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Disturbance shapes the US forest governance frontier: A review and conceptual framework for understanding governance change

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Abstract

Conflict in US forest management for decades centered around balancing demands from forested ecosystems, with a rise in place-based collaborative governance at the end of the twentieth century. By the early 2000s, it was becoming apparent that not only had the mix of players involved in forest management changed, but so had the playing field, as climate-driven disturbances such as wildfire and insect and disease outbreaks were becoming more extensive and severe. In this conceptual review paper, we argue that disturbance has become the most prominent driver of governance change on US national forests, but we also recognize that the governance responses to disturbance are shaped by variables such as discourses, institutional history and path dependence, and institutional innovation operating at different system levels. We review the governance changes in response to disturbance that constitute a new frontier in US federal forest governance and offer a conceptual framework to examine how these governance responses are shaped by multi-level factors.

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Fig. 1

Source National Interagency Coordination Center, https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics/wildfires, last accessed on Aug. 26, 2021. Data collection methods changed in 1983, and, while we had previously accessed the earlier data, those data are no longer available at this site. One acre is equivalent to 0.4047 hectare

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Notes

  1. https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to our special issue organizers for convening workshops and panels to stimulate a robust discussion on forest governance frontiers. We also thank Benjamin Cashore for early reviews of this article and our many research subjects over the years for contributing to our work and understanding of US forest governance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523-1472, USA

    Courtney A. Schultz & Antony S. Cheng

  2. University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602-2152, USA

    Jesse B. Abrams

  3. Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Emily Jane Davis

  4. University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403-5247, USA

    Heidi R. Huber-Stearns & Cassandra Moseley

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  1. Courtney A. Schultz
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Schultz, C.A., Abrams, J.B., Davis, E.J. et al. Disturbance shapes the US forest governance frontier: A review and conceptual framework for understanding governance change. Ambio 50, 2168–2182 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01629-4

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