'The People's Forest': Using Participatory Approaches to Create Strong Networks for the Stewardship of the National Forests

Abstract

"In December of 1997, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture named an interdisciplinary Committee of Scientists to advise the Forest Service on the revision of their regulations for planning and resource management under the National Forest Management Act of 1976. The Committee drew upon current ideas, policy processes and research in our work. In particular, we have incorporated new language and concepts of sustainability as a way of modernizing and revitalizing the existing, nearly a century old, legal and policy mandate of the national forest system. Both ecological and social sciences now embrace theories based upon disturbance, conflict and change. Of particular emphasis in our work was reframing the resource planning and management processes to incorporate flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness as key operational principles so as to work within processes of conflict and disturbance instead of against them. Participation was once a method for soliciting comment and review on already planned activities."