How Family Forest Owners Consider Timber Harvesting, Land Sale, and Conservation Easement Decisions: Insights from Massachusetts, USA

Table 3

Description and summary of survey items measuring reasons for owning forestland along with principal component analysis summary statistics.

Reasons for owning forestland survey items*	Mean (Std. Dev.)	Rotated principal component loading		Cronbach’s Alpha
		PC 1: AMENITY	PC 2: INCOMEUSE
Income from timber	2.10 (1.10)	−0.02	0.74	0.70
Income from agriculture	1.96 (1.19)	0.21	0.72
To obtain firewood	3.05 (1.27)	0.47	0.52
To make maple syrup	1.82 (1.13)	0.35	0.55
Personal recreation	3.73 (1.10)	0.54	0.06	0.84
As a place to live	3.99 (1.32)	0.59	0.00
To enjoy the scenery	4.18 (1.11)	0.75	−0.13
To protect land from development	3.58 (1.32)	0.76	−0.16
To provide wildlife habitat	3.94 (1.17)	0.76	−0.17
To have privacy	4.24 (1.13)	0.71	−0.16
To protect the environment	3.92 (1.12)	0.72	−0.26
To pass on to my children	3.53 (1.44)	0.51	0.16
To preserve family and tradition	3.23 (1.50)	0.60	0.11
Financial investment	2.89 (1.27)	0.08	0.38	Retained as unique variable
To leave land unmanaged, letting nature take its course	2.74 (1.32)	0.30	−0.45	Retained as unique variable
Eigenvalue		4.46	2.19
Variance explained		0.30	0.15

*Item scale: 1 = not at all important, 5 = extremely important.