Deliberation in cooperative networks for forest conservation

Abstract

In this article, we discuss cooperative networks for forest conservation from the viewpoint of deliberation. We ask how deliberative processes are produced and what predicts deliberation in the cooperative networks for forest conservation that have been established for policy implementation as a part of the Finnish forest biodiversity programme METSO. We base our argument on both qualitative and quantitative material. In the qualitative study, we present two cooperative networks for forest biodiversity conservation in Finland. The results show that clear leadership, active and determined work for common goals and openness to actively engage new actors assist in creating deliberative processes in cooperative networks. In the quantitative study, we explore the perceptions of implementers of METSO programme about the prerequisites for achievement in deliberation. The results of a quantitative study support those of a qualitative one: involving new forest owner groups and including conservation-biological knowledge were connected to perceived achievement. Based on the findings, we argue that in order to become as deliberative and empowering a programme as it has potential for, METSO needs to expose its actions to a broader public, critique and debate, involve new collaborators actively and support integration of various types of knowledge.

Keywords:

• cooperation
• collaboration
• networks
• deliberation
• participation
• forest biodiversity

1. Introduction

Changes in governing forestry and forest biodiversity conservation have taken place in Finland as well as in many other countries during the past two decades (van Kersbergen and van Waarden 2004; Mayer and Tikka 2006; Primmer 2011). What used to be government, is now governance: small cooperating units are an influential part of policymaking and implementing policies multilaterally (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003). The state is adapting to this situation by encouraging networking and providing funding for it. When it comes to forest conservation, a system based on voluntary conservation measures, fairly independent networks and cross-sectoral cooperation between environmental and forestry administrations has huge momentum in Finland currently.

As a result of the turn from government to governance, participatory and deliberative means in natural resource collaboration have been used in forestry planning (Kangas et al. 2010; Saarikoski et al. 2012) and environmental decision-making (Haila et al. 2007). In particualar, forest conservation has had to take a more deliberative approach since forest conservation is a very contentious and conflict-prone issue in Finland (Hellström 2001; Bergseng and Vatn 2009). Private forest owners and their organisations strongly opposed the implementation of national habitat and biodiversity programmes during the last decades. The EU-wide Natura2000 in the 1990s was the most extreme conflict with hunger strikes and thousands of complaints from private forest owners. (Hiedanpää 2002; Paloniemi and Varho 2009). As a result, business as usual in the form of coercive means and top-down governance of forest conservation has reached a dead end.

Therefore, changes in governance style have been developed and, among other things, the new biodiversity programme called METSO was established (Government of Finland 2008). The METSO is a national forest biodiversity programme focusing on non-industrial private forest land. The programme aims to halt the decline in the biodiversity of forest habitats and species in Southern Finland (i.e. more precisely, everywhere in Finland except in Lapland). The programme will establish stable favourable trends in Southern Finland's forest ecosystems by shifting the top-down governing approach radically towards a more open and flexible approach (Paloniemi and Varho 2009). During METSO's first years the programme piloted voluntary forest conservation means such as cooperative networks. Having proved a promising means, cooperative networks were included in the second period of METSO that started in 2008 and will last until 2016.

The METSO has taken a more deliberative approach to conservation of private forests. The programme is based on voluntariness: the forest owners offer their forests for conservation, and the terms of conservation contracts are deliberated in cooperation with the forest owner and forest and/or environmental authorities. The forest owner then decides whether the forest will be conserved or not. Cooperative networks for forest conservation are encouraged to build deliberative processes. By deliberative processes we mean open, dialogic, insight-providing discussions or longer communications (such as email debate) that include many different actors and voices.

What is expected of the cooperative networks is horizontal and vertical collaboration among a wide range of stakeholders in forest conservation. It is expected that they activate passive actors, such as private forest owners, and form ecologically connected network of conservation areas. Ideally, the cooperative networks would be established and run by forest owners, but in practice, all the networks are run by forest or environmental authorities or NGOs. The formation and ideas of the networks has been borrowed from the grass-root networks: the networks are expected to become as easily accessible, dynamic, democratic and adaptive as the grass-roots networks (Toikka 2010; Taylor 2012), even though they are established by authorities and organisations. The cooperative networks are based on the ideas of deliberation: the state is seeking legitimisation for forest conservation on private lands by doing the conservation work together with a wide range of different forest actors and exposing its means to (hopefully) public debate and making forest conservation a question of choice.

The cooperative networks form a new kind of collaboration in their regions. It is interesting and important to study the processes inside the networks, the perceptions of the actors and the networks' connections with larger issues, such as participation. For example, the networks are based on the ideas of deliberation and cooperation, but these ideas materialise differently in different networks.

In this article, we explore current forest conservation policy implementation processes taking place in forest biodiversity conservation in Finland. More specifically, we study deliberative practices in cooperative networks and perceptions of conservation policy actors about deliberation. First, we will explore two cooperative networks for forest conservation by analysing the actual deliberation in these networks. This material is qualitative, and it has been gathered in course of action research (Maurer and Githens 2010), that is, working closely with the networks, observing them and interviewing actors. Second, we will explore forest biodiversity policy implementers’ perceptions about the prerequisites for achievement in deliberative biodiversity conservation. We will do this by analysing the quantitative survey data. We integrate the findings from these qualitative and quantitative studies by discussing the results from the perspective of the limits and promises of deliberation in natural resource collaboration. In other words, the study uses the idea of triangulation (e.g. Merriam 2009) in order to better understand the context and deliberative processes in natural resource management in cooperative networks in Finland.

2. Theoretical background

Deliberation has recently become a much-used approach to dealing with multi-dimensional and complex issues of the modern societies (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003; Blowers 2005). The deliberative approach works as an umbrella concept for many participatory procedures, but in general, deliberation opens policies for public debate, personal reflection and possibilities to form an informed opinion on issues at hand (Dryzek 2010).

Deliberative democracy evolved as a critique and a response to the inadequacies of representative democracy around 1990s (e.g. “the deliberative turn”). The turn affected the theory of democracy so profoundly that democracy is now considered as deliberation rather than as voting and democratic representation (Dryzek 2000). It is an approach that highlights the importance and necessity of the public sphere and civil society in decision-making and policy implementation. According to Blowers (2005), deliberation aims at giving voice to actors and stakeholders that are influenced for example by forestry or by forest conservation. We see deliberation as many simultaneous processes of communication that “induces reflection upon preferences in non-coercive fashion” (Dryzek 2000, 2). Deliberation takes place between different actors, like in our case, between forest and environmental authorities, NGO activists, forest professionals and forest owners. Furthermore, deliberation can be described as pluralistic, insight-providing, dialogic, holistic, reciprocal and speech-oriented (Lo 2011).

In the tradition of discursive democracy, the ability of the state and its institutions to deliberate authentically has been questioned, even though the institutions may have every intention to initiate and maintain deliberative processes (Smith and Wales 2000). Therefore, political decisions and policy implementation need to be exposed to the general public and/or to the people and actors that are involved with the issue. Critique from the civil society as a source of renewal is essential to discursive democracy (Dryzek 2000). In sum, as a dynamic, pluralistic and holistic process between a variety of actors, deliberation can give critical feedback to institutions, but also legitimise policy implementation.

Internationally, there are examples of deliberation for example as a part of community forest management (Ojha et al. 2009), social impact assessment (Lockie 2007), environmental justice mobilisation (Barnet and Scott 2007), climate change adaptation (Hobson and Niemeyer 2011) and issues of nuclear power (Lehtonen 2010, Strauss 2010). These studies emphasise the dangers of deliberative exclusion and the importance of matching different actors’ strategies for deliberation. These studies also show that for effective deliberation, lay and scientific knowledge should be used more productively in the process, and participation in deliberative processes should be meaningful for all the participants. It is also shown that direct policy outcomes of deliberation seldom occur, but the power of deliberation is in its ability to change discourses of environmental issues and to create norms of discursive democracy.

Recent studies especially remind of critical aspects of power (Martin and Rutagama 2012) and the importance of leadership (Hobson and Niemeyer 2011) within deliberation processes. Thus, the ways how deliberation is organised becomes essential. As argued by García-López and Arizpe (2010) based on their analysis of participatory processes in the soy conflicts in Paraguay and Argentina, top-down deliberation faces severe limitations. With substantial power inequalities, problems are not solved deliberatively, but hidden, and thus the status quo is continued and enhanced. Thus, it is essential to become aware of power inequalities and actively strive for breaking the status quo that all participants often tend to maintain. In order to overcome challenges of power inequalities and tendency to maintain status quos, deliberations should be built on positive critique towards problematic issues (Asif and Klein 2009).

Another relevant aspect in increasing effectiveness of deliberation is the discrepancy between deliberation and use of knowledge produced by deliberation, as argued by Berg and Hukkinen (2011) who explored national deliberation process for sustainable development and consumption in Finland. The reasons why, to whom and for which uses the deliberation is used should always be taken into account. Questions of knowledge and information-sharing are often linked to questions of power: powerful actors can decide how and what kind of knowledge is produced and shared. Deconstructing power relations is essential in finding solutions that are ethical, pragmatic and mutually and authentically agreed (Asif and Klein 2009).

As shown above, deliberation has so far been studied in relation to institutions and established organisations (Lejano and Ingram 2009) that have a rather long history of deliberative means. It has also been studied in new networks of policymaking (Toikka 2010; Taylor 2012). However, there are only a few studies on deliberation in systems that are still in transition from government to governance and have a history of strong representativeness and non-deliberation. This is the case in Finnish forestry where questions of sustainable management and conservation have been very contentious. We contribute to research of systems in transition with our case of cooperative networks. We will see how the conditions for deliberation work in our case where there is no tradition for cooperation between different stakeholders.

In sum, what we will look for in the material are aspects that assist and predict deliberation in cooperative networks. On the basis of ideas of deliberation discussed above, we will find progressions that have developed deliberative processes. The deliberation in the cooperative networks may or may not have significant outcomes in practice; in this article, we will pay attention to processes of deliberation.

Following these elaborations, our research questions are as follows: (1) what produces and assists deliberation in the cooperative networks for forest conservation? and (2) What predicts achievement in deliberation when negotiating natural resources? Research question 1 will be answered with the help of qualitative material. Research question 2 will be answered on the basis of quantitative material.

3. Qualitative study

3.1. Aim of the qualitative study

We will explore the cooperative networks of METSO programme as a deliberative implementation process that has been initiated by the state. Forest policy and forest management in Finland have pressures to become more open and more easily accessible to forest owners (Paloniemi and Varho 2009; Saarikoski et al. 2012). This means among other things that forest owners’ views on their forests should be taken into consideration more carefully. Networking is encouraged also in other forest activities, such as forming jointly owned forests and selling timber (Korhonen et al. 2012). Coercive means in forest conservation can no longer be used, mostly because of the unfortunate implementation of European conservation area network Natura 2000 in the 1990s (Hiedanpää 2002). The state has developed a new, voluntary approach to conservation, and is implementing and legitimising the voluntary conservation means with the help of cooperative networks. We will explore this process from the viewpoint of deliberation, and our research question to the qualitative material is: what produces and assists deliberation in the cooperative networks for forest conservation?

3.2. Cooperative networks

Cooperative networks are “designed to enhance cooperation and collaboration among forest owners, to create connected forest protection sites and to develop livelihood around biodiversity, such as use of forest as a source of refreshment and as a site for small-scale nature tourism” (Government of Finland 2008). Participation in cooperative networks is always voluntary and not all private forest owners in the networks’ area need to participate in the cooperation. Most of the networks started to operate in 2009, and they continued until the end of 2011. Some networks will continue until the end of 2012. After that, a set of new networks will be funded by the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

According to the ideals of METSO, cooperative networks would be established by private forest owners. In the background of this ideal is the notion of bottom-up governance of voluntary forest protection. However, at the moment there is only one cooperative network that has been established by a coalition of forest owners. Six other cooperative networks have been established and are run by forestry centres, environmental centres or large NGOs. The cooperation aspect of the networks has been underlined when selecting them to receive funding from the METSO programme. The METSO programme aims at cooperation in forest conservation on local and regional levels, and these networks are means to achieve that objective. When applying for funding, the networks had to define the forms of cooperation to take place within and around the networks. In the selection process, cooperation between different actors was emphasised, and networks with strong cooperative objectives were selected to receive the funding.

The METSO programme funds networks and their operations, including salaries, travel expenses and communications. The programme has no funding for new conservation sites that are established in the networks or with the help of them. Conservation agreements are made either in regional environmental centres or in regional forestry centres that both have their own yearly budgets for conservation agreements and payments.

3.3. “Species Network” and “Ecosystem Network”

The study focuses on two cooperative networks called “Species Network” and “Ecosystem Network”. They were partly overlapping geographically, but their goals and themes are quite different from each other. One network aimed at protecting a forest bird (Siberian Jay) that is endangered in Southern Finland. In addition to ecological goals, Species Network had also social goals: it aimed at relaxing tensions between forestry actors and forest conservation actors. The Species Network was active from November 2009 to December 2011. The other network aims at forming a connected network of protected areas, and will accordingly be called Ecosystem Network. It also assists in linking conservation and ecotourism by bringing together private forest owners and small ecotourism entrepreneurs. The Ecosystem Network will be active until December 2012.

The Species Network was run by a Finnish environmental NGO. The regional forestry centre runs Ecosystem Network. Both networks have a steering group that holds regular meetings. All the steering group members are influential forest and forestry actors. There are representatives from the environmental centre and the regional forestry centre, almost all local associations for forest owners, Finnish Forest and Park Service, logging companies and conservation NGOs. The steering groups in the two networks were similar to each other, and some representatives were members of both of the steering groups.

The networks started to function in November 2009, when both had their first steering group meetings. The networks have been looking for forms of action and ways of marketing the METSO programme by organising meetings and METSO hikes for private forest owners. The METSO hikes have been field days in biodiversity spots, where the METSO programme has been presented to forest owners. An important networking activity has also been producing guidelines for local forest protection and especially for protecting the endangered species. The networks were welcomed in the areas, although they were not very visible. Both of the networks received many contacts from private forest owners about the METSO programme and the suitability of their forests for the network.

The outcomes of network activities varied: Species Network worked towards a brochure and a guideline for conservation, and published and distributed them before the end of funding. The Ecosystem Network worked on both forest owner participation and ecotourism. The Ecosystem Network also started a sustainable forest management project in their area. Both networks increased the area of conserved forest land in their area.

3.4. Material and method

The qualitative data has been gathered when doing action research with Species Network and Ecosystem Network. The researcher took part in the networks’ activities and observed them. She has also worked with the networks in planning its activities and organising workshops and other events. The networks’ steering groups accepted the action research project as a part of the networks in their inaugural meetings.

The qualitative data includes materials from six dialogue workshops held in 2010 and observation made during action research (notes and minutes of meetings and other activities). The workshops were events especially applying action research; the researcher took an active part in the workshops and she worked with them to develop the networks’ practices. Observation on networks’ meetings and other gatherings, such as field days, was a part of the material-gathering that will continue until the end of June 2012. Immediately after activities, the researcher wrote a memo of what occurred in a meeting or during a METSO field day.

In short, dialogue workshops were meetings with a wide range of participants (Shotter and Gustavsen 1999). Dialogue between actors was used as a tool to enhance connections between actors and create ideas to be used in the networks. Each workshop lasted for four hours and had a specific theme, such as creating ideas for the network functions or finding ways to energise ecotourism in the network area. There were 6–16 participants in every workshop, the average number being eight. Most of the participants were forestry or environmental authorities, NGO activists and logging company representatives, but some forest owners also participated in most of the workshops.

The workshops consisted of two small group assignments and a debriefing discussion after each assignment. At the beginning of each workshop, there were two presentations, one on dialogue and one on the theme of the workshop. The first workshop was facilitated by an external consultant, but the remaining five workshops were facilitated by the researcher. In three workshops, one more researcher observed the process. After the workshops, the two researchers held debriefing sessions, including the first overall analyses of the workshops. All workshops and debriefing sessions were recorded and transcribed. The researcher-facilitator made a memo on the workshops and delivered it to the participants.

The qualitative material was analysed by simply reading the transcriptions of the recordings of the workshops and compiling observations on network activities. Combining these materials, descriptions of the network processes were drawn and written. When analysing the material, we paid attention to the ways in which ideas and processes of deliberation, as discussed above, were materialised and brought into practice in the networks in the speech acts of the network actors and network action. The results presented in findings have been compiled from both observation and workshop material.

3.5. Findings: processes in the networks

In this section, we will describe progressions that produced deliberation in Species Network and ecosystems network on the basis of idea(l)s of deliberation presented insection 2.

Deliberation requires a vast group of different actors. Both networks invited a wide-ranging group of forest actors to cooperate in the networks. In Species Network, private forest owners or their representatives were not actively involved in the network except for the first meeting. The Ecosystem Network had fewer representatives from environmental NGOs. The networks were geographically and organisationally overlapping, so the absence of a certain organisation was often theresult of scarce personnel resources: it was only possible to take part in one network at a time. However, private forest owners were not included in the networksasmembers and participants. Their participation was organised through representatives of local and regional forestry associations. Forest owners are a heterogeneous group with different goals and views, so this exclusion poses some questions on the authenticity of deliberations in the network. Actually, what was noted, too, was that it was difficult to motivate forest owners to participate in networks’ activities, workshops and meetings – a hierarchical structure of who has got a voice and who has not seemed still to exist. Paradoxically, private forest owners own most of the Finnish forest but they are in margin when it comes to deliberation, decision-making and implementation of forest policy also in the era of network governance and implementation. Involvement of actual forest owners was not seen as an important issue; it was never brought about in the workshops and network activities.

Nevertheless, what was crucial to deliberation in the networks was openness to include and engage new actors in the networks. For example, when Species Network needed to gather scientific information on Siberian Jay for the conservation, it included conservation biologists in the network. When knowledge on Siberian Jay's whereabouts in Central Finland was needed, the network campaigned with hunters in order to find unknown territories of the bird. These expansions and new inclusions made way to the wide acceptance of the guideline for conservation. It also brought new actors to discuss and debate the conservation guidelines that the network was working on, so space for discussion was constantly in change and therefore dynamic, which meant that effective deliberation within the network on the conservation guide's principles became possible. Similarly, in Ecosystem Network, including eco-tourism entrepreneurs, made the network's agenda more public and focused on areas where action was needed.

Deliberation requires dispute and debate on issues at hand. Both networks decided on issues through debates, and through the (dialogic) debates, they tended to find a solution that was agreeable to all the actors in the network. The debate reached more actors in Species Network, as the guide for conservation was in progress. The guide was commented by the regional steering group members, national steering group members, conservation biologists and hunters. The Ecosystem Network made its decisions deliberatively in the steering group meetings with representatives from all forestry and conservations actors (logging companies, NGOs, local forestry associations and forest and environmental authorities). What is important here is that the debate never dispersed the networks; instead, criticising, debating and disputing on networks’ issues, and especially overcoming the debates seemed to open possibilities for change and strengthen the networks.

Interestingly, however, what was not explicitly debated and disputed were questions of power and hierarchies. The issue was either sidestepped or ignored. Nevertheless, it cannot be concluded that power was not an issue in the networks. Power issues could be seen especially in the flow of information: actors could withhold information if they felt that it would not serve their purposes or it could be used in wrong connections. Use of power was also perceivable as rigidity of organisations: ideas and improvements for forest conservation from the network were not taken into consideration very eagerly by the larger organisations that took part in the networks. Power relations were not deconstructed, but yet the networks were able to collaborate and find solutions deliberatively.

Participation as deliberation requires non-hierarchical structures in order to allow free flow of ideas and views. However, the work with the cooperative networks showed that some form of leadership has to exist. In Species Network, the network leader became a node in the network. The node communicated with different actors and mediated information and knowledge to other actors. However, having leadership did not mean a position of authority in this case. It was observed that a listening and neutral, yet assertive leader helps to create an enthusiastic atmosphere that empowers the network. In an empowered network, network ideas evolve and develop. There was a shared goal and the network worked with determination on issues that were important to all participants. In Ecosystem Network, leadership was somewhat scattered and not clear. Thus, nodes did not develop. For example, looking for new connections, finding common themes and ideas to work on were not seen necessary because there were not nodes through which ideas and new connections’ knowledge could be mediated to the network. In other words, in theabsence of leaders or nodes in the networks, deliberative processes could not evolve and develop since there were not any channels through which ideas and knowledge could flow.

Since the cooperative networks are more about policy implementation than policymaking, we saw participation in these networks as taking part in the networks and their activities and setting the networks’ agenda in a deliberative manner. The networks have enhanced participation in this sense by making it easier to work together inside the networks. Here, “inside” means “among the participating organisations”. Participation inside the networks was enthusiastic, yet sometimes frustrating because of tricky funding questions. Currently, after the networks have been active for some time, different representatives know other representatives and their areas of specialisation, informal dealings are less complicated than before. In addition, taking part in similar networks will be easier among the participants. However, neither of the networks that we explored more closely had a need to enhance forest owner participation, so the deliberative processes inside the networks did not expand to the networks’ relations with forest owners.

Deliberation was the basic assumption in both networks: meetings were open, all the interested actors were allowed to take part in the network, and many different viewpoints were taken into account when making decisions about the network. However, deliberation took a different form in different networks. In Species Network, deliberation was equated with determined work for a common goal that was the guideline for conservation of Siberian Jay. The network started to produce material from an early stage and worked on it deliberatively, that is, with numerous workshops and comment rounds on all the material (brochures, guidelines) in the making. In addition to forming a deliberative practice inside the network, these material-producing phases were important for Species Network for two reasons: it committed the actors to the networks and afforded opportunities for the network to become an actor that gathers and produces knowledge and information.

Deliberation in Ecosystem Network took the form of listening to many actors’ views in the steering group meetings and organising easily accessible METSO hikes. During these hikes, private forest owners and the network’s steering group members could freely discuss the objectives and methods of the network. Information on the METSO programme was also obtainable. The network was “listening to the field” on these hikes, and forest owners’ views were used as arguments in the meetings and dialogue workshops after the hikes. Thus, it can be said, roughly and stated in simplification, that deliberation took an active form in Species Network and a passive form in Ecosystem Network. These deliberative processes inside the network strengthened and/or weakened the perceptions of the actors on their opportunities to act, and thus further shaped the deliberative space that the network could take andcreate.

Dialogue workshops were a research intervention that aimed at opening up new channels for action. Dialogue between different actors helped them to understand each others’ views. Above all, dialogue workshops created connections. Connections and easier decision-making was apparent in the networks’ meetings where discussions were open and actors could easily share responsibilities. In terms of deliberation, dialogue workshops strengthened and furthered deliberative processes by promoting plurality, reciprocity and by providing insights in addition to strengthening connections and building understanding. Generally, dialogue workshops worked as catalysts in Species Networks, and as activators and planning tools in Ecosystem Network.

To summarise, what produced deliberation in cooperative networks were openness to include and activate new actors, clear but not authoritative leadership, determined work for a shared goal with and actively finding new channels for action. By paying attention to these elements in collaborative resource management, outcomes of different collaborations can be enhanced. In addition, dialogue workshops can catalyse deliberative processes.

4. Quantitative study

4.1. Aim of the quantitative study

One issue in METSO programme has been how to enhance and increase cooperation and participation, in other words, how to activate actors. This is especially the case in Finnish forest management, where decision-making and management are based on expertise in forestry (Primmer 2010; Saarikoski et al. 2012). For example, the diversity of forest owners and their views on forest have only recently been seen not as a resource but as a threat to national wood production (Siiskonen 2007) and accordingly the views aiming to combine biodiversity aspects in forestry have received only a minor societal position (Vainio and Paloniemi 2012). It has been difficult to combine participation of forestry authorities with other important actors due to the traditionally hierarchical organisations (Saarikoski et al. 2012) and due to conflict-proneness and divergent views concerning forest use and conservation (Lindenmayer and Franklin 2003).

In our view, METSO actors’ different perceptions about the means and practices of deliberation processes are relevant. On one hand, the perceptions of METSO actors affect what kind of activities and processes become possible for example in the networks. They also have effects on the ways that the networks are managed. On the other hand, those implementing METSO have direct experiences about both successes and failures during deliberation processes. Therefore, their opinions give a good lesson to learn in order to better understand the prerequisites for achievement in deliberation. Thus, in this quantitative study we explore the perspectives of those implementing policies and ask: What predicts achievement in deliberation when negotiating natural resources?

4.2. Material and methods

The quantitative part of the study focuses on the perceptions of biodiversity policy implementers and especially on their perceptions on deliberation, trust in own organisation, conservation biological knowledge and involvement of new forest owner groups. We made a hypothesis that both trust in own organisation, conservation biological knowledge and involvement of new forest owner groups would increase the achievement of deliberation.

We elicited the opinions of forest policy actors involved in the implementation of METSO at local and regional levels. In February 2010, we sent emails to 140 of these actors (who were located by asking key informants involved in project at regional and national levels) and asked them to fill in a web-based survey. The two networks studied qualitatively in this study were also included in the survey. However, we failed to reach seven people and eight people replied that they did not implement METSO in practice and thus were unable to respond.

Altogether 68 forest-policy actors returned the web forms. Respondents were instructed to answer to every question. Of the respondents 22% worked in regional environmental centres, 22% in local forestry associations (MHY) and in regional associations for forest owners and 19% for regional forestry centres. Other respondents worked for the state administration, in the Forest and Park Service, for the forest industry, in research institutes and in NGOs. Often only one respondent from every organisation involved in METSO filled in a survey. Respondents were 45 years old on average, and 31% were female. When we asked actors to select from the four options the identity most reflecting themselves, 46% of the respondents selected forestry identity, 38% nature conservation, 12% planning-administration and 4% participatory involvement.

The questionnaire was designed to examine actors’ own perception concerning the current state of and changes in nature conservation. The responses to four sets of statements were analysed in this study: (1) the achievement of deliberation, (2) trust in own organisation, (3) conservation biological knowledge and (4) involvement of new forest owner groups. Means, standard deviations and correlations between the main variables are summarised in Table 1.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations and correlation coefficients of the main variables.

	M	SD	1	2	3
1. The achievement of deliberation	3.61	.62
2. Trust in own organization	4.07	.72	ns
3. Conservation biological knowledge	3.36	.59	.35**	ns
4. Involvement of new forest owner groups	3.39	.49	.34**	ns	ns
Note: **p < 0.01.

The achievement of deliberation measured the perception that both the procedure and outcome of conservation negotiations has been appreciated. It was measured with two items on a five-point scale (“currently much less than before” – “currently much more than before”) (α = .68): (a) “Negotiation reaches a solution that landowner accepts” and (b) “There are successes when negotiating conservation”.

Trust in own organisation was defined here as confidence in the competence and motivation of the organisation to safeguard biodiversity. It was measured with three items on a five-point scale (“totally disagree” – “totally agree”) (α = .86): (a) “In our organisation, we know well how nature conservation should be organised in Finland”, (b) “In our organisation, we know well how to protect nature at our region” and (c) “The employees of our organisation do their best in order to protect biodiversity”.

Conservation biological knowledge was defined here as the ability of include conservation biological knowledge in conservation efforts of the organisation. It was measured with three items on a five-point scale (“currently much less than before [METSO]” – “currently much more than before [METSO]”) (α = .66): (a) “Conserved sites are managed to get located on the most valuable areas in terms of conservation biology”, (b) “Conserved sites produce a functional conservation area network” and (c) “Our organisation monitors the effectiveness of conservation”.

Involvement of new forest owner groups was defined here as the ability of organisation to get those forest owner groups involved in biodiversity conservation that have only seldom participated in conservation before METSO. It was measured with three items on a five-point scale (“currently much less than before” – “currently much more than before”) (α = .82): (a) “Our organisation reaches forest owners that have not before actively aimed to safeguard biodiversity of their forests”, (b) “Our organisation reaches female forest owners” and (c) “Our organisation reaches forest owners dwelling in the cities”.

4.3. Results and discussion

The hypothesis was tested by means of a regression analysis where (a) trust in own organisation, (b) conservation biological knowledge, (c) involvement of new forest owner groups predicted and (d) the achievement of deliberation. Analysis was run with SPSS (version 15).

According to the results, illustrated in Table 2, using more conservation biological knowledge than before METSO and especially involving new forest owners groups in biodiversity conservation predicted achievement in deliberation. Instead, trust in own organisation did not have statistically significant relation to achievement in deliberation.

Table 2. Summary of regression analysis for variables predicting the achievement both in the process and outcome of the of deliberative conservation negotiations.

	B	SE B	β
Trust in own organization	.148	.098	.170
Conservation biological knowledge	.307	.118	.289*
Involvement of new forest owner groups	.451	.142	.354**
Notes: R = .247; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

The results reflect the challenges recognised when designing the METSO, namely the aim to enhance and increase cooperation and participation. What is relevant here is the notion that stepping outside the own box seems to matter: while involving new forest owner groups and increasing use of conservation biological knowledge are the aspects that explain achievement in deliberation, not the trust in own institution that has been the standpoint in the practices before METSO (Primmer 2010). These findings encourage to appreciate the perspectives of new actors and actor groups, as well as to involve new types of knowledge in natural resource management (Saarikoski et al. 2012; Vainio and Paloniemi 2012). Thus, the findings can be reconciled with the deliberative strand of forest conservation governance that is taking root in Finland.

5. General discussion and conclusion

The studied networks for forest conservation were able to increase participation and inclusiveness. We cannot stress enough that it is a great achievement as such in Finland, where forestry and forest protection is, or at least has been, a very contentious and conflict-prone arena (Hellström 2001). The government has played a crucial role in establishing and funding the cooperative networks. The state mimicking the grass-roots organisations in the form of cooperative networks had some difficulties, for example in expanding the networks also towards private forest owners. Nevertheless, as a whole, top-down efforts for forest conservation did not impede deliberative processes. Both networks explored in this study enhanced their ways of deciding on things and solving forest management issues. They have taken steps towards deliberation. The qualitative study shows that the networks were inclusive on the organisational level, and open to many kinds of actions and actors. However, the networks have not yet expanded their deliberative models on a larger scale outside the core of the network.

The difficulty in transforming the networks’ deliberative processes into practices of deliberation on a wider scale was evident also in the findings of the quantitative study: the perceptions underlining actors’ own organisations competence in protecting forests did not have statistically significant connection to achievement in deliberation. Accordingly, the actors that are too committed to their organisation or to their own expertise, may be neither eager nor willing to create new practices for deliberation in the networks or in the organisations around them (c.f. Primmer 2010). The aim of the organisations involved in cooperative networks was rather to support cooperation between authorities, not to learn a new, maybe deliberative approach. Thus, in order to make more significant changes in participatory routines it is important to acknowledge the need for more deliberative, open and inclusive approaches, not merely to continue old practices in a new structure such as a cooperative network.

Questions of power were not addressed in the networks, and this may be also one of the reasons for not involving more forest owners in the networks and its deliberative processes. If forest owners had been involved, also the multi-dimensional power relations between professionals and laypeople would have been exposed (Martin and Rutagama 2012). Questions of power as limitations to deliberation were seen in the difficulties of information and knowledge flow, but those difficulties were never confronted and solved. Even though power issues and structures remained, collaboration was successful and had positive outcomes. However, maintaining power relations can delay deeper changes towards authentic deliberation in forest governance (Berg and Hukkinen 2011).

Our two studies shed light on how to create deliberative spaces when transitioning from government to governance. The Species Network that was run by an environmental NGO actually shifted the cooperation style towards a more deliberative direction than the Ecosystem Networks that was run by forestry centre. This may be partly because the governance approach in an NGO differs from the one of public authorities, since it relies more on networking and informal collaboration with different groups of actors than bureaucracy and formal cooperation with predetermined actors, as also noted by Toikka (2010). Moreover, the strength of NGOs is in non-institutional lobbying, creating and launching new ideas for formal institutions, as well as in aspiration to include conservation biological knowledge and include more forest owner groups into deliberative processes. Based on the quantitative study, the ability to integrate conservation biological knowledge and new actors in deliberation processes predicted achievement in deliberation in METSO programme. These findings encourage to creativity in starting collaborations and engaging new actors to support transition to deliberative governance.

Building on our findings, we argue that the intentions and ideals of METSO are deliberative, but its implementation is not; the programme reaches for reflection and dialogue but it is not actually opening up for public debate and public deliberation. The programme flags for many deliberative principles but the organisations and institutions implementing METSO are clearly not ready for such remarkable changes in their routines. This probably made the authority-run Ecosystems Network only passively deliberative: the organisation and its routines were not ready for the ideals of METSO. In other words, METSO is not saturated by the ideas of deliberation. The programme is not exposed to public debate and evaluation and its action is visible only for small publics. However, criticism and critical voices are essential for deliberation to come materialised (Dryzek 2000, Asif and Klein 2009). When these two elements, organisational rigidity and invisibility of the programme to the broader public are both a reality, METSO cannot become as effective and empowering structure as it has potential for.

We conclude that cooperative networks for forest conservation are a promising way to deliberate on forest conservation practices. By paying attention to the deliberative processes and aspects that support deliberation within cooperative networks we found that encouraging different stakeholders to take an active role in biodiversity conservation has potential. Yet, in order to fulfil its potential, the METSO programme needs to pay attention to its visibility, exposure to critique and ability to include new actors as well as to produce and integrate new types of knowledge.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the actors of the cooperative networks for participating in the action research project, the reviewers for their beneficial comments as well as Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Finnish Ministry of the Environment, European Commission (FP7, SCALES grant 226 852) and Maj and Tor Nessling foundation for funding the research. We would also like to thank Finnish Environment Institute for making co-writing possible.