Steel, Brent S.; Shindler, Bruce; Brunson, Mark. 1998. Social acceptability of ecosystem management in the Pacific Northwest. In: Soden, Dennis L.; Lamb, Berton Lee; Tennert, John R., eds. Ecosystems management: a social science perspective. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company: 147-160.
Recent policy changes for management of federal forest lands in the Pacific Northwest have called for ecosystem-based practices with greater cooperation between federal and local agencies, private forest landowners, and the general public. Impetus for these changes came out of President Clinton's 1993 Northwest Forest Conference which addressed human and environmental needs served by federal forests. The resulting Northwest Forest Plan places an emphasis on community-oriented and ecosystem based forestry; that is, management thattakes into account the economic and social interests of forest proximate communities as well as the health of forest ecosystems. The plan embraces Lee's1 ideas about adaptive management which applies experimentation to the design and implementation of natural-resource and environmental policies.
Given these objectives, it seems important to understand regional public perceptions and acceptability of ecosystem management concepts intended for federal forests. This paper describes opinion research on ecosystem management conducted among citizens living west of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California during the fall and winter of 1996-97. More specifically, it examines: 1) the level of citizen informedness concerning ecosystem management; 2) public perceptions of the logic and motivation ofecosystem management; 3) factors associated with public perceptions of ecosystem management; and, 4) public confidence in the agencies charged with implementing ecosystem management practices.