Social licence to operate and forestry – an introduction

Abstract

This special issue aims to explore a variety of strands of research enquiry into social licence to operate and forestry. Emerging from a successful technical session at the 2014 IUFRO World Congress, we present eight conference and invited papers. These papers are aligned into three themes - theoretical approaches, pragmatic use and governance. The theoretical approaches include a systematic review, social licence and social acceptance, and social licence as a social contract. The pragmatic theme includes an analysis of social licence in the media and two analyses of the social licence and corporate social responsibility nexus. The governance theme encompasses two papers, one exploring public opposition to government policy through a social licence framework and the other social licence from an indigenous perspective.