Excerpt
Decision making in natural resource management has traditionally relied upon information from the biological and physical sciences. However, changes in attitudes and perceptions about how natural resources should be managed have resulted in a public that is becoming more concerned and involved in the activities of public and private land managers. A consequence of increased public involvement is that decisions made by land managers must often endure the protracted scrutiny of the public. As a result, there is a growing trend toward an integrated approach to natural resource management that utilizes biological, physical, and social science information in the decision-making process. Supplementing biological and physical information with knowledge from social sciences can improve the balance and fairness in natural resource decision making, enable decisions to be made based on more complete information about public values and also result in more justifiable management decisions. Regardless of the benefits of doing so, the task of understanding the social, or human, dimension, has proved to be a challenge for natural resource managers. This is partly due to the nature of inquiry in the human dimension, which is a multi-faceted factor, incorporating many disciplines, including social psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, political science …
Footnotes
Alan Bright is an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Leisure Studies at Washington State University
- Copyright 1995 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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