What is the National Woodland Owner Survey?
In 1994, there were an estimated 10,000,000 private woodland owners in the United States. The USDA Forest Service’s National Woodland Owner Survey is an annual survey of these individuals and organizations that own over two-thirds of the woodland in the U.S. The purpose of this survey is “to increase our understanding of private woodland owners – the critical link between forests and society.” In free societies, such as our own, it is the landowners who ultimately decide how a given piece of land will be used. But landowners are a part of a larger social fabric that has written rules and unwritten norms about how land should be used. The survey creates a dialogue between landowners and the rest of society so that needs and concerns of the landowners can be heard and addressed.
