Characterizing the sustainable forestry issue network in the United States

Issue network analysis techniques were applied to the issue of sustainable forestry in the United States to identify potential public and private outc omes for the issue. A quantitative approach based on work by Laumann and Kn oke [The Organizational State (1987)] was utilized in conjunction with the Delphi method. Results suggest that the parity in the distribution of influ ence among network sectors means that moving the issue of sustainable fores try onto the formal policy agenda will require more consensus on problems a nd solutions than exists at the present time. Accordingly, broad policy act ions resulting from the expansion of the issue of sustainable forestry are unlikely in the short-term. However, experts on the Delphi panel anticipate that changes will occur in response to sustainability issues. At the feder al and state level, this is likely to result in changes to public forest ma nagement and to the objectives assigned to the USDA Forest Service and to t he state forestry agencies. States are projected to draft new and to change old private forest practices regulations as a result of sustainable forest ry concerns. In the private sector, the trend of applying criteria and indi cator-based sustainable forestry management standards and certification pro grams will continue. Non-industrial private forest owners are projected to make the fewest direct accommodations. Finally, where directly comparable, the Delphi study's results were not significantly different from the quanti tative approach, suggesting that Delphi has promise for network research ap plications. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.