternative factors such as logistical, cultural or financial barriers which might be less easily overcome by persuasive language. 

DISCUSSION:

Due to my above critique, the authors did not sufficiently convince me this research is making a valuable contribution to forest management policy development, although it may make a valuable contribution to behavioural practices literatures relating to nudge theory (an area I am less familiar with).

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INTRO:

The study evaluates perceptions of conservation oriented forestry practices (in particular continuous-cover forestry, CCF) among different stakeholder groups (private owners and professionals) and examines the response of these groups to a nudge, i.e. different ways of framing available information on the topic. Using responses to a questionnaire, the study shows that professionals and men tend to view CCF more negatively than private owners and women, whereas age has inconsistent effects. The nudge reinforced these tendencies or preconceived opinions, which leads the authors to conclude that policy instruments may have to be adapted to different stakeholder groups.

MERITS:

The present study addresses the very urgent question of understanding the opinions that motivate management practices as well as the responsiveness of different stakeholder groups to proposed new practices. A mapping of the "belief landscape" that guides stakeholder decisions is necessary to navigate it.

Drawing on insights from a fairly large sample size, the authors show an existing "opinion divide" that needs to be taken into account in the communication and distribution of policy-relevant information.

CRITIQUE:

Nudges are by definition aimed to be subtle, to remain essentially unnoticed, and result in small adjustments of perceptions or behaviour at a time. Whether a text with a strong tendency or value judgement, to which subjects are furthermore asked to respond directly, would count as a nudge might be debatable. More indirect placement of the nudge, with evaluation of subjects' perceptions and potential change therein some time later or in a different forum may be more effective at studying the usefulness of nudges as tools.

DISCUSSION:

Actors and stakeholders in any industry have views that are shaped by their education (age) and by the dominant discourse in their immediate surroundings (peers, colleagues, targeted media etc.). If these stakeholders wield strong influence on management practices of environmental concern, then conveying the best available knowledge about environmental impacts of different management strategies to them is important. The way new information is perceived, processed and either accepted or rejected depends critically on the framing of the information (e.g. value-neutral factual statements vs. authoritative normative statements). Nudging is a popular tool to attempt to overcome preconceived opinions and manipulate views towards stated policy goals. Understanding existing tendencies in views and associated reactions to policy-relevant information as well as nudges is an important step towards designing better policy instruments.

The present study makes an important point about the relevance of the framing of information and of finding the right narratives for spreading policy when the environment is at stake. Its findings are of direct relevance for understanding and guiding the forestry discourse in Finland. Overall very interesting!