What went right? Research shows what is needed to successfully integrate contentious goals in forest management

In a recently published article ‘What went right? A collaborative process to prepare a city forest management strategy‘ (Saarikoski et al. 2023) authors analyze a collaborative process facilitated by Akordi that succeeded in creating a joint forest management strategy for the city of Jyväskylä, Finland. The analysis draws on the participants’ own account of the process, elicited via interviews and questionnaires. The paper attends to critical context and process factors to account for the success of the collaborative process and evaluate the effectiveness of the agreement in terms of ecological and social outcomes.

The process created a practical agreement, which increased the share of protected forests and introduced new biodiversity protection measures for commercial and recreational forests. It also created innovative solutions, like the new concept of a nature value forest, which helped the parties to negotiate around their differences. However, disagreement over the impacts of forest management practices, especially continuous cover forestry, remained. The crucial contextual conditions contributing to the agreement were strong initiating leadership and political mandate, which motivated the participants to engage in collaborative dialogue and stick with the process. The key process factors were a third-party facilitation and joint fact-finding. Most importantly, the process was not constrained by a pre-defined agenda or assumptions related to the status quo, but the participants were granted considerable influence over decisions and outputs.

The analyzis shows that the Jyväskylä forest agreement demonstrates the potential of collaborative multi-stakeholder processes in settling persistent environmental disputes. The process did not result in a consensus on the best ways to manage city forests, but it created a practical agreement (Laws et al., 2014), which balanced ecological and recreational goals with traditional forest management goals and practices. The findings from this case study also illustrate the capacity of collaborative processes to develop creative ideas and innovative solutions, and they provide some support for the joint learning hypothesis (see Innes & Booher, 2003).

The study confirms the importance of several process-related criteria for the success of collaborative processes. The most crucial factor was the participants’ commitment and collaborative capacity to work through their differences, even in the critical moments when the process was about to unravel. The analysis shows how collaboration can easily get derailed by ineffectual communication even if it is in the parties’ best interests to reach an agreement. Another key factor was good facilitation, which enabled genuine dialogue and encouraged the parties to stick with the process despite the difficult moments. Developing a shared knowledge base on forest management and ecology, and especially citizens’ preferences, was also critical. The positive impact of information sharing and joint fact finding is observed also in other studies on collaborative natural resource management (Innes & Booher, 2003; Lindgren et al., 2021).

Full article: Heli Saarikoski, Emma Luoma, Sanne Bor & Pia Polsa (2023): What went right? A collaborative process to prepare a city forest management strategy, Journal of
Environmental Policy & Planning, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1523908X.2023.2258524