Lecture 10: PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND PREFERENCE ELICITATION

1 Landscape Preferences

2 General Public Involvement

3 Public perception testing

LANDSCAPE PREFERENCES

• Directly measured from people/viewers

• Specific visual preferences (like/dislike) vs. general preferences (affected by visual and non-visual influences)

• Instinctive (inherent) vs. cultural/learned/familiar

1.1 INHERENT LANDSCAPE VALUES(INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES)

1.2 SOCIO-CULTURAL LANDSCAPE VALUES/MEANINGS

2 GENERAL PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT

• Indicator 19 Forest management responds to a wide range of social values through effective planning processes that involve inclusive consultation with stakeholders (CANFOR SFM Framework)

Questions?

• Is it easy to get good public participation (problems)?

Common problems

• Hostility and conflict

• Unsatisfactory consultation/planning approaches: low levels of meaningful engagement and poor transparency of process

• Consultation often ignores less organized and less vocal groups

• Little effective learning on either side

A hierarchy of public involvement processes

• Communicating to the public

• Listening to the public

• 2-way dialogue/decision-making

Communicating to the public

Listening to the public

• Social science research methods

Respondents’ resource values in order of priority

(Arrow Forest District Survey)

Water Maintaining sustained flow of water Maintaining or restoring fish populations to natural levels

and fluctuations Maintaining natural levels of sedimentation

Ecosystem Maintaining long-term soil fertility Protecting habitat for fish and the full range of native

wildlife species Maintaining slope stability/preventing soil erosion

Jobs Recreation Visual Quality

Timber Safety

Two-way dialogue and decision-making

1 Inclusive data gathering:– Early public/stakeholder scoping– Incorporate local knowledge

2 Collaborative public processes:– Iterative workshops/trust-building– Consideration of alternatives– Joint decision-making

What makes a good process?

• An inclusive, open and accountable process

• A comprehensive, credible, scientifically supported process

• Assuring sustainability through learning

A MENU OF PUBLIC PROCESSES/TECHNIQUES

(Summarised from SFM Network KETE document)

• Public meetings• Open houses• Surveys• Focus group meetings• Round table negotiations • Public advisory groups/committees• Design workshops• Etc.

Hearing from the silent majority

public meeting attendance

30

25

22

20

17

15

13

12

11

10

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Missing

Cou

nt

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

Example: Arrow Forest District Mail-Survey

Public Advisory Groups

• Workable but….

• Sometimes selective representation

• Agendas influenced by organizer's priorities (usually industry)

• Not necessarily systematic or structured input to decisions

3 PREFERENCE ELICITATION AND PERCEPTION TESTING

• More to public participation than preference elicitation (dialogue, decision-making, monitoring etc.)

• Respondents

• Response stimuli (medium/content)

• Response types:– Cognitive (knowing)– Affective (liking, feeling)– Evaluative (recommending)

Perception testing variables

Processes for public input to landscape assessment (VRM) -

rare!

• USFS: Constituent analysis

• US Bureau of Land Management: Visual Sensitivity workshops

• BCMoF Open Houses for VLI

• Surveys on visual issues

Public Input

Eliciting the public’s landscape perceptions

• Direct viewer sensitivity/concern measurement

• Typical products:– Map of preferred areas/points/features– Selected or ranked photos of preferred

scenes/conditions– Expressed preferences related to

measurable/identified landscape characteristics or responses to photographs/visualizations

Rural OliverSpecial Places / Features

• 210 “photo” points selected

Town of OliverOut of Character

• Industry in Town

• Airport

• Southern Gateway

– 116 points selected

Community-based Photo-survey Results: Sample from Royston, Vancouver Island

ROLL PHOTO NO. GENERAL DESCRIPTION SPECIFIC

CONSIDERED TO BE

LANDMARK LIKE DISLIKE

2 1

The Pier has always been a part of what makes Royston. Parking is bad. Site for numerous summer night parties (noise, people, mess to clean up) Need speed bumps to slow trafic. The Pier yes yes

2 6

Unkept ditches-overgrown with blackberries. Clean up so that the ditches will drain better, the community would look tidier. They'd be easier to keep clean yes

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.6

Prepared by: Cecilia Achiam

Example: Preferences of First Nation community (Cheam Band) for stream restoration options

Compatible/Incompatible (no. of comments):

0/12

8/5

66/0

3 PREFERENCE ELICITATION AND PERCEPTION TESTING

• More to public participation than preference elicitation (dialogue, decision-making, monitoring etc.)

• Perceptions versus preferences• Different kinds of perceptions/preferences:

– General perceptions/preferences

– Aesthetic perceptions/preferences

RECAP

• Public participation versus perception testing

• General perceptions/preferences versus visual perceptions/preferences

• One way versus 2-way processes

• Multiple methods (pros and cons)