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Effects of Information on the Social Acceptability of Alternatives to Clearfelling in Australian Wet Eucalypt Forests

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Abstract

The effects of viewing different types of information were investigated in people judging the social acceptability of alternative forest harvest systems. Approximately 500 Tasmanians were shown still-simulated images of four harvest systems (a clearfell system, two aggregated retention systems, and a selective system) and were asked to judge their acceptability. Individual interviews were conducted with 12 of the participants. It was anticipated that people holding different beliefs about the consequences of harvesting would have different responses to information. Cluster analysis was used to group participants according to these beliefs. Responses to still images were compared with responses to two other types of information: information about consequences of the harvest systems in the form of indicator symbols, and information about regeneration over time, presented as visual animations. The effects of information differed across both harvest system and belief cluster groups of participants. The largest effects of information occurred in people who held a mix of beliefs about consequences. Within this group, participants who viewed the indicators rated a 30% aggregated retention system higher and selective harvesting lower, than those who did not view the indicators. Viewing animated sequences led to slightly higher ratings of the more intensive harvest systems and significantly lower ratings of the selective harvest system than those based on the still images. The interview data provided examples of interviewees viewing information critically against their own values and beliefs. Only some interviewees appeared to use it in judging social acceptability

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Acknowledgments

The research described in this paper was part of a larger project, Social Acceptability of Forest Management Systems, funded by the Australian Research Council with industry contributions from Forestry Tasmania and the Bureau of Rural Sciences. It was approved by the University of Melbourne Human Research Ethics Committee, Arts and Humanities sub-committee. Thanks to the many people who contributed to this project, particularly Daniel Loiterton and Trevor Webb. The authors acknowledge two anonymous examiners for their helpful comments on the PhD thesis (Ford 2006) that formed part of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne, 221 Bouverie Street, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Rebecca M. Ford & Kathryn J. H. Williams

  2. Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Ian D. Bishop

  3. Forestry Tasmania, 79 Melville Street, Hobart, Tasmania, 7000, Australia

    John E. Hickey

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  1. Rebecca M. Ford
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  2. Kathryn J. H. Williams
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  3. Ian D. Bishop
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  4. John E. Hickey
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Correspondence to Rebecca M. Ford.

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Ford, R.M., Williams, K.J.H., Bishop, I.D. et al. Effects of Information on the Social Acceptability of Alternatives to Clearfelling in Australian Wet Eucalypt Forests. Environmental Management 44, 1149–1162 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9392-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9392-7

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