ABSTRACT

A commitment to sustainability is often demonstrated through both management plans and the implementation of practices. We applied content analysis to a sample of state forest management plans from the United States to examine the terms associated with sustainability, and to assess explicit demonstrations of a commitment to sustainable forestry. We expected that the language employed would signal an interpretation of terms associated with forest sustainability. We queried the plans for a list of terms associated with sustainability and analyzed the textual context. Eight categories and 11 subcategories were developed to code the plans for the presence/absence of statements associated with dimensions of sustainability. Our results show that the three dimensions of sustainability are addressed in these forest management plans. Further, certain terms generally associated with sustainability did not appear in the text of the forest management plans sampled. Both, procedural and prescriptive measures seem valid to ensure compliance with management requirements. Differences between regions regarding the use of terms and the emphasis given to each sustainability consideration are evident. Our findings suggest that forest management plans may lack some discursive components that might be important in aiding public understanding of forest management planning to evidence demonstrations of forest sustainability.

摘要

对可持续性的承诺通常通过管理计划和实践的实施来证明。我们对来自美国的州森林管理计划样本进行了内容分析，以检查与可持续性相关的条款，并评估对可持续林业承诺的明确表现。我们预计所使用的语言将表明对与森林可持续性相关的术语的解释。我们查询了与可持续性相关的术语列表的计划，并分析了文本背景。开发了 8 个类别和 11 个子类别来对与可持续性维度相关的陈述的存在/不存在的计划进行编码。我们的研究结果表明，这些森林管理计划涉及可持续性的三个方面。更远，某些通常与可持续性相关的术语没有出现在抽样的森林管理计划文本中。程序性措施和规定性措施似乎都可以确保符合管理要求。地区之间在术语使用和对每个可持续性考虑的重点方面的差异是显而易见的。我们的研究结果表明，森林管理计划可能缺乏一些话语成分，这些成分可能对帮助公众理解森林管理计划以证明森林可持续性很重要。地区之间在术语使用和对每个可持续性考虑的重点方面的差异是显而易见的。我们的研究结果表明，森林管理计划可能缺乏一些话语成分，这些成分可能对帮助公众理解森林管理计划以证明森林可持续性很重要。地区之间在术语使用和对每个可持续性考虑的重点方面的差异是显而易见的。我们的研究结果表明，森林管理计划可能缺乏一些话语成分，这些成分可能对帮助公众理解森林管理计划以证明森林可持续性很重要。