This is a trend study that examined people’s preference changes within the same population with regard to indicators for sustainable forest management. Sustainable forest management is a concept that not only includes the value of forest per se; it also recognizes the role of people’s knowledge and needs. To understand sustainable management and the role of people in its achievement, researchers have developed criteria and indicators that reflect the principles of sustainability related to social, forest, and economic systems.
There are a large number of indicators for sustainable forest management that have been developed under different projects (Cheng & Durst, 2000; Hunt & McFarlane, 2007; International Tropical Timber Organization, 1998; Lawes & Everard, 1999; Maness & Farrell, 2004; Guillermo A. Mendoza & Prabhu, 2000; Guillermo A. Mendoza & Prabhu, 2005; Montreal Process, 1995, 2001; Mrosek et al., 2006; Stephen R. J. Sheppard & Meitner, 2005; Sherry et al., 2005; Woodley et al., 1999; Wright et al., 2002). However, an instrument that measures their implementation and importance in
present a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative data that are not always relevant in small forest areas. Therefore, the goal of this research was to develop indicators for local forest units where community participation and people’s viewpoints become a priority.
Due to the lack of instruments to test for indicators, the researcher designed an instrument based on previously established criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management lists. Sixty-two indicators were selected from a list of 135 indicators of sustainable forest management for North America. The selection of indicators was supported from the interviews. In the interviews, participants were asked to express their concerns, expectations, preferences, and current uses of their forest. This information allowed the researcher to select 32 indicators that have meaning to this particular group of forest owners. These indicators were the items of the survey.
3.5.1 Instrumentation
Due to the relative novelty of this type of research a longitudinal 5 Likert-scale instrument of 66 indicators was designed to captures people’s preferences associated with indicators for sustainable forest management. Sixty-two indicators were carefully selected from three already existing lists of indicators of sustainable forest management for North America. Four indicators were paraphrased to test for internal consistency. In total, the survey contains 66 indicators. The mentioned lists of indicators are:
• CIFOR-NA (1999), North American Test of Criteria and Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management. This list contains 54 indicators, grouped by 17 criteria.
• LUCID, The Local Criteria and Indicators Development Test. This list contains 58 indicators grouped by 16 criteria.
• ILO-GTZ (2000), Social Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management. This list contains 23 indicators grouped by 15 criteria.
The selection of the indicators was based on a detailed examination of the interviews and the researcher’s technical expertise. The indicators were translated to Spanish and reworded to assess a question of importance (i.e. how important is it that forest management contributes to educational research?).
Expert input was a significant contribution to the validity of the survey. Once the researcher selected the indicators, forestry experts were consulted to provide suggestions regarding the size of the instrument and the effectiveness on assessing the question of importance. This panel of experts consisted of two faculty advisors from OSU, two faculty foresters from the Colegio de Posgraduados in Mexico, one Ph.D. environmental science major from Colegio Posgraduados in Puebla, and two social foresters from the Universidad Distrital in Colombia. The panel of experts provided few comments on wording.
The survey also gathered demographics for each participant name, age, gender, occupation, and level of education.
3.5.2 Data Collection Survey
The quantitative longitudinal survey (Creswell, 2002) was designed to answer specific research questions 2 and 3.
1. What are people’s viewpoints toward forest use? 2. What are people’s preferences in regard to the forest?
3. What are the changes in preferences for indicators of sustainable forest
The survey contained 66 questions to be ranked from 1 to 5; 1 as non-important through 5 as very important. To answer the specific research question No. 2, the survey was administered early in the study, in June 2008, to capture peoples’ preference before any intervention.
To answer specific question No. 3, a search conference was conducted in September 2008 to expose the participants to information on available alternatives for forest management. After the meeting, the survey was administered for the second time to capture peoples’ changes in preferences after being exposed to the new information (analysis). Right after second survey, forest owners engaged in deliberation to discuss and share ideas and knowledge related to the alternatives and to choose one of the alternatives. Following the deliberation, the survey was administered for the third time to capture peoples’ changes in preferences after discussion.
Thirty-five forest owners or participants (principal and secondary owners and their immediate families) voluntarily agreed to participate in the survey during the three times. Although 57 people filled the survey the first time (henceforth baseline survey), and 40 the second time, only 35 made it to the third time. For the analysis of the data, only 35 surveys were considered.
3.5.3 Data Analysis Survey
For the analysis of the survey SPSS® program was used. The first step was to test for the internal consistency of the instrument using Cronbach’s alpha reliability test. Descriptive statistics frequencies were used to examine people’s preferences with regard to indicators before any intervention (baseline survey). The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to compare differences on ratings after analysis and deliberation.
Each indicator was tested for difference in means after analysis meeting and deliberation; then indicators were grouped in Principles according to the CIFOR-NA grouping to test difference on Principles after analysis survey and deliberation. To go further in the analysis, the indicators were also grouped by the three pillars of sustainability, ecological, economic, and social, providing a common language for understanding sustainable forest management (Wright et al., 2002) to test for their difference after intervention. Significant difference was determined using a two-tailed test with a p-value < 0.05.
CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS FROM Q-METHODOLOGY
This research was conducted to examine peoples’ preferences with regard to indicators of sustainable forest management. To pursue this objective, the study used three research questions to provide a better understanding of peoples’ points of view and changes in preferences associated with indicators of forest management after analysis meeting and deliberation.
Q-methodology was used to explore peoples’ viewpoints on forest use. This methodology was selected because it helps to obtain a holistic understanding of peoples’ values. This chapter presents findings from the application of Q-methodology.