"When all is said and done, conservation is about people. It is about the balance that must be struck between humans and nature and between generations." (Janice C. Wright, 1988)
Contemporary discussions on the future of the forestry profession calls for the development of new approaches to decisionmaking—approaches appropriate to an increasingly turbulent and technology-affected environment. In this context, ecological knowledge (common sense) is receiving considerable attention. Funtowicz and Ravetz (1991) argue that in a rapidly changing world, science alone is an inadequate source for all answers; that we have little choice but to acknowledge and embrace the important contributions the public can bring to the decisionmaking and implementation process. In advancing the case for ecological knowledge, they virtually dismiss traditional scientific methodology as largely irrelevant to contemporary and emerging policymaking needs:"The task [of postnormal science] is to create the conceptual structures, along with the political institutions, whereby a creative dialogue may be developed" (p. 141).
Mainstream resource management seems to be getting the point. Cubbage, O'Laughlin, and Bullock address the importance of citizen input in their encyclopedic Forest Resource Policy (1993):
Forest management decisions [according to Duerr 1986] should be based on a new ethic that responds to the desires of people. This is an anthropocentric, utilitarian concept, but one that is flexible enough to accommodate the desires of recreationists as well as wildlife and wilderness enthusiasts—all those who want to enjoy a product of the forest (p. 226, p. 242).
John C. Gordon (1994) covers familiar ground in his exploration of the forester's new role in ecosystem management:
Ecosystem management offers a way to begin to resolve the paradoxical need to manage nature.... In implementing a new paradigm, we foresters will not be accorded the luxury of passive observation. We should continue to try bold things and learn from setbacks or failure. But we should especially try to get our objectives, our intended outcomes right.... To know the objectives, we must ask our clients, the American people. How do we do this? Public education, public involvement, and politics are all now reasonably common forestry activities; but none seem to work very well in extracting a common vision.... Often, it seems, we would rather fight than win (p. 19).
Jeff Romm (1994) goes beyond Gordon's assent-with-reservations to participation. In his differentiation between "sustainable forests" and "sustainable forestry," he suggests an avenue along which recent developments offer hope:
[C]onflict has become counterproductive, eroding the very conditions in which investment on behalf of anyone's preferred forest is possible. The challenge is not to define the sustainable forest, a process that perpetuates conflict, but to develop social processes that recognize, accommodate, and respond more effectively to diverse perspectives of what the forest is and should be. The challenge is to achieve sustainable forestry (p. 35). [Sustainable forestry demands] a set of adaptive social processes that evade, settle, or surmount value conflicts in generally beneficial ways (p. 38).
Romm's distinction is important. It reflects fundamental changes that have occurred in resource management conceptualization over the last half-century. The professional forester's concept of conservation has evolved from a focus on sustained yield and scientific- and research-based management as ends in themselves, to their inclusion in a holistic vision and community endeavor. The emerging perspective recognizes the existence of human ideal-seeking behavior as the key to sustainable ecosystems. Romm's viewpoint reflects this expansion of consciousness.
Both Gordon's elaboration of "ecosystem management" and Romm's concept of "sustainable forestry" underscore a paradigm shift—a shift that emphasizes the human factor in resource management policymaking. However, all too often careful research and intuition lead to sound conceptual conclusions and no further. Is there an answer to Romm's implicit question—is there such a "set of adaptive social processes"?
The answer is, "yes." The requisite "set of adaptive social processes" is presented in what follows as a two-stage model. This model links two methods, the search conference and the participative design workshop, to determine shared goals and to ensure their effective implementation. For the scientist, the methods come with robust theoretical underpinnings. For the practitioner, there is demonstrable viability from 40 years of successful application (largely outside of the Western Hemisphere). Finally, for the people who must live with the consequences, they offer the assurance of real participation in the development of their own sustainable futures.
The SC, being a pure example of a temporary participative, democratic organizational design, embraces all the concepts for ecological adaptation between system and environment in the context of strategic planning. The world environment, the specific system, and their integration form the SC context. Participants explore the multiple dimensions of complex issues together as they address the question, "Where do we want to be in 200X?" They work through a structured, task-oriented, and systematically managed process to identify their desired endpoint. The process increases the effectiveness of strategic planning by offering the participants—those who will live with the final outcomes—a forum to determine their direction.
Conflict may emerge during the SC process. When it persists, it is acknowledged and rationalized—it is not "resolved." The process is not compromised through self-deceptive exercises in reaching "consensus." Applications include policymaking, rationalization of conflict, creating new organizations or networks, participative strategic planning (corporate, issue-oriented, etc.), and organizational or industrial development or reform.
Following the search conference, the participative design workshop addresses the question, "How can we best organize ourselves to realize this shared vision or strategic plan?" The SC provides the context for planning; however, it does not—and cannot—deal with the structure of the larger permanent working environment. All organizations explicitly or implicitly have some form of design—based either on bureaucratic or participative-democratic principles. Establishing, managing, and implementing plans require organization and understanding of organizational design principles. The PDW provides this understanding—illustrating the divergence among organizational designs and examining those divergences in behavioral terms.
The PDW spurs awareness of the human consequences of organizational structure, and it can produce a meaningful democratization in any group. The process pools and mobilizes the knowledge, skills, creativity, and concerns of all participants. It places a premium on the idiosyncrasies and unique circumstances of individuals within the environment in which they interact. The method is appropriate for work design or redesign and for all types of organizations, communities, and issue-oriented teams—from technicians or engineers on a factory floor to forest-based communities planning for a nonextractive future.
The method was subsequently taken to Australia and elaborated by Fred and Merrelyn Emery. The first community-level application established development guidelines for Gunghlin, a planned community in the Australian capital of Canberra (National Capital Development Commission 1973; Emery 1982). During the 1970s, more than 300 SCs were held in Australia. Through the early 1980s, Canada hosted more than 30 such events in various organizational and community settings (Trist and Murray 1993). The method's utility as a strategic planning tool for turbulent environments has only recently been used in the United States—by private industry and public agencies such as the USDA Forest Service.
Norway's "Industrial Democracy" program helped crystallize the tenets of PDW. These efforts ended with widespread agreement that participative democracy was a viable alternative to workplace autocracy, but they did not address how the findings were to be widely implemented.
Emery returned to Australia in 1969, committed to providing workers with a simple set of social concepts and a process for redesigning their work along participative, democratic lines (Emery 1993). Van Eijnatten (1993) explains that, "[the PDW] breaks with the classical expert-led STSD tradition. It is a genuine 'do-it-yourself' approach with only a minimum of theory and concepts" (p. 46). He attributes the PDW's relatively slow diffusion, thus far, to its "anti-expert character that puts consultancy agencies on a sideline" (p. 53). The PDW has been used in Australia, Norway, India, The Netherlands, and more recently in the United States, Canada, Honduras, and Mexico. Little of this work is documented in the literature, however, because the method's developers made a conscious decision to emphasize that PDW reports are the property and responsibility of the subject group—not the event managers (Emery 1995, pers. common.).
During the SC, participants go beyond themselves and their explicit task to examine possibilities—rather than just probabilities and feasibilities—and then narrow these to a set of common strategic goals. "The process moves from the uncritical pooling of individuals' perceptions, to critical reflection on these through dialogue, towards a shared representation of reality that can guide future action" (Crombie 1985, p. 8 ). SC protocols include the stipulation that all perceptions are valid. This encourages free expression and opportunity to consider all ideas and opinions. All work is done in the open and recorded on large sheets of flip-chart paper. These are hung on the walls as a reference and "permanent" record for the community.
The SC event has three phases:
Phase 1. Participants brainstorm to compile a list of recent global events that impress them as novel or significant. This data is analyzed in response to the questions, "Where is the world headed if things are not done differently?" and "What do we want the world to be?"
Phase 2. The focus shifts to their particular system (organization, community, or issue) and a communal history is inscribed. Participants then collectively consider the distinctive elements of the system at present: what to keep, what to eliminate, and what to initiate. Finally, participants construct the most desirable future of the system—their general strategic goals.
Phase 3. Participants integrate the information compiled during phases 1 and 2. They identify constraints and distinguish between simply desirable ends and desirable and achievable futures. Finally, they develop detailed action plans of viable strategies for realizing their goals.
The SC makes learning and planning one integrated process through which participants become a planning community. Membership in this community fosters understanding and meaningful adaptation to environmental turbulence. The complicated act of working together encourages a sense of belonging and guards against dissociation.
Ideally held consecutively, the overstated stages require a total of 30 to 40 working hours. However, the process should not be viewed as a one-time event. A planning learning community needs to routinely scan its environment, revisit its goals and action plans, and monitor the integrity of its participative democratic organization.
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EMERY, M. 1982. Searching. Canberra: The Australian National University, Centre for Continuing Education.
_________. 1993. Participative design for participative democracy. Canberra: The Australian National University, Centre for Continuing Education.
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TRIST, E., and H. MURRAY. 1993. The social engagement of social science: A Tavistock anthology. Vol. 2, The socio technical perspective. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
VAN EIJNATTEN, E. M. 1993. The Paradigm that changed the work place. Stockholm: The Swedish Center for Working Life.
WRIGHT, J.C. 1988. Future generations and the environment. In Studies in resource management, no. 6. Canterbury, New Zealand: Lincoln College.
About the Authors: Joel A. Diemer is director and Rossana C. Alvarez is research specialist, International Institute for Natural, Environmental, Cultural Resources Management, Box 30003, Dept. 3169, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces 88003.
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