Social assessment for the Colville National Forest CROP program.

Abstract

A qualitative social assessment targeted salient issues connected to the Colville National Forest creating opportunities (CROP) research program that examines forest management alternatives for small-diameter stands in northeastern Washington. Research spanned various communities in three counties and investigated the diversity of fundamental values people attach to small-diameter stands, beliefs about appropriate forest management directions, and perceived impacts from the CROP program. To focus on people's knowledge of and interest in small-diameter stand management, semistructured interviews (n=76) were conducted in person with local residents and other people associated with the Colville National Forest. Breadth and depth of inter-viewees' value orientations and forest use were explored to develop a comprehensive inductive analysis of the social complexity surrounding the CROP program. Seven distinct groups were differentiated to develop a social typology that juxtaposed positions, perceptions, and preferred small-diameter stand-management alternatives. Several themes emerged. Practical implications of these themes are offered as guidelines to resource managers to improve public involvement as the decisionmaking process moves to public forums. Abstract Social assessments are viewed with a great deal of skepticism by many resource managers. Just what is a social assessment and what good is it? The authors of this paper spend a considerable amount of time and energy talking to natural resource managers and others throughout the region and the country about social assessments, but the quizzical looks we often get in response do not seem to have abated much over time. In the spirit of the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, we are publishing this paper as an example of a land management-related social assessment. Washington. Its intended purpose was to provide data and insights on the social environment surrounding the forest in support of an innovative public involvement process known as collaborative learning. Both the assessment and the collaborative learning process were aimed at helping the agency and its interested public make decisions about the management (or perhaps nonmanagement) of so-called CROP (creating opportunities research program) stands in the forest. CROP stands are dense, heavily stocked stands of small-diameter trees that originated after stand-replacing fires in the early part of the 20 th century. These stands have been the subject of much controversy and often less-than-successful management efforts for several decades. Our purpose in publishing this paper is twofold: First, to provide an example of an indepth, focused social assessment for an audience wider than just the Colville National …