The Northwest Forest Plan as a Model for Broad‐Scale Ecosystem Management: a Social Perspective

Abstract

I evaluated the Northwest Forest Plan as a model for ecosystem management to achieve social and economic goals in communities located around federal forests in the US. Pacific Northwest. My assessment is based on the results of socioeconomic monitoring conducted to evaluate progress in achieving the plan's goals during its first 10 years. The assessment criteria I used related to economic development and social justice. The Northwest Forest Plan incorporated economic development and social justice goals in its design. Socioeconomic monitoring results indicate that plan implementation to achieve those goals met with mixed success, however I hypothesize there are two important reasons the plan's socioeconomic goals were not fully met: some of the key assumptions underlying the implementation strategies were flawed and agency institutional capacity to achieve the goals was limited. To improve broad-scale ecosystem management in the future, decision makers should ensure that natural-resource management policies are socially acceptable; land-management agencies have the institutional capacity to achieve their management goals; and social and economic management goals (and the strategies for implementing them) are based on accurate assumptions about the relations between the resources being managed and well-being in local communities. One of the difficulties of incorporating economic development and social justice goals in conservation initiatives is finding ways to link conservation behavior and development activities. From a social perspective, the Northwest Forest Plan as a model for ecosystem management is perhaps most valuable in its attempt to link the biophysical and socioeconomic goals of forest management by creating high-quality jobs for residents of forest communities in forest stewardship and ecosystem management work, thereby contributing to conservation.

Science synthesis to support socioecological resilience in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range

“…The 1990s saw a dramatic decline in timber production on national forest lands in the Pacific Northwest and in California, stemming from concerns about the effects of timber harvesting on old-growth forest ecosystems, watershed health, and threatened species, such as the northern and California spotted owls, on public lands (Berck et al 2003, Charnley 2006. As the Forest Service adopted ecosystem management as its new management paradigm, it grappled with how to create quality jobs in ecosystem management and restoration that would provide new economic opportunities for displaced timber workers and communities affected by this transition in forest management (Spencer 1999).…”

Building on Two Decades of Ecosystem Management and Biodiversity Conservation under the Northwest Forest Plan, USA

“…Consequently, the plan's timber goals remain controversial. Some contend that socioeconomic considerations tied to timber extraction have not been met [14]. Others contend that rural communities no longer depend on timber in a region where economic sectors are influenced mainly by external factors and local economies have largely diversified [15].…”

Developing an integrated conceptual framework to understand biodiversity conflicts

“…These approaches do not necessarily address conflicts, but provide insights of how different perspectives could be combined for more comprehensive analytical approaches. In many cases, these approaches incorporate social aspects in the form of socio-economic data on the use of environmental goods and services, for example, with regard to recreation, since such measures are tangible and relatively easy to obtain (Charnley, 2006). However, more latent aspects that reflect how actors perceive and evaluate situations as well as their fellow actors and that require the collection of additional data tend to be neglected in integrated quantitative approaches.…”