Forest Fights and Forest Rights: Working Forests as a Strategy for Reducing Tensions in New York State

Abstract

The politics of forest land use are rooted in two tensions: how land is used, and whose interests are represented in land use decisions. We analyzed the potential of a large-scale New York State “working forest” land transaction to navigate these tensions. We reviewed the distribution of property rights outlined in management plans, and interviewed representatives from environmental groups, public agencies, timber interests, and local communities. We found alignment between designated land uses and the ecological and socioeconomic goals expressed by diverse interviewees. We interpret this as a relaxation of tensions, reflecting the embrace of socioeconomic issues by conservation organizations and the benefits of investing in local outreach. Our analysis highlights how this public–private transaction successfully navigated the political economy of forest management, yet the durability of such arrangements remains unclear. We identify a need to study the motivations and interests underlying the integration of socioeconomic considerations into contemporary conservation.

Keywords:

• environmental governance
• forest-dependent communities
• public–private partnership
• the nature conservancy
• working forest

Acknowledgments

Funding was provided to the authors and co-investigators at The Nature Conservancy (Michelle Brown and Dirk Bryant) by the Northeastern States Research Cooperative. Additional financial support was provided by the Doris Duke Conservation Fellowship, the McConkey and Dumond Scholarships, the Kieckhefer Adirondack Fellowship, and the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives. We thank our interviewees, as well as Timothy Tear and Craig Cheeseman at The Nature Conservancy; Barbara Bedford at Cornell University; and Graham Cox at New York Audubon.

Notes

For example, the New York state park system was estimated to generate $1.9 billion in annual sales for private businesses in the areas around parks in 2008 (Heintz et al. 2009).