Problem structuring in participatory forest planning

Chiranjeewee Khadka, Teppo Hujala, Bernhard Wolfslehner and Harald Vacik

Forest Policy and Economics, 2013, vol. 26, issue C, 1-11

Abstract: Decision-making for multi-purpose forestry requires well-aligned public participation and stakeholder interaction. The operational research community has developed both the theory and practice of problem-structuring methods (PSMs) to help stakeholders determine a solvable joint problem perception. Problem structuring is typically conducted via facilitated modelling (group negotiation) in workshops. This review investigates problem-structuring activity within participatory forest planning over the period 2002–2011. A total of 32 research articles were studied and summarized. It was found that problem structuring is widely scattered in different continents, but most of the explicitly named PSMs arise from south-eastern Asia or Africa. Sophisticated problem structuring seems rather rare in forest planning, but some good examples bring evidence that encourages the use of facilitated modelling in participatory forest planning. Evoked activeness among stakeholders signals meaningful social learning, while improved knowledge exchange, anticipated ‘sense of ownership’ by stakeholders and commitment to the process were the main observed positive effects of problem structuring. However, problem structuring needs good facilitation as well as modelling and decision-analysis expertise. Attention must be paid to ensure participants' comprehension and to explicate the goals and rules of problem structuring with participants.

Keywords: Facilitated modelling; Participatory planning; PSM; Soft OR; Stakeholder involvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934112002195
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:26:y:2013:i:c:p:1-11

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2012.09.008

Access Statistics for this article

Forest Policy and Economics is currently edited by M. Krott

More articles in Forest Policy and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().