Forecasting Potential Policy Actions for Sustainable Forestry in the United States

Steverson O. Moffat (Presenter), Southern Research Station

Frederick W. Cubbage, North Carolina State University

Thomas P. Holmes, Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service

Elizabethann O’Sullivan

Potential federal and state policy actions for sustainable forestry were identified by utilizing quantitative issue network analysis techniques in conjunction with the Delphi method.  Results suggest that the parity in the distribution of influence among sectors in the sustainable forestry issue network means that moving sustainability concerns onto the formal policy agenda requires greater consensus on problems and solutions than exists at the present time.  Accordingly, broad policy actions resulting from the expansion of the issue of sustainable forestry are unlikely in the short-term.  However, experts on the Delphi panel anticipate that changes will occur in response to sustainability issues.  At the federal and state level, this is likely to result in changes to public forest management and to the objectives assigned to the USDA Forest Service and to the state forestry agencies.  States are projected to draft new and to change old private forest practices regulations as a result of sustainable forestry concerns.  In the private sector, the trend of applying criteria and indicator-based sustainable forestry management standards and certification programs will continue.  Non-industrial private forest owners are projected to make the fewest direct accommodations in response to forest sustainability concerns.  In addition to these forecasts, the methodological merits of combining Delphi with traditional issue network analysis are examined.

Workshop I: People and Forests

Sustaining
Southern
Forests

a conference sponsored by the Southern Forest Resource Assessment