2002 Socioeconomic Topics Richard Haynes, Program Manager Human and Natural Resource Interactions Research Program

Socioeconomic Research in Support of Federal Land Management  Monitoring market activity as a proxy for economic conditions  Developing notions of social well-being and their application in land management planning  Assessing the success of the Adaptive Management Process  Understanding the nontimber forest products industry

Socioeconomic Research in Support of Federal Land Management (cont.)  Developing an understanding of communities – From dependency to adaptability, understanding community transformations – Developing community typologies  Social and economic aspects of changing management paradigms

Assessing viability and adaptability of forest based communities Ellen Donoghue, Portland Forestry Sciences Laboratory

What is viability and adaptability?  Community viability and adaptability is one indicator used in the Montreal Process for assessing the progress toward sustainable forest management  The past two decades has seen an evolution in terms used to depict communities adjacent to public forests  Viability and adaptability emphasize the complex, dynamic and interrelated aspects of communities and the natural resources that surround them

Findings  Helps managers determine the extent that land management activities promote the well being of forest industries and communities.  Recent work has identified the communities in the Northern Spotted Owl Region—there are 1314 non-metropolitan localities of varying sizes ( ,000 people)

Communities in the NWFP Region

Policy Implications  Helps us understand the relation between communities and the forests and contributes to the discussion of how human activities can lead to sustainable forest management  In general, results show that while the area that is thought to have low viability covers a third of the Northwest, a small part (probably around 10%) of the population lives in this area

Management Implications  Helps us understand the propensity of communities to be adaptable in response to changing conditions resulting from changes in land management activities  Could help us be more selective in the design of assistance programs  Provides a baseline for social and economic monitoring at the community level

Assessing the acceptability of forest management practices and conditions George Stankey, Corvallis Forestry Sciences Laboratory

Findings  The process of judging acceptability of forest management practices and conditions is highly complex and the role of science only one factor  All judgments are provisional and can change as more information becomes available  The distrust of large organizations can override trust developed at the local levels between land managers and communities

Policy Implications  We need to understand both the context in which judgments are made as well as how public values are changing  We need to be active participants in the forums where the public is developing their notions of social acceptability of our actions

Management Implications  Social acceptability emerges when the publics are involved throughout the entire planning process  A commitment to building social acceptability should permeate the planning processes – Requires monitoring of changes in public uses, values – Requires understanding of the institutional forums where judgments of social acceptability are made  When social acceptability cannot be achieved, legal and political remedies are often the means of resolution