Participatory Research for Adaptive Ecosystem Management

Abstract

Summary Participatory research involves members of interested communities who work with researchers to apply their joint skills and experience to explore issues of mutual concern. There is an increasingly explicit federal mandate for participatory research efforts involving stakeholder groups in public land management. This paper presents a case study of one effort ongoing in the Hayfork Adaptive Management Area (AMA) on the Six Rivers and Shasta-Trinity national forests of northern California. There, a network of U.S. Forest Service staff, scientists, local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nontimber forest product harvesters (wildcrafters) has been working to address ecological, economic, and social aspects of harvesting nontimber forest products (NTFP) from public land. This paper discusses the challenges of NTFP management on public lands and analyzes participatory research as an approach for addressing some of these challenges.