Canadian Forest Service Publications

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Abstract

There has been an increased awareness of forest management issues by the citizens of most Western Countries. Although attention initially focused on the deforestation of tropical forests, strategic and pragmatic factors have drawn attention to the temperate and boreal zone forests. The objectives of this study were to: examine how a major public policy issue has become "internationalized" by a number of environmental interest groups; to examine how the forest companies and the governments responded to the environmental groups’ initiatives; to examine the role environmental interest groups should play in a pluralist democracy; to identify ways to enhance the contributions such groups make in the policy formulation process while reducing the intensity, and cost to society, of the conflict between economic and environmental interests; and to explore pathologies that have occurred or may occur in the interrelationships among environmental groups, industry and governments. The study was based on extensive review of published documents, media reports, data bases, and scientific publications and interviews with stakeholders. Canadian forest companies need to actively monitor the economic and political environment to try to identify long-term and short-term threats. Further, forest companies must learn to better differentiate among various environmental groups and monitor the activities of environmental groups involved in forestry. To enhance the important contributions that environmental groups make to the public policy process there should be: a comprehensive treatment of issues involved in the allocation of scarce societal resources; the development of credible independent arbitrations on questions of environmental and health risks; and a new balance in the processes of communication with the public and interest groups.