A survey of private forest owners on adoption of the Natura 2000 charter has been designed to allow respondents to state motives for non-adoption. These motives fall into five main categories: Economic, Compatibility with own practices, Control over one's property, Information and " no motive ". Using a mixed logit model, we can show that owners of properties at least in part in N2000, significantly evoke the Control motive more often than the other owners; that is not the case of the other motives. Owners who are convinced their properties have a remarkable feature are significantly less likely to evoke the Control motive. We argue that these findings might be appropriated by environmental managers to induce adoption of the N2000 Charter. Abstract A survey of private forest owners on adoption of the Natura 2000 charter has been designed to allow