Societal Expectations from Family Forestry in the USA and Europe

Humans rely on forests for a wide variety of tangible goods and less tangible services. Over time, societies have come to expect that forests provide certain things, ranging from timber products to spaces for recreational and spiritual enjoyment. We focus on these societal expectations in this chapter, and specifically consider what is expected from family or small-scale private forests in the USA and Europe. These expectations will shape the services provided by forests either directly via landowner and land manager actions or indirectly via policies that may encourage action. We present this chapter as a conceptual discussion, intended to identify what societal expectations are from family forests and how they may relate to the service-dominant logic framework and the potential this framework provides for better matching expectations with services from this important forest land ownership base.