Dennis R. Becker

Learning from Landowners: Examining the Role of Peer Exchange in Private Landowner Outreach through Landowner Networks

More than one-third of forested land in the United States is owned by individuals or families, making these lands a significant source of the nations forest resources and services. Yet investments in traditional expert-led outreach efforts, including financial incentive programs and technical assistance for management plan development, have failed to engage the vast majority of U.S. forest landowners. Through case studies of five diverse landowner networks, this study explored peer exchange among landowners as an alternative means of fostering engagement. Sixty-one in-depth interviews revealed common themes across cases that contributed to landowner participation and learning, including maintaining an atmosphere conducive to social learning, emphasis on local information and hands-on learning, and access to rich networks that include both practical peer-derived information and trusted technical expert-derived information. These findings enrich existing landowner engagement theory by offering insight into landowner networks as an avenue for serving an ever-growing population of family forest owners.

Socioeconomic Barriers and the Role of Biomass Utilization in Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Restoration

There is general consensus that ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine systems is necessary and there exists ample ecological science suggesting that it is physically attainable. However, the pace of restoration has been noticeably slow and is far from approaching the landscape level. We conducted a review of published journal articles, book chapters, and proceedings on the restoration of ponderosa pine forests in the Southwest in order to identify and examine the primary socioeconomic barriers that are impeding the progress of ecological restoration in the region. The role of small-diameter wood utilization in the southwestern United States is highlighted as an example of broader, divergent socioeconomic contexts needing reconciliation if restoration is to expand to the ecosystem scale. A synthesis of opportunities for overcoming barriers and furthering the progress of forest restoration is provided.

Community-based social impact assessment: the case of salmon-recovery on the lower Snake River

This paper presents a process for gathering and using data for socio-economic indicators in a community-based impact assessment conducted in 1999 across a three-state area. It assessed community-level impacts of alternative Federal actions to recover salmon runs, ranging from maintaining the existing hydro system to breaching four dams on the lower Snake River. Residents from 27 diverse communities participated in structured, interactive forums that sought to empower them with an understanding of the results of concurrent biological, economic and physical impact studies as the basis for making more informed judgments. This approach raises significant issues for developing and applying socio-economic indicators to a highly controversial effort to sustain endangered species across a large landscape.

Personal networks and private forestry in Minnesota

Personal networks affect the flow information and behavior through social groups. We investigated the role of personal relationships in the flow of information and adoption of sustainable forest management behavior by private forest landowners. Among the 1767 owners of 20 or more acres of Minnesota forest land surveyed, 90% have received forestry information from at least one source including 65% from a peer and 53% from a professional forester. Forestry information personal network size ranged from 0 to 14 with a mean of 2.92. Network diversity, expressed as the number of different types of information sources within the network, was relatively high relative to network size, suggesting that most landowners value diverse perspectives, despite reporting fairly small networks. Larger acreage owners, management plan holders, and frequent visitors to their forest land had significantly larger and more diverse networks. Network size and diversity were statistically unrelated to ownership tenure, landowner age, and resident/absentee status. Significantly more respondents named a peer or a professional as their most helpful source than other source categories. Satisfaction with forestry information networks was positively associated with network size and diversity, further suggesting that landowners prefer information from a variety of different sources. The results suggest that landowner education designed to foster peer learning and relationship building between landowners, foresters, loggers, and other groups may promote adoption of sustainable forest management practices.

Barriers to and opportunities for effective cumulative impact assessment within state-level environmental review frameworks in the United States

In the US, relatively little research has been done in recent years to inform the development and implementation of cumulative impact assessment (CIA) policy. Past studies have primarily focused on the requirements and practices of the National Environmental Policy Act, but little is known about the challenges and opportunities relating to CIA practices at the state level. By analysing data from a national survey of state environmental review programme administrators, this study identified the inability of state programmes to facilitate CIA practices as a major barrier to effective implementation, particularly reflected by the perceived lack of explicit procedures and data for conducting CIA. Important strategies for improvement included adopting detailed guidelines specifying what to include in an assessment and developing institutional mechanisms to encourage state agency co-ordination. Some differences in perception were observed across programmes due to the different types of state-level environmental review frameworks within which cumulative impacts are assessed. In addition, administrators from programmes without CIA requirements seemed to overestimate the cost and time needed to implement CIA. Changing their perception may contribute to the adoption of CIA procedures in these states.

Shifting paths to conservation: policy change discourses and the 2008 US farm bill

From 2004 until 2006, reform of US agricultural subsidy programmes seemed a likely result of pressure from the World Trade Organization. Many groups saw this pressure as an opportunity to ‘green’ farm policy by crafting environmental service payments that could replace crop subsidies. Yet the 2008 US farm bill fell short of such drastic changes. This paper uses discourse analysis to trace the decline of prospects for reform of the farm bill, and a shift to incremental policy making between 2006 and 2008. It finds that, in addition to political and situational factors, striking discursive shifts altered policy debates and outcomes to create particular conservation impacts. It thus argues for broader use of rhetoric theory and discourse analysis to assess environmental policy. Implications for land conservation are presented in the context of interest group tactics.

Characterising the landscape of state environmental review policies and procedures in the United States: a national assessment

Following the intent of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, many states have adopted policies and procedures directing state agencies and local government units to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of development projects prior to their undertaking. In contrast to a rich literature on federal requirements, current understanding of state environmental review is narrowly focused and outdated. This paper seeks to provide information on the landscape of state environmental review policy frameworks. The paper identifies 37 states with formal environmental review requirements through a document review of state statutes, administrative rules and agency-prepared materials, and confirms this finding through a survey of state administrators. A two-tier classification is used to distinguish states based on the approach taken to address environmental review needs and the scope and depth of relevant policies and procedures implemented. This paper also provides a discussion of policy and programme attributes that may contribute to effective practice, and of the potential for adopting relevant legislation in states where environmental review is currently lacking.

Results of Community Deliberation About Social Impacts of Ecological Restoration: Comparing Public Input of Self-Selected Versus Actively Engaged Community Members

Participatory processes for obtaining residents’ input about community impacts of proposed environmental management actions have long raised concerns about who participates in public involvement efforts and whose interests they represent. This study explored methods of broad-based involvement and the role of deliberation in social impact assessment. Interactive community forums were conducted in 27 communities to solicit public input on proposed alternatives for recovering wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest US. Individuals identified by fellow residents as most active and involved in community affairs (“AE residents”) were invited to participate in deliberations about likely social impacts of proposed engineering and ecological actions such as dam removal. Judgments of these AE participants about community impacts were compared with the judgments of residents motivated to attend a forum out of personal interest, who were designated as self-selected (“SS”) participants. While the magnitude of impacts rated by SS participants across all communities differed significantly from AE participants’ ratings, in-depth analysis of results from two community case studies found that both AE and SS participants identified a large and diverse set of unique impacts, as well as many of the same kinds of impacts. Thus, inclusion of both kinds of residents resulted in a greater range of impacts for consideration in the environmental impact study. The case study results also found that the extent to which similar kinds of impacts are specified by AE and SS group members can differ by type of community. Study results caution against simplistic conclusions drawn from this approach to community-wide public participation. Nonetheless, the results affirm that deliberative methods for community-based impact assessment involving both AE and SS residents can provide a more complete picture of perceived impacts of proposed restoration activities.

The Effect of Data Collection Technique on Estimated Landowner Personal Network Attributes

AbstractSocial network analysis, focusing on the role of interpersonal relationships on the flow of information, trust, and service delivery, is increasingly recognized as a valuable approach to understanding landowner behavior. Landowner personal networks are central to Diffusion of Innovations theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, both of which are commonly invoked in the design of interventions to encourage sustainable private forest management. However, personal network data can be difficult to obtain for a large sample. We tested the effect of three different personal network name generators on estimates of Minnesota landowners’ forestry information networks: a list of generic alter categories, an open-ended written survey, and a combination of written survey and follow-up telephone survey. Generic network data provided a relatively accurate baseline. Personal network data from a written survey provided more detailed data but underestimated network diversity and failed to account for potentially influential weak ties. A combination of written and follow-up telephone survey both doubled estimated average network size from 2.8 to 5.5 alters and increased estimated network diversity from 2.3 alter categories per respondent to 3.7. Network data from the written survey revealed a bias in favor of strong ties that was largely overcome through additional prompting during the telephone survey. A combination of written surveys and telephone or in-person interviews may be the best strategy to balance the benefit of a large sample with the cost of more intensive, yet more reliable, data collection methods.

User guide for HCR Estimator 2.0: software to calculate cost and revenue thresholds for harvesting small-diameter ponderosa pine.

Becker, Dennis R.; Larson, Debra; Lowell, Eini C.; Rummer, Robert B. 2007. User guide for HCR Estimator 2.0: software to calculate cost and revenue thresholds for harvesting small-diameter ponderosa pine. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-748. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 51 p. The HCR (Harvest Cost-Revenue) Estimator is engineering and financial analysis software used to evaluate stand-level financial thresholds for harvesting smalldiameter ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) in the Southwest United States. The Windows-based program helps contractors and planners to identify costs associated with tree selection, residual handling, transportation of raw materials, and equipment used. Costs are compared against total financial return for regionally based market opportunities to arrive at potential net profit. Information is used to identify per-acre cost thresholds, for contract appraisal, and for prioritizing project planning for wildfire fuel reduction treatments and forest restoration efforts.