A large proportion of forests is owned by Slovenian private owners who do not carry out the planned potential harvesting of their forests. One possible solution to increase the harvesting rate is business integration of private forest owners or business cooperation with forestry service providers when carrying out forest management work or joint appearance on the market. In order to find out the willingness of private forest owners for business integration and cooperation with forestry service providers in the local unit of Podvelka, we conducted a survey of private forest owners (n=70). Only 28.6% of private forest owners are ready for a business connection with other forest owners when carrying out works or showing up on the market together, which is not surprising since there is a large proportion of owners in the Podvelka unit who own huge forest properties and work intensively on them. The surveyed private forest owners recognize that a forest cooperative is the most suitable method for business integration. Private forest owners would work together in business in order to obtain higher profits from forest wood assortments and have better service prices. 55.7% of the private forest owners surveyed are willing to enter into business cooperation with forest service providers for the execution of projects or the sale of timber. The Slovenian Forestry Institute – the district forester – is considered by the majority of private forest owners to be the most appropriate initiator and advisor for forest service providers in the execution of projects or sale of timber. Based on the results, we conclude that the possibilities regarding business integration of private forest owners, or cooperation with forestry service providers referring to forest management work or joint performance on the market in the area of the local unit of Podvelka, are limited mainly because there are many private forest owners who have larger forest estates, harvest significant amounts of wood, and have a high share of forest wood assortments sold.
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