Taking the pulse of civic engagement in forest management

Abstract

Outdated and unresponsive institutional arrangements are the greatest single obstacle to the achievement of sustainable forestry in Canada. More open civic engagement processes and institutional arrangements are now emerging, however, compelling traditional actors to interact with many more issues and social forces. This article introduces a way of understanding and evaluating civic engagement processes for this special issue on civic engagement in forest management. It reviews the articles for this special issue and critically assesses where we have come from and where we might need to go as forest governance continues to evolve and meet the challenges of a 21st Century Canada. © 2010 Canadian Institute Forestry.