The US Forest Service: Whither the new resource management paradigm?

Abstract

The concept of a resource management paradigm was developed and operationalized in a nationwide study of US Forest Service employees in 1990. The results suggested that the attitudes and values of one particular segment of Forest Service employees, the Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, represent an alternative resource management paradigm that differs significantly from the dominant management paradigm held by the majority of US Forest Service employees. The study also found a significant segment of non-Association of Forest Service Employees for the Environmental Ethics employees eager to embrace non-consumptive forest policy changes. In 1996, the nationwide study of the US Forest Service was replicated to re-examine what changes had occurred. The results indicate that: (1) An alternative resource management paradigm continues to exist in the agency but that Association of Forest Service Employees for the Environmental Ethics' role as a catalyst has changed due to a potential decline in association membership, its perceived effectiveness among other agency employees, actual changes in agency resource management, and other more pressing external threats. (2) The agency has shifted more toward embracing the new resource management paradigm between 1990–1996, thus narrowing the perceived bureaucratic performance gap between employee preferences and resource management outcomes. (3) The production of commodities is viewed as more favorable in 1996 than in 1990, perhaps as a result of the shift in agency resource orientation toward ecosystem management and less production of forest goods. It is argued that the pendulum has swung too far toward non-commodities along a commodity/non-commodity continuum in the minds of forest service employees. We argue that this trend is part of an international phenomenon. Further, the kind of longitudinal and institutional analysis presented here could be applied to resource management agencies in national and provincial governments of other countries.