Set initial objectives and identify key issues

All designs are driven by objectives. There is no point in doing a design unless there is something we want to achieve that is different than what already exists. In most cases, a good deal is already known about an area that has been selected for a design. In some cases public policies contain implied or explicit objectives. In other cases an area may have been under intensive management for some time, and the owners have clear notions about what they want. This pre-existing set of ideas is what we mean by an initial set of objectives. They represent the policy and planning framework that guides management decisions. In the USA, most publicly owned forests are managed within a set of laws, and usually have a governing land-use plan or strategy already in place. Thus, an area selected for a design will have already been designated as commercial forest, and there will be some set of stated goals or objectives. In Canada, where forests are managed at the provincial level, the government may have pre-determined that a given area is part of a timber licence, thus some level of harvest is expected. The area may also have been mapped as key wildlife habitat for a range of species, or as a scenically sensitive zone, or perhaps as a municipal watershed. In the UK, national forestry policy objectives and environmental guidelines, as well as the requirements of certification, tend to provide a framework within which objectives are formulated.

By studying existing policy documents to see what objectives they set, either explicitly or implicitly, the design team can understand right away what information is likely to be most important, and thus make data gathering cost effective. There is a risk that the initial objectives may be interpreted too rigidly, which can have the disadvantage of reducing the flexibility of the team by setting aims that may ultimately prove unsustainable, unpopular or unrealistic. Conversely, in projects that are left entirely open-ended, the alternative is to collect an exhaustive array of information, carry out a thorough and objective analysis and then, armed with findings, consider what are the appropriate objectives for a given area. These could range all the way from hands-off wilderness designation to intensive timber harvest. As is the case with most natural resource management projects, the key is to strike a good balance between a too rigid or too open approach at the outset.

In most management plans for working forests, initial objectives are often related to achieving a given output, such as timber volumes, return on capital and so forth. These are also important

objectives for forest design projects, but since a broader approach to sustainability is implied, there must also be additional objectives that relate more directly to the state of the forest landscape. In other words, rather than simply focusing on outputs, initial objectives for a forest design ought to include at least general statements about what the forest should look and be like over time.

Initial objectives arise from multiple sources. At first it might seem obvious that the landowner or manager is the main stakeholder and, since they are probably paying the bills, they have the final say. Nowadays, however, there are many interests which desire a say in how forests are managed, as was discussed in Chapter 4. In areas where there is multiple property ownership or overlapping claims, it is very important to consider the objectives of all stakeholders.

Large-scale private landowners or licence holders increasingly need to include objectives that are not income related, such as watershed protection, wildlife habitat and maintenance of scenic quality. In many cases, these objectives are required under sustainable certification criteria. The team may draw upon these as a starting point for the initial objectives.

Communities may view themselves as owners of public land (as tax payers) or as stakeholders in public or private land where they have freedom to roam, rights to obtain fresh water from the forest, hunting rights or where the forest is an important part of the scenery viewed from their homes or communities. Local native or indigenous people may also express particular values or have treaty/first nation rights associated with their culture, such as trapping, subsistence gathering or protection of sacred sites.

The issues advanced by various stakeholders may or may not conflict or coincide. They normally represent extrinsic values. Intrinsic values are difficult to express but could be deemed to include all the higher-order requirements set out in international treaties. These may not hold much sway with logging companies and citizens of mill towns but must be taken into account for the needs of non-local residents and future generations. They are usually expressed through government policies and programmes associated with meeting key targets such as habitat or species protection, or ensuring reforestation and fire control.

In most cases, it is useful to draw up a public outreach strategy that includes an early discussion with all or most stakeholder interests to identify key issues that should be addressed in the plan. The outreach can be done through the application of one or more of the methods described in Chapter 4. This can help prevent conflict and can also demonstrate where interests overlap or coincide. If a full, open and unconstrained discussion can take place, preferably facilitated by the leader of the design team or someone trained in this role, this stage can greatly ease the progress of the rest of the plan. Often, managers are afraid that the public will want all sorts of what they consider to be ridiculous, expensive and impractical things to be incorporated. They are pleasantly surprised in most cases that this is not so, and they can feel more confident that they can produce a plan that will be agreed by all stakeholders. In fact, in many of the plans we have worked on, a very similar list of issues is developed, perhaps because there may be a finite number of issues that can be identified regarding forests (for example, to protect biodiversity, maintain game species, keep an attractive appearance at key use areas and so forth).

In order for issues to become operative, they have to be translated into objectives. Initially phrases such as “to produce”, “to sustain”, “to protect”, “to enhance” frequently occur and, in the main, these express values that nobody can reasonably object to. However, phrases such as “to protect water quality”, “to maintain habitat values for black bear” or “to produce a sus- tainable supply of timber” need to be expressed rather more fully, in order to provide planners and designers with an indicator of how they know they are meeting these objectives in the design. This is where some more detailed knowledge about an area is needed, and where a combination of expert and “lay” opinion can generate statements that reflect more meaningful and measurable criteria. These criteria may sometimes have to be qualitative descriptions (such as for landscape protection or enhancement) while at other times they can relate to measurable standards (such as water quality), minimum areas of habitat or expected volumes of timber. Some of these indicators can be measured from analysis of the design (such as timber volumes, patch size, riparian corridor width or percentage of old growth), while others may need to be measured over time on site

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(water quality, habitat use by wildlife) or through simulation (landscape change, successional stage change, timber volume production).

Presentation of objectives can be in text form, or, more clearly, in tabular form using a three or more column table where one column states the resource value, the second the main objective and the third a more detailed description of how to meet the objective (see examples in case studies). Additional columns can be used later to develop a monitoring system so that the gradual implementation of the plan can be measured in terms of achieving the objectives.