Forest Management Guideline Development Through Consensus: Important Factors to Consider
Authors
Charles R. Blinn
University of Minnesota, St. Paul, USA
Michael J. Phillips
University of Minnesota, St. Paul, USA
Alan Jones
University of Minnesota, St. Paul, USA
Richard Rossman
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Bemidji, USA
Tim Webb
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Bemidji, USA
Abstract
Consensus forums are one method of dealing with controversial natural resource issues. Minnesota regulators learned numerous important lessons when they used a consensus-based approach to develop voluntary site-level forest management guidelines. These include: 1) take active steps to facilitate information sharing among team leaders, 2) select team members who can effectively represent their group's perspective, who are solution-oriented, and who can help shape a compromise, 3) be prepared for problems that will arise so that they don't bog down the process, 4) use field tours as a mechanism to educate participants and to test the practicality of proposed guidelines, and 5) build in flexibility to accommodate the range of considerations which affect guideline application.
