Public visual preferences for dead wood in natural boreal forests: The effects of added information

This study investigated public preferences for natural boreal forests, including their perceptions of important structural elements for biodiversity like dead and downed wood. We designed an experimental internet survey using nine versions of a questionnaire-with each version featuring a unique combination of original photographs, additional text and digitally edited photographs. Survey participants (N = 2701) rated photographs of forest settings with dead wood digitally removed substantially higher than the corresponding original non-edited photographs. However, respondents' familiarity with the ecological role dead wood provides for forest biodiversity and natural forest dynamics increased their perception of its appearance. Additional text containing information about dead wood's ecological benefits, either alone or combined with information about its influence on economic benefits, had almost the same effect as pure ecological text. Additional text with information about either economic or socioeconomic aspects of forests including dead wood had no effect on the participants' ratings. We also observed a learning effect of additional ecological text: text provided in a previous section of the questionnaire affected participants' ratings of photographs shown later without text. We conclude that well formulated, trusted and targeted information about the ecological role of dead wood can positively influence public support for multi-goal forest policies. Our results may also imply that in cases where the capacity to inform the public about dead wood's importance is limited, managers might consider removing dead wood from the most frequently visited areas in forests where recreation is the primary management goal.