Institutional barriers in forest owners' cooperation: The case of Estonia

Large-scale cooperation between forest owners can have multiple benefits to both the forest owners and society. However, in most countries such cooperation is not widespread. The purpose of this paper is to explore the question why forest owners' cooperation is not a common practice. We do it by exploring the institutional barriers of cooperation. Based on an Estonian case example we find that the formal institutions reflect mainly the economic aspects of cooperation. The informal institutions, however, are more diverse and often do not relate to the formal ones. Therefore, a number of institutional barriers influences forest owners' decision-making towards cooperation. If policies and policy implementation fail to tackle these barriers then policy goals might not be met and cooperation might not be enhanced.