Does Climate Change Communication Matter for Individual Engagement with Adaptation? Insights from Forest Owners in Sweden.

Natural resource managers urgently need to adapt to climate change, and extension services are increasingly using targeted communication campaigns to promote individual engagement with adaptation. This study compares two groups of Swedish forest owners: 1493 who participated in two climate communication projects by the Swedish Forest Agency, and 909 who were randomly sampled. The study finds statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of climate change awareness and concern, belief in the urgency to act and intentions to take adaptive measures.

The importance of socio-ecological system dynamics in understanding adaptation to global change in the forestry sector.

Adaptation is necessary to cope with or take advantage of the effects of climate change on socio-ecological systems. This is especially important in the forestry sector, which is sensitive to the ecological and economic impacts of climate change, and where the adaptive decisions of owners play out over long periods of time. Relatively little is known about how successful these decisions are likely to be in meeting demands for ecosystem services in an uncertain future.

Analysis of Swedish Forest Owners' Information and Knowledge-Sharing Networks for Decision-Making: Insights for Climate Change Communication and Adaptation.

To further the understanding of climate change adaptation processes, more attention needs to be paid to the various contextual factors that shape whether and how climate-related knowledge and information is received and acted upon by actors involved. This study sets out to examine the characteristics of forest owners' in Sweden, the information and knowledge-sharing networks they draw upon for decision-making, and their perceptions of climate risks, their forests' resilience, the need for adaptation, and perceived adaptive capacity. By applying the concept of ego-network analysis, the empirical data was generated by a quantitative survey distributed to 3000 private forest owners' in Sweden in 2014 with a response rate of 31%.