Understanding EBM Through Dialogue

Despite the widespread potential of EBM in forest management, the wholesale implementation of EBM as a management approach has always been acknowledged as complicated. This section adapted from the Dialogue Sessions final report: Andison, J. R. Parkins, M. P. Pyper, and J. Lebeouf. 2019. Understanding EBM Through Dialogue. fRI Research, Hinton, Alberta, Canada.

Early on,  scholars recognized the uncertainties associated with EBM and encouraged testing of the approach through testing and feedback on the concept, and adaptive management to the specifics. As a result, there have been significant research investments made in understanding both ecosystem patterns and processes. In boreal Canada, landscape dynamics have been well researched, methodological assumptions challenged and implications of future climate change considered. At the stand level, studies have investigated how species and ecosystem processes respond to varying levels of harvesting and retention, and how those responses may change over time.

Within western Canada, the partners of the Healthy Landscapes Program (based at fRI Research and once a part of the Model Forest Network), have invested significant resources in research, tools, and education related to EBM over the last 20 years. The Healthy Landscapes Program is a large collection of government, industry, and non-government agencies who share a desire to advance EBM ideals as an underlying strategy to achieve sustainable land uses over the long term. More specifically, the partnership has invested in understanding a range of landscape dynamics, including natural disturbance patterns, anthropogenic disturbance patterns, landscape patterns, and large woody debris. The program has also invested considerable resources in decision-support tools, communication and outreach, and both virtual and on-the-ground demonstrations of EBM. The shared assumption of the Healthy Landscapes team at the time was that a shift to policies and practices inspired by EBM as a new resource management paradigm would be obvious, and shared by other stakeholders, given the historical investment in research, demonstrations, outreach, and tools.

The broad appeal of the EBM concept has resulted in commitments by forestry companies, governments, ENGOs, and international certification agencies to implement various interpretations of EBM. However, many of these agencies have experienced some form of resistance to concepts of EBM, including many of the Healthy Landscapes Program partners. More specifically, both forest managers and regulators are finding that individual forest values (e.g., economic interests, species habitat, aesthetics) often trump the use of a more holistic approach to forest land management represented by EBM. This has, in turn, created some confusion and frustration as regards how, or the degree to which an “EBM approach” could or should be applied. For example, forest managers within the Healthy Landscapes Program were being told to re-focus on whole ecosystem health by EBM science, but at the same time being told that certain, high-value wildlife species were core focal points for management outcomes.

As a result of this growing uncertainty with respect to the implementation of various versions of an EBM approach to forest management, partners of the Healthy Landscapes Program recently asked why this resistance might exist. The program partners wished to better understand potential areas of divergence and disagreement in the understanding and implementation of EBM concepts within the Province of Alberta.

To address these challenges, the leaders of this study developed a dialogue process designed to capture diverse perspectives related to the understanding and implementation of EBM. The primary objective was to explore the nature of any barriers to implementation of EBM, and if or how researchers, policy makers, practitioners, ENGO’s, and other stakeholders might best move forward towards a shared land management approach. The overarching strategy of the workshops was to step back from a position of educating and communicating to one of listening and assimilating. The process was designed to move beyond traditional sharing of positions between various stakeholders, to a true dialogue in which we sought to find common ground on the topic of EBM

A key observation from these dialogue sessions was that conversations were focused less on the technical aspects of how EBM could/should be applied (e.g., harvest block size, retention amounts, etc.) and instead were focused on the importance of building strong relations between stakeholders, as well as working through philosophical views on what exactly EBM is, or could be. The dialogical approach used in this study was clearly well received by participants and resulted in increased trust being built between traditional adversaries, as indicated through pre- and post-session surveys to participants. A key recommendation from this study involves the evolution from what we call EBM Version 1.0 to EBM Version 2.0. This change involves a re-affirmation of the important principles of foundational EBM scholars, but also makes room for human and societal values in the design and implementation of EBM. We conclude that the use of dialogical methods is critical to helping achieve this vision of an EBM Version 2.0.