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Learning Through New Approaches to Forest Governance: Evidence from Harrop-Procter Community Forest, Canada

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Abstract

Collaborative forest governance arrangements have been viewed as promising for sustainable forestry because they allow local communities to participate directly in management and benefit from resource use or protection. Such arrangements are strengthened through social learning during management activities that can enhance capacity to solve complex problems. Despite significant research on social learning in collaborative environmental governance, it is not clear how social learning evolves over time, who influences social learning, and whether learning influences management effectiveness. This study investigates how social learning outcomes change over time, using an in-depth study of a community forest in Canada. Personal interviews, focus group meetings, and participant observation revealed that most participants started engaging in community forestry with limited knowledge and learned as they participated in management activities. However, as the community forest organization became effective at complying with forestry legislation, learning opportunities and outcomes became more restricted. Our results run contrary to the prevalent view that opportunities for and outcomes of social learning become enlarged over time. In our case, learning how to meet governmental requirements increased professionalism and reduced opportunities for involvement and learning to a smaller group. Our findings suggest the need to further test propositions about social learning and collaborative governance, particularly to determine how relationships evolve over time.

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Notes

  1. There are 13 CFs that have a smaller area than HPCF; 12 of them have a higher AAC than HPCF. The average BC AAC is 19,500 m3 (MFLNRO 2014).

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Harrop-Procter Community Forest and all the people who participated in this study. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This research formed part of the doctoral dissertation of the first author at the University of Saskatchewan. During the course of her doctorate, the first author also received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, NEXEN, the University of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Saskatchewan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan, Rm 327 Kirk Hall, 117 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5C8, Canada

    Felicitas Egunyu & Maureen G. Reed

  2. Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba, Sinnott Building, 303-70 Dysart Road, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, Canada

    John A. Sinclair

Authors
  1. Felicitas Egunyu
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  2. Maureen G. Reed
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  3. John A. Sinclair
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Correspondence to Felicitas Egunyu.

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Conflict of interest

Funding for fieldwork was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The funding agency had no involvement in study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of data or writing of this article.

Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals

This research involved the interview of human participants. Permission to conduct the research was obtained from the University of Saskatchewan Human Research Ethics Review Board.

Informed consent

All the study participants were informed about the research and what the results were going to be used for. They were also informed of the option to withdraw from the study at any point. Study participants were requested to provide signed informed consent.

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Egunyu, F., Reed, M.G. & Sinclair, J.A. Learning Through New Approaches to Forest Governance: Evidence from Harrop-Procter Community Forest, Canada. Environmental Management 57, 784–797 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-015-0652-4

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