Analysis on Public Participation in the Planning Process of Land and Resource Management Plan of Tahoe National Forest in California, USA

Abstract

For nearly two decades, the US Forest Service has struggled to prepare participatory Land and Resource Management Plans. Many precious lessons were learned in the process, and finally the revised planning rule were proposed at federal register last year. This article reviews how the public participated and how their comments were incorporated in the Tahoe National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan in California, which took 11 years since the federal registration until its approval. Two important relevant movements ; broadscale analysis called Sierra Nevada Framework (SNF) and the community-led movement by the Quincy Library Group are also mentioned. Although this example is considered to be a difficult case for consensus-building due to the urban-setting of the Forest with various conflicting demands, the final plan was successfully drawn without any lawsuits. It is considered that this owes much to the fact that the public comments were substantially incorporated into the final plan. On the other hand, there are problems such as lack of participation in the middle stage of the planning such as alternative formulation, caused many appeals. Broadscale analysis, as done by SNF, is essential for considering problems such as the management of the habitat of spotted owl, and the QLG is a good example of a local community-led movement for constructing a solution for securing health of both ecosystem and economy, etc and moving the government to consider and adopt it.