STORRS, Connecticut — Around 40% of forested land in the United States is privately owned, and for agencies tasked with preserving the nation’s natural resources, collaborations with private landowners are not just a vast opportunity, but a necessity. To facilitate these collaborations and enhance the effectiveness of natural resource management, UConn researchers are taking a humanities approach to understand what influences private landowners to make conservation and stewardship plans. Ava Smith, Chadwick Rittenhouse, Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet, and Thomas Worthley are working to understand these influences and motivations. Their findings are published in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. The first step in understanding why landowners do or don’t undertake land management planning steps was to establish what has already been studied and identify themes and knowledge gaps. …The researchers also identified potential leverage points for future research or strategies to encourage management plan efforts.