Community participation in national forest management: The role of social capital and organizational capacity in collaborative efforts in Trinity County, California

Community forestry on public lands requires collaboration between communities and government agencies. This study of four collaborative community-based forestry efforts in California explores some of the factors important to community-agency partnerships in managing national forests. In particular, this study examines the roles of social capital and organizational capacity in allowing communities to participate as coproducers of specific tasks of forest management. It contributes new insights into the broader question: under what conditions can community forestry succeed in the United States?;Each of the four groups studied was a local collaboration of resource management agencies and community members representing pro-timber, pro-environment and pro-community perspectives. The groups started in 1992--1993 in Trinity County, California, a timber dependent area where most of the land is managed by the Forest Service. The atmosphere around forestry issues was tense; a 1991 court injunction had halted federal timber sales and people feared for their livelihoods. Agency personnel and local citizens started the groups studied to defuse polarization and work towards the common ground they shared as members of the same community. Each group took a different form: a consensus forum, a watershed planning team, a coordinated resource management group, and a non-profit organization. The first two groups to form spent time building social capital, through facilitated visioning processes, field trips, and development of joint information, in order to foster the norms, networks and trust needed for collaborative action. The second two groups benefited from the social capital already developed and focused on implementating projects that improved both economic and watershed health. Both the building of social capital and project implementation required organizational capacity in the form of staff time, equipment and funding. Government agencies initially supplied much of the organizational capacity given the limited resources in small forest communities.;Investments in social capital and organizational capacity can pay off. Together, community and agency partners in Trinity County have coproduced many aspects of forest management. They organized meetings, conducted research, developed planning documents, trained forest workers, and raised funds for work on public lands. In many cases, they achieved synergy in coproduction when the outcomes exceeded the expectation of what either partner could have achieved independently. A focus on coproduction highlights the potential role of communities in assisting agencies in achieving management goals and the investments needed to take this step towards community forestry in the United States.