Services for What and for Whom? A Literature Review of Private Forest Owners’ Decision-Making in Relation to Forest-Based Services

The more distanced forest owners become from their forests, the more room there is for different kinds of advice and service provision to help them in their forest management decisions. Therefore, the quality and adaptation of these services impact the use of forest resources significantly, including at a broader scale. Even though the forest owners’ decision-making at the general level, as well as the role of advisory services and their efficiency has been the subject of various studies, literature on how forest owners make decisions in relation to the various types of service provisions appears to be limited, and no systematic review has been found. To offer a better understanding of the present state of knowledge on, and the relations between, decision-making, forest related services, and forest ownership, this literature review provides an overview of the scientific research between 2008 and 2020 on private forest owners’ decision-making related to services. The results show that the forest owners’ decision-making related to services has been gaining increasing interest as a research topic, especially during the last 5–6 years. However, it is still dominated by a few countries and contexts. In addition, in the current research decision-making concept is mostly understood as a decision outcome i.e., the forest owners’ choice between typically two alternatives. The importance of process-based understanding on decision-making, on the other hand, seemed to be largely missing from the forest owner studies. As conclusions, five proposals for future research avenues are presented.