Quantifying and easing conflicting goals between interest groups in natural resource planning

Management of natural resources at the regional level is a compromise between a variety of objectives and interests. At the local level, management of the forests depends upon the ownership structure, with forest owners using their forests as they see fit. A potential conflict occurs if the forest owners’ management decisions are counter to the interests of society in general or the industry that relies on the forest resource as their raw material. We explore the intensity of this conflict at the regional level in several large boreal forest production landscapes. To explore the conflict, we investigate three main interest groups: (i) economically oriented forest owners; (ii) industry groups (focusing on maintaining an even timber supply); and (iii) a group representing general public interests (focusing on enhancing ecosystem services and biodiversity protection). The severity of conflicts differs between interest groups; we found a minor conflict between the economically oriented forest owners and industry and a severe conflict among general public interests and the other groups. By quantifying the conflicts, visualizing the impacts shared among interest groups, we anticipate that through shared discovery and understanding, forests can be managed to lessen the conflicts between interest groups.