{"title":"Shifting power dynamics and decision-making on U.S. National Forests: Oregon forest collaboratives in the era of social forestry","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103291","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Emerging from the conflict and gridlock that characterized forest management in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s–1990s, community-based forest management offered a path forward. As forest collaboratives have gained in number and prominence, a shift towards social forestry, network governance consisting of collaborative processes that drive or influence U.S. Forest Service decision-making has taken root. In this era of social forestry, and as decentralization of natural resource management continues to increase, it has become increasingly important to understand the ways that power dynamics and decision-making processes have shifted. This qualitative, embedded case study research assesses the power dynamics between forest collaboratives and the Forest Service, and how these power dynamics impact the policy outcomes of the collaboratives. Our research reveals that forest collaboratives bring an added layer of institutionalization and public engagement in the decision-making process with their own suite of power dynamics. These findings suggest an increasing importance of non-state actors in forest management where collaboratives are providing increased access to knowledge and financial resources while also lending increased legitimacy and public trust to the Forest Service.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Forest Policy and Economics","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138993412400145X","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Emerging from the conflict and gridlock that characterized forest management in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s–1990s, community-based forest management offered a path forward. As forest collaboratives have gained in number and prominence, a shift towards social forestry, network governance consisting of collaborative processes that drive or influence U.S. Forest Service decision-making has taken root. In this era of social forestry, and as decentralization of natural resource management continues to increase, it has become increasingly important to understand the ways that power dynamics and decision-making processes have shifted. This qualitative, embedded case study research assesses the power dynamics between forest collaboratives and the Forest Service, and how these power dynamics impact the policy outcomes of the collaboratives. Our research reveals that forest collaboratives bring an added layer of institutionalization and public engagement in the decision-making process with their own suite of power dynamics. These findings suggest an increasing importance of non-state actors in forest management where collaboratives are providing increased access to knowledge and financial resources while also lending increased legitimacy and public trust to the Forest Service.
期刊介绍:
Forest Policy and Economics is a leading scientific journal that publishes peer-reviewed policy and economics research relating to forests, forested landscapes, forest-related industries, and other forest-relevant land uses. It also welcomes contributions from other social sciences and humanities perspectives that make clear theoretical, conceptual and methodological contributions to the existing state-of-the-art literature on forests and related land use systems. These disciplines include, but are not limited to, sociology, anthropology, human geography, history, jurisprudence, planning, development studies, and psychology research on forests. Forest Policy and Economics is global in scope and publishes multiple article types of high scientific standard. Acceptance for publication is subject to a double-blind peer-review process.