Abstract
Forest management is currently challenged by the need to address an increasing demand for a wide range of ecosystem services. Addressing this challenge requires landscape-level supply approaches that may bring together multiple interests and goals of forest actors. Characterizing these interests and the corresponding forest management context is thus a prerequisite for an effective landscape-level approach. In this manuscript we develop actor analysis to characterize a forest management context. We implement and test the analysis in Vale do Sousa, in North-Western Portugal. The analysis encompassed the identification of key actors and 40 interviews. Results show that the analysis provides a thorough diagnosis of the current forest management context in Vale do Sousa. The findings give a snapshot of the actors and factors – interests, influential actors, conflicts, problems and power resources – that frame forest decisions. Specifically, results show the keen interest of all groups on wood provisioning and on regulating wildfires. However, actors have also revealed a strong interest in water quality, soil erosion prevention, biodiversity, landscape aesthetics and environmental education. Thus, there is a significant interest in the diversification of the provision of ecosystem services. Almost half of the actors have identified the multifunctional forest as being the ideal forest management framework for Vale do Sousa. Findings thus evince the potential of a participatory approach to negotiate a consensual landscape-level solution that may integrate the different actors' interests and provide a wide range of ecosystem services. This may be facilitated by another finding from actor analysis. A regional Forest Owners Association was recognized as the most influential actor and may support the development and negotiation of multiple objective landscape-level forest ecosystem management plans. In summary, these results may contribute to a better understanding of the forest management context in Vale do Sousa and to supporting the effectiveness of forest management planning. They may contribute further to anticipate problems and conflicts and to develop with actors from Vale do Sousa participatory processes to address them.
Highlights
Pressures on forest ecosystems are very likely to increase as a consequence of socioeconomic and demographic trends
Actor analysis is the first step in a participatory process, as it includes the initial contact with the actors, and it sets up the process for organizing the actors' network for the following participatory stages
To evaluate the importance and interest for ecosystem services we provided a list of ecosystem services available in Vale do Sousa, according to the TEEB classification (TEEB 2010) and asked the interviewees the questions: “From your point of view, what are the most important forest ecosystem services in Vale do Sousa? And which is the level of importance for each forest ecosystem services, considering three levels: 0 = neutral; 1 = low importance; 2 = medium importance; 3 = strong importance?” The actors assigned high importance to the ecosystem services that they have more interest in or can get benefits from
Summary
Pressures on forest ecosystems are very likely to increase as a consequence of socioeconomic and demographic trends. Forest managers must cope with the impacts of these harvesting activities on the sustainability of the supply of a wider range of ecosystems services (e.g., wildfire protection, water, and biodiversity) Addressing this challenge requires a joint landscape-level approach to forest management planning. A key success factor to joint collaborative landscape-level forest management is the forest actors' involvement in the decision-making process (Martins and Borges 2007). Such involvement increases the social acceptance of measures and actions of forest management (Bruña-García and Marey-Pérez 2014). Actor analysis is the first step in a participatory process, as it includes the initial contact with the actors, and it sets up the process for organizing the actors' network for the following participatory stages
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