Promoting sustainability behaviours through forestry

Abstract

Recent UK government policy design has drawn heavily on insights from behavioural sciences, however, engagement with these ideas in the forestry sector has been limited. This article critically reflects on the interface between forest policy and 'behaviour'. After considering what the term 'behaviour' may mean in the forestry context, we draw on a literature review to develop four key principles that can be used to guide forestry interventions seeking behavioural change. These recommend that interventions: (1) are grounded on an understanding of individual's and groups' values and motivations, (2) seek to affect the wider social and physical context of its target groups, (3) adopt a multifaceted approach at various scales and (4) facilitate active involvement by participants in project design and implementation. These principles are then applied to the analysis of four UK forestry case studies. We conclude that forestry interventions have affected behaviours but without explicitly linking them to 'behavioural' discourses. Furthermore, robust monitoring and evaluation to track behaviour change is currently lacking. We argue that the principles we have developed can be used in forest programme design to ensure that participatory processes, monitoring and evaluation criteria and adequate periods for reflection are built into interventions.