Fostering Compatible Forest Resource Management: The Conditional Nature of Social Acceptability

Abstract

For years, public and private resource management organizations have sought to implement sustainable policies and programs that achieve various forest management goals; yet success has proven elusive. Although such efforts have been marked by significant investments in assessing the biophysical and economic aspects of proposals, public opposition often has stymied implementation. One example—and the focus of this book—is reflected in the search for forest management policies and programs that increase the compatibility between wood production and other forest uses and values. Efforts to use timber harvesting as part of a forest management strategy that incorporates commodity production with a host of other purposes, from fire control to biodiversity enhancment, have been engulfed in controversy. At their core, such conflicts reveal the importance of social acceptability, which implies a sufficient level of public understanding and accord to permit policy implementation. Such judgments ultimately affect all forestland management, irrespective of tenure, although they are particularly salient at present with regard to public lands.