Landscape resource analysis : Applying a collaborative method to identify and communicate a variety of values in forest areas

Today’s societies face significant ecological and societal challenges, including climate change. Inthis context, forests can be a useful resource for new innovations and products which can leadto job opportunities, economic development in new sectors and greater sustainability. However,increased out-take of biomass also increase pressure on forest resources, ecosystems andbiodiversity. Conflicting interests increase between production and conservation of forests forrecreation, tourism and health. There is also a rural-urban imbalance with regards to the ruralforest resources. Many decisions regarding the use of the forests are made by decisionmakerseither in political bodies or companies located in urban areas often at considerable distancefrom the actual forests. Thus, there is a call for collaborative processes to identify and integrate arange of perspectives, interests and values in forests. This paper reports back from a project“Innovation for green transition in the forest” (www.ingoskog.org) where a collaborativeprocess for place-based development, landscape resource analysis (LRA), was used to addressthe social aspects of landscapes and to account for both material and immaterial values in theforest. LRA focuses on including stakeholders and local interests and knowledge. This methodwas applied to a small area, Norra Klarälvsdalen, in Värmland, Sweden where a workshopincluding 16 stakeholders resulted in the marking of subjective values on analogues maps. Thesemaps were digitized and together with data from geographical information systems (GIS) andArcGIS were used to visualize both material and immaterial values. Conflicting areas wereidentified and were discussed in a second workshop. This adapted LRA demonstrated thepotential to contribute local knowledge and thus add qualitative data to forest planning anddecision-making. It can also be used to address a wide range of stakeholder interests, including 95 | P a g eboth material and immaterial forest values, and is designed to capture cultural ecosystemservices that are often difficult to put a price on