Supporting community governance in boreal forests by introducing participatory GIS through Action Research

Abstract

We use the case of Vilhelmina Upper Forest Common (VUFC) in northernSweden to test whether the introduction of a Participatory GeographicInformation System (PGIS) can increase shareholder engagement. Wetake an Action Research approach to introduce a PGIS as a tool to helpwith forest management plans, and as a tool for communication betweenmanagement and the shareholders. We found that the board and shareholderswere initially resistant to adopting PGIS. However, continued collaborationand engagement seem to have encouraged the board to be morepro-active in their communication with the shareholders, and also moretransparent regarding the management/governance of VUFC. We also findincreasing interest among previously passive shareholders to engage intheir forest common’s management.

Published in

International Journal of Action Research
2015, volume: 11, number: 3, pages: 236-264

SLU Authors

• Poudyal, Mahesh

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Lidestav, Gun

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Sandström, Per

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Sandström, Stefan

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Other Biological Topics
Environmental Sciences
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1688/IJAR-2015-03-Poudyal

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/69987