Developing Public Outreach with the Hood River Forest Collaborative

After doing research and interviewing the Hood River Forest Collaborative, it became apparent that they are going through many common struggles of stakeholder identification and inclusion. Andrew Spaeth, Collaborative Facilitator and our interviewee, mentioned that even though the monthly meetings are open to everyone they struggle to get people to attend if it is not part of their job requirements. The Collaborative would really like to see engagement from community members outside forest management professions, such as those who use the Hood River Forest for casual recreation (Chamberlain III 2000).

Additionally, after discussing with Andrew, we determined it was also important to professionalize and maintain their social media presence. This would allow stakeholders who may be interested but may not have direct ties with other members already participating and opportunity to receive information about the Collaborative, their process, and their meeting times and locations.

Beyond these changes, it is also important to look at structural factors that may determine the involvement of stakeholders with the Collaborative. With monthly, roughly 3 hour meetings at the Hood River Ranger Station, it is likely that there are a number of stakeholders who wish to participate but are unable to attend due to distance and/or other time commitments. This may be especially true for voices belonging to the unexotic underclass, who often have demanding job hours and important commitments in their homes. In addition, some community members may feel like they do not have the necessary expertise to contribute to the discussions that the Collaborative has. As such, our group -with input from Andrew- has determined a series of public speaker events has the opportunity to provide community stakeholders with events that have a lower time commitment, unique topics that may drive greater interest than meetings, and a baseline of knowledge for everyone involved to build from in order to reduce feelings of a lack of expertise. More information on this can be found in our How post

Our proposed engagement project with the Hood River Forest Collaborative aims to help the Collaborative develop an online presence, through which they can host events, share knowledge, and engage in outreach to invite more voices to the conversation. In addition, we aim to develop and promote a series of public speakers. This has the goal of increasing community engagement with interesting and applicable topics, as well as provide of baseline of informed knowledge for members to start future engagement from (Proctor 2019).

When developing these events, it is first important to identify the stakeholders we wish to reach out too. One such step is the process of snowballing, or asking stakeholders already involved to list other potential stakeholders who are not currently involved. When doing this process it is important to make sure that a wide swath of stakeholders are identified, including those labeled as the “unexotic underclass” (Namemeka 2013). Stakeholders on these lists are then contacted and given the opportunity to participate, as well as generate their own list of other stakeholders that they would like to see participate. This process is then continued until an adequate number of stakeholders are reached for the size and intention of the specific engagement project (Luyet 2012).

As Andrew Spaeth -the facilitator of the Collaborative- noted in our interview, one of the biggest challenges facing the Collaborative is that sometimes people disagree so strongly on issues that they cannot listen to one another and are thus incapable of meaningful engagement. He noted that he has hosted social events, like group meals, for members that allowed them to talk to one another and form friendships outside of their heated debates. While this seems to help members see one another past the issue they represent, a more open and informative series of events would have the potential of drawing in new stakeholders who may not initially be interested in the Collaboratives monthly meetings and may be intimidated by the idea of joining strangers meals.

We plan to utilize social media to allow a space for members to connect online. In a context where people just cannot agree, it can help to see others as simply human, and to socialize outside of the debate on land management. Utilizing social media as a platform for comment can help people engage with one another, since this can allow people to work together to produce knowledge on land management issues. This also helps to address many of the issues the Collaborative faces in regards to getting new stakeholder involvement, as engaging through social media requires far less time commitment than a three hour meeting at the Hood River Ranger Station. Social media is also incredibly useful as a vehicle to disseminate critical information about their schedule, and can provide a great way for interested parties to initiate contact and develop a more personal interest in prolonged engagement with the group. We plan to focus on developing the presence of the Collaborative on Facebook, as it is commonly used by a wide swathe a people and provides a simple yet useful way to spread information about events. We additionally plan to develop their presence on Instagram, as that platform allows for a similar dissemination of information while targeting a younger audience.

Additionally, it may help strongly disagreeing members engage more with one another if more people are involved in the conversation. Having informal and casual spaces for outsiders to comment on the issues of land management that affect them may help members hear about other perspectives, and engage with more people who can learn from each other’s perspectives (Broockman and Kalla 2016). However, these spaces would obviously have to be moderated in some fashion to maintain their integrity as a vehicle for providing important facts, as unchecked flame wars help nobody develop meaningful engagement.

• Broockman, David, and Joshua Kalla. 2016. “Durably Reducing Transphobia: A Field Experiment on Door-to-Door Canvassing.” Science 352 (6282): 220–24. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9713.
• Chamberlain III, James L. 2000. “The Management of National Forests of Eastern United States for Non-Timber Forest Products.” Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
• Daniels, Jean M, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Michael Paruszkiewicz, and Nathan Poage. “The Economic Contribution of Stewardship Contracting: Two Case Studies from the Mount Hood National Forest.” Journal of Forestry 116, no. 3 (2018): 245-56.
• Luyet, Vincent, Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Marc B. Parlange, and Alexandre Buttler. 2012. “A Framework to Implement Stakeholder Participation in Environmental Projects.” Journal of Environmental Management 111 (November): 213–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2012.06.026.
• Nnaemeka, C.Z. 2013. “The Unexotic Underclass.” New Geography (June). https://www.newgeography.com/content/003767-the-unexotic-underclass
• Proctor, James D. 2019. “When Our Ideas Differ: Three Options.” EcoTypes: Exploring Environmental Ideas(blog). June 23, 2019. https://jimproctor.us/ecotypes/about-ecotypes/when-our-ideas-differ-three-options/.
• “Why Public Engagement Matters.” American Association for the Advancement of Science. Accessed April 14, 2020. https://www.aaas.org/resources/communication-toolkit/what-public-engagement.