Dispersed Capacity and Weak Coordination: The Challenge of Climate Change Adaptation inCanada's Forest Policy Sector

Abstract

Constitutional and institutional legacies were combined to create a very decentralized forest policy sector in Canada. Where coherent policy requires a national response—as is the case with adaptation to climate change—the critical challenge is to locate the relevant decentralized policy capacity and steer it toward meeting national objectives. While there is some evidence that significant policy capacity exists in provincial forest and resource management departments, climate change adaptation has led to an expansion of departmental mandates that is not being addressed by better coordination of the available policy capacity. The relevant federal agencies are not well represented in information networks and forest policy workers report lower levels of internal and external networking than workers in related policy subsectors.

Climate change impacts and adaptation in forest management: a review

“…Analyses of the implications of climate change for the forest sector have focused heavily on North America: Canada (Ohlson et al 2005;Van Damme 2008;Rayner et al 2013;) and the USA (Joyce et al 1995;Blate et al 2009;Kerhoulas et al 2013); and Europe (Karjalainen et al 2003;von Detten and Faber 2013). There has been a stronger consideration in recent years of social, institutional and policy issues (Ogden and Innes 2007b;Kalame et al 2011;Nkem et al 2010;Spies et al 2010;Somorin et al 2012) and the assessment of adaptive capacity in forest management organisations and in society more generally (Keskitalo 2008;Lindner et al 2010;Bele et al 2013a).…”

“…Many papers emphasised the need for greater flexibility in the policies, cultures and structures of forest management organisations (Brown 2009;von Detten and Faber 2013;Rayner et al 2013). Because no single community or agency can prepare on their own for future impacts, inter-sectoral policy coordination will be required to ensure that policy developments in related policy sectors are not contradictory or counterproductive.…”

“…Decentralised management approaches are considered to be a more appropriate governance arrangement for forest management, but Rayner et al (2013) argued that a decentralised forest policy sector in Canada has resulted in limitations where policy, such as adaptation, requires a coherent national response. Climate change adaptation has led to an expansion of departmental mandates that is not being addressed by better coordination of the available policy capacity.…”

Advocacy Coalitions in Ontario Land Use Policy Development

“…Some scholars have turned to the World Wide Web as an alternative data source, particularly if the actors in a studied network are known to have a web presence leaving artefacts of their collective action. For example, McNutt (); McNutt and Wellstead (); Rayner, McNutt, and Wellstead (); and Elgin () have conducted hyperlink network analyses to analyze coordination patterns in various policy subsystems. This involves a mapping of the hyperlinks connecting various actors' websites (or webpages) to create a picture of the “virtual policy networks” present in a policy subsystem.…”

The Neglect of Governance in Forest Sector Vulnerability Assessments: Structural-Functionalism and “Black Box” Problems in Climate Change Adaptation Planning

“…The policy cycle (Hill 2007, Howlett, Ramesh, and Perl 2009, Pal 2010, Wu et al 2010 and policy change frameworks (e.g., advocacy coalition framework, institutional rational choice, and structural choice) (Moe 1984, Ostrom 1991, Schlager and Bloomquist 1996, Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999 are familiar approaches that draw upon the network and institutional dimensions and provide an even finer, more empirical lens on understanding the complexity and challenges of governance. Stedman et al (2004), Stedman (2007, 2011), and Rayner et al (2013) utilized these approaches in their examination of climate change adaptation policy formulation in the Canadian agriculture, forestry, and water sectors.…”