*4.2. Possibilities and Challenges for Forest SWB*

Furthermore, forest SWB can contribute to enhancing urban–rural cooperation. Policy entrepreneurs could identify opportunities for improving the SWB of urban residents by identifying activities that positively correlate with their forest SWB. Rural communities could provide such opportunities to urban residents and potentially receive some rewards (e.g., human resource and monetary resource) from them. Conversely, higher levels of forest SWB in certain rural communities may suggest novel ways to improve forest SWB with innovative lifestyles or activities. Researchers could identify urban–rural combinations to enhance mutually beneficial relationships among forest SWB. For example, policy measures, such as payment for ecosystem services (PES) and product certification would coordinate the relationship between forest owners and urban residents.

Forest SWB may have future applications for developing countries as well. Researchers and practitioners in developing countries may claim that forest SWB could provide useful information only for a certain group of industrialized countries where forest restoration has been achieved, and not for developing countries, where forest destruction and poverty are more urgent issues. However, as Mather suggests, one reason for restoring forests is the change in feelings of individuals [2], thus forest SWB should be monitored, and factors influencing forest SWB should be investigated also in developing countries.

In the field of conservation, overall SWB (not forest SWB) is considered to be a potential policy indicator in developing countries. Biedenweg and Gross-Camp proposed to incorporate well-being into conservation dialogues for the two following reasons: (1) conservation without considering the well-being of affected individuals will fail, and (2) environmental justice requires considering well-being, including the distribution of costs and benefits of conservation [48]. Social impact assessment with subjective well-being measurement in the Global South was also proposed [49]. Several empirical studies have

assessed the relationship between forest management and SWB in developing countries. A study measured the subjective well-being of residents in an area of the Brazilian Amazon and found no correlation with the participation in logging projects [50]. Another study evaluated the impact of REDD+ on the subjective well-being of 4000 households in 130 villages in Brazil, Peru, Cameroon, Tanzania, Indonesia, and Vietnam [51]. Researchers and practitioners in the field of resource management may be able to gain a better understanding by learning from these examples and focusing on local contexts as well as scientific rigor with practical considerations.

Considering governmental policies in developing countries, the Bhutanese government monitors the well-being of individuals, which involves subjective aspects and relationships with the natural environment and sets a gross national happiness (GNH) level as the national goal [52,53]. These examples are worth examining for incorporating SWB into forest policies.

Here, we propose several possibilities indicating why the models presenting the forest SWB had lower R<sup>2</sup> values than those for the general SWB. This can help improve the analytical capabilities of models used for future studies. First, the models for forest SWB may have missing factors that determine the levels of forest SWB. For example, personality traits, such as extraversion or introversion, may exert a stronger influence on forest SWB than on general SWB. Second, the measurement of explanatory variables may be inappropriate. The intensity of forest-related activities was found to correlate with the general SWB or the evaluation of forest spaces for recreational purposes [29,31]. The current models assess the levels of forest-related activities as yes-or-no experiences during the past year. A change from binary to graded measurements may improve the explanatory power of the models. Third, forest SWB may involve more measurement errors than the general SWB. Respondents may have greater difficulty assessing their SWB in this specific domain of their lives. Future studies can explore these possibilities by including new explanatory variables and improving the measurement methods.
