Participatory forest planning using MCDA in northern Sweden

General case description

Brief overview

Lycksele is the main town of the Lycksele municipality in the county of Västerbotten in northern Sweden. The town Lycksele is the regional center in a forest landscape area where commercial forestry is an important industry for the local economy. In addition, the forest is important to the inhabitants for purposes other than timber production, e.g. for the reindeer herding industry, for preserving biodiversity, and for recreation, hunting, and fishing opportunities. These diverse interests in the forest are a potential source of conflict and the planning situation is further complicated by the fact that there are several owners: the Lycksele municipality, three commercial forest companies, the Church of Sweden, and a number of nonindustrial private forest owners. To address these problems, a participatory planning process was initiated by the municipality and supported by the forest owning companies and the Church of Sweden. The main objective of the participatory planning process in Lycksele was to produce a multiple-use forest management plan. The plan was to be a strategic forest management plan including timber production as well as other uses of the forest in a total area of ca 9 000 ha of productive forest around the town of Lycksele.

Organization

The planning process was initiated by the Lycksele municipality and supported by the forest companies and the Church of Sweden, who owns forest around Lycksele. The process started with a meeting for representatives from the three forest-owning companies, the Church of Sweden, the municipality, the Forest Agency, the County Board, and two researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. In this first meeting, these representatives formed a steering group for the planning process. A general outline of a five-step process combining MCDA and participatory planning was proposed by the researchers: 1) stakeholder analysis, 2) structuring of the decision problem, 3) generation of alternatives, 4) elicitation of preferences, and 5) ranking of alternatives. The process and expectations and apprehensions of the forest owners were then discussed.

Problem structuring

In the first meeting of the steering group, two different exercises were used to define the problem and form a basis for the stakeholder analysis. In the first exercise, the members of the steering group were asked individually to write down potential stakeholders on Post-It notes. The notes were then displayed on a whiteboard. The results were discussed and the proposed stakeholders were grouped according to assumptions of common interests. The stakeholders that were identified were all associations, companies, and other organizations or groups, not individuals. The purpose of the second exercise was to determine appropriate levels of participation in the planning process. A variety of the ladder of participation (see table below) ^[1] was presented and briefly explained to the members of the steering group, who were asked to place the different groups of stakeholders on appropriate levels of participation. This task was also done individually, and each member presented and justified his or her suggestion. The results were then discussed by the group and a model was created with the desired level of participation for each group of stakeholders. According to this model, the forest owners were to retain the decision-making power, while representatives for nature conservation, outdoor activities, tourism, education, and the reindeer herding industry were placed on the involvement level. The general public was placed on the consultation level.

The IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation (© 2007 International Association for Public Participation, www.iap2.org)

Level	Public participation goal
5. Empower	To place final decision-making in the hands of the public
4. Collaborate	To partner with the public in each aspect of the decision including the development of alternatives and identification of the preferred solution
3. Involve	To work directly with the public throughout the process to ensure public issues and concerns are consistently understood and considered
2. Consult	To obtain public feedback on analysis, alternatives, and/or decisions
1. Inform	To provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding problems, alternatives, and/or solutions

Intelligence

Stakeholders

After the first meeting, the list of identified stakeholders was concretized to selected people by the researchers, in cooperation with the municipality ecologist. The majority of people selected as representatives for different interests were members of an existing network used by the municipality ecologist as a reference group in forestry-related issues. The stakeholders were grouped into four different groups:

• Timber producers: Church of Sweden; Holmen; Lycksele municipality; SCA; Sveaskog; private forest owners.

• Environmentalists: County Board of Västerbotten; Lappmarkens skogsgrupp; Ornithologist; Swedish Forest Agency; Swedish Society for Nature Conservation

• Recreationists: Ansia Camping; Friluftsfrämjandet; Fritidsenheten/Folkhälsorådet, Lycksele municipality; Gammplatsen/Hembygdsgillet; Guidepoolen; Handikappförbundens samarbetsorgan; Korpen; Lappmarksryttarna; Lycksele fiskevårdsområdesförening; Lycksele IF; Närnaturguide; Primary schools; Sameföreningen; Snowled, Skoterföreningarna i Lycksele; Study Promotion Association; Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management; Swedish Tourist Association; Tannbergsskolan (preparatory high school), Skidgymnasiet and Naturbruksprogrammet

• Reindeer herders: Ubmeje tjeälddie (Umbyn’s reindeer herding district)

Objectives

Criteria for each of the four social groups were identified through individual interviews with the representative stakeholders identified in the stakeholder analysis. The resulting objective hierarchy was as follows:

• Timber producers
  • Maximize net present value
  • Even harvest flow
  • Increase production capacity
    • Maximize fertilized area
    • Maximize thinning area
    • Maximize area of lodgepole pine

• Environmentalists
  • Maximize old forest (>120 yrs) area
  • Minimize clear-cut size
  • Maximize proportion of birch
  • Minimize total clear-cut area

• Recreationists
  • Maximize old forest (>120 yrs) area
  • Minimize clear-cut size
  • Maximize proportion of spruce and birch
  • Minimize total clear-cut area
  • Minimize area planted with lodgepole pine

• Reindeer herders
  • Maximize thinning area
  • Maximize old forest (>120 yrs) area
  • Minimize clear-cut size
  • Minimize total clear-cut area
  • Minimize area planted with lodgepole pine
  • Minimize fertilized area

Preferences

Preferences of decision makers and stakeholders were elicited by using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)^[2].

Information

The interviews with stakeholders were semistructured and a form with the basic questions was used to make notes. Stakeholders were given maps on which they could mark areas of interest to them and explain why they were important, how they were used, and how they should be managed to benefit the stakeholder’s interests. The information from the interviews was used to construct a preliminary objective hierarchy for each of the four social groups. The maps drawn at the interviews were digitalized as files in ESRI® ArcGIS® Desktop (version 9.2) so that maps showing the areas of interest to the stakeholders of the recreation, environmentalist, and reindeer herding groups could be created. Areas with high biological values set aside for conservation by the forest owners were also included in areas of interest for biodiversity, for the environmentalists. All stakeholders that had been interviewed were invited to a meeting where the hierarchies and the maps were presented for discussion. Changes were made to the hierarchies according to opinions expressed in the meeting.

Design

Alternatives

The maps drawn by stakeholders were overlaid with existing information about areas with high biological and recreational values to generate a zonal map on which the forest was divided into four different zones based on what type of silvicultural management should be applied in each zone. The four zones were as follows:

1. Zone with no commercial management
2. Zone with no clear-cutting
3. Zone with reinforced consideration to objectives other than timber production
4. Zone with standard forest management

Based on which zone the stand belonged to, each stand was assigned a treatment class defining the set of allowed treatment schedules:

1. The first treatment class contains stands in zone 1 and buffer zones that are left for undisturbed growth.
2. The second treatment class, defining the treatments in zone 2, contains stands that are never to be clear-cut; instead, a shelterwood of 200 stems per hectare is established.
3. In zone 3, the treatment class contains stands where 20 years are added to the minimum age of final felling in order to prolong the rotation time.
4. Zone 4 contains stands where the full range of standard treatments could be applied. In some stands lodgepole pine establishment could not be accepted because of the stands’ characteristics and, in a few cases, restrictions in the Forestry Act.

After a stand was assigned a treatment class, the stand data were exported to the GAYA stand simulation system, which simulated all permissible treatment schedules under the given treatment class ^{[3] [4]}. This resulted in the generation of 116 740 schedules, corresponding to an average of almost 100 schedules per stand. Based on the generated treatment schedules and the identified criteria, three forest plan alternatives were generated with a linear programming model of the Model I type ^[5]. Each alternative consists of different combinations of treatment schedules for all stands in the landscape, which then results in different values for the criteria in the identified hierarchy. The aim was to generate realistic alternatives of different directions, without them being too extremely directed toward the interests of any one of the social groups. However, with more than three plans, the judgment process would have become increasingly complicated for the stakeholders.

Choice

Usage of DSS

The GAYA system and the software AIMMS were used in the development of alternative plans. MS Excel and the web based software Web-HIPRE were used for AHP calculations and sensitivity analysis.

The development of the PlanEval application in the Heureka system is partly based on demands identified in this planning process.

Usage of models, methods and tools

The main decision support tool used in the planning process was AHP, which was used to elicit the stakeholders preferences for criteria and alternatives and determine a ranking of alternatives.

The stakeholders were asked to make individual judgments on the criteria and alternatives by the pairwise comparisons procedure of the AHP. Each respondent was considered a member of one of the four social groups, and they answered questions relating to the criteria for that particular social group. However, the representative for the municipality made judgments on all criteria. Each stakeholder also made pairwise comparisons on the alternatives relating to the set of criteria specific to his or her social group. Attributes for the different alternatives were presented in diagrams and tables as a basis for the judgments. The respondents gave their judgments by filling out inquiry forms sent to them by mail; that is, the AHP was not used interactively. The members of the steering group were also asked to make pairwise comparisons of the four social groups to determine the relative importance of each social group.

Monitoring

The results were presented to and discussed by the steering group at a meeting. The results in general were accepted and approved and the highest ranked plan was adopted as a multiple-use forest management plan. The municipality will integrate the plan into existing forest management plans. The forest companies will use the plan as a tool in their planning processes, but they have not formally undertaken to pursue the plan. The steering group also agreed to test a routine for consultations in the planning of silvicultural treatments based on the plan.

The strengths and weaknesses of the participatory MCDA process was assessed based on the researchers’ observations of the process, the outcomes in terms of numerical and other results, and the researchers’ interpretations of observations and outcomes. The five social goals for analysis of public participation in natural resource management formulated by Beierle and Cayford^[6] were used in the assessment:

1. Incorporating public values into decisions
2. Improving the substantive quality of decisions
3. Building trust in institutions
4. Resolving conflict among competing interests
5. Educating and informing the public

This set of goals includes both the outcome-focused view and the process-focused view: the second goal is related to the material outcome of the process, while goals 1, 3, 4, and 5 are more connected to the benefits of the process in itself.

The assessment indicated that a strength was that the MCDA process incorporated stakeholder values in a structured way that ensured a certain degree of transparency of the decision making process. Furthermore, the MCDA process potentially increased the substantive quality of decisions by balancing interests against each other, thereby producing solutions of higher overall stakeholder satisfaction. The score for goals such as conflict resolution and education could have benefited from different management practices that would have intensified the interaction among stakeholders, for instance with more meetings with more direct public participation during a shorter period.

References

Nordström, E.-M., Eriksson, Ljusk O. & Öhman, K. 2010. Integrating multiple criteria decision analysis in participatory forest planning: experience from a case study in northern Sweden. Forest Policy and Economics 12(8): 562-574.

Cited references

1. ↑ IAP2 (2007) IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation [online]. Available from: http://www.iap2.org/associations/4748/files/IAP2%20Spectrum_vertical.pdf. [14 October 2010]
2. ↑ Saaty, T L (1990) The Analytic Hierarchy Process: Planning, priority setting, resource allocation. 2nd ed. Pittsburgh: RWS Publications.
3. ↑ Eriksson, L O (1983) Timber class formation by cluster analysis. Department of Forest Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Report No. 157. Garpenberg, Sweden.
4. ↑ Hoen, H F, Eid, T (1990) En modell for analyse av behandlingsstrategier for en skog ved bestandssimulering og lineær programmering. Norsk institutt for skogforskning (NISK). Rapport 90:9. Ås, Norway.
5. ↑ Johnson, K N, Scheurman, H L (1977) Techniques for prescribing optimal timber harvest and investment under different objectives - Discussion and synthesis. Forest Science. Monograph 18.
6. ↑ Beierle, T C, Cayford, J (2002) Democracy in practice: Public participation in environmental decisions. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future Press.

External resources