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Adapting through practice: Silviculture,

innovation and forest governance for the age of
extreme uncertainty
Article in Forest Policy and Economics August 2016
DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

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FORPOL-01446; No of Pages 11
Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Forest Policy and Economics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol

Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of
extreme uncertainty
Anna Lawrence
University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness IV2 5NA, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 14 December 2015
Received in revised form 18 July 2016
Accepted 24 July 2016
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Adaptive management
Experimentation
Organisational change
Scientic knowledge
State forest enterprises
Tree health

a b s t r a c t
Adaptation in forest management is often framed as a scientic challenge, relying on more accurate modelling
and better communication from science practice. However future scenarios of extreme uncertainty such as
those characterising the Anthropocene may require a more exible and interactive approach, drawing on a
wider range of knowledge. The role of the practitioner in this is often highlighted, but little understood. This
paper therefore seeks to contribute to empirical understanding of forest practice and its implications for adaptive
forest governance. In the UK, devolved forest administrations are addressing new structures and politics, reduced
budgets and staff, and several high impact tree health disasters. In the absence of scientic and operational guidance, foresters are nding new spaces in which to use their silvicultural knowledge, and work exibly, generating
new knowledge and practice through observation and local experiments. The capacity of state forestry organisations to learn and adapt is constrained by resource cuts, reorganisation, poor record keeping, increasingly topdown policy control, and de facto pre-eminence given to timber as the management objective. Individual relationships and personalities can nevertheless support communication and learning. The new circumstances are
stimulating an approach which is both creative and grounded in silvicultural knowledge and experience. Important parts of the adaptive process lie with practice and innovation in the forest, rather than hierarchical, scienceled approaches, but reality does not present us with a simple dichotomy between deterministic, reductionist forest management, and indeterministic, adaptive, ecosystem approaches. Further attention to practitioners' realities and contribution to knowledge is needed.
2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.

1. Introduction
Forest management systems have developed in close connection
with forest science, and in the context of assumed environmental stability and predictability. Many believe that this assumption is no longer
valid. In a new context of uncertainty about future climate and other
conditions, forest science is refocusing to nd technical solutions
which may help to cope with uncertainty, such as uneven-aged stands,
close-to-nature or continuous cover forestry, and changing species
choices (Brang et al., 2014; O'Hara and Ramage, 2013; Schtz, 1999).
The predominant response conforms with the conventional scienceinto-practice model, focusing on solutions that are science led, and
highlighting communication gaps between science and practice (Bolte
et al., 2009; D'Amato et al., 2011; Krantz et al., 2013; Lindner et al.,
2014; Yousefpour et al., 2014). Forest scientists express concern about
the challenge of advising forest decision-makers on how to plan
(Lidskog and Lofmarck, 2015; Lindner et al., 2014) while forest

E-mail address: anna.lawrence.ic@uhi.ac.uk.

managers call for locally relevant and credible climate change science
to inform management (Blades et al., 2015).
Thus far, much of the science reects the command and control approach to forest management. But a growing body of scientic literature
questions whether such top-down approaches are enough, or appropriate. The notion of the Anthropocene, as an era characterised by profound human alteration of Earth's systems and processes, predicts
much greater instability and unpredictability for the behaviour of ecosystems (Kellie-Smith and Cox, 2011; Zalasiewicz et al., 2008). It has
been suggested that, for forest management, such instability and uncertainty may imply a no analogue future where past experience does not
provide a guide to future behaviour (Sample and Bixler, 2014). In a no
analogue future, we cannot be sure of the answers, and may need to
provide more space for the questions.
In contrast to the science-dominated view, a diverse body of literature proposes something more radical. These proposals come in different forms. One critique calls for a move from the condent ecological
science of control to a tentative and ambiguous science of coping
(Bavington, 2002). Another advocates managing forests as complex
adaptive systems characterised by diverse and connected components
which are interdependent and show adaptation and self-organisation

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011
1389-9341/ 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

(Puettmann, 2011). A third contrasts deterministic (reductionist, predictable) with indeterministic (organic, adaptive, exible) forestry
(Wagner et al., 2014) which accepts and works with unpredictability,
in ways that the traditional reductionist approach to forest science cannot. These critiques come from a range of intellectual traditions, but
converge on the need for a move away from planned top-down decision-making. Instead of following hierarchical structures, and scienceled silvicultural tables for planting, thinning and felling, forest managers
would need to use initiative, assess risk, innovate and share ndings.
Such approaches challenge established positions and modes of decision-making: the roles of scientists and advisors, the culture of hierarchical planning and the wider command-and-control culture of forest
management (Lidskog and Lofmarck, 2015; Rodela, 2013; Tittler et al.,
2001).
There is a wider challenge in that implementation of these approaches would require changes in governance (decision making
processes) and behaviour (implementing the decisions, and day to
day practice). Keenan (2015) notes that adaptation requires multiple forms of knowledge and new approaches to forest management
decisions and advocates multi- and trans-disciplinary partnerships
involving scientists, practitioners and local actors. Others highlight
the need for researchers and managers to work in new roles
(Bormann et al., 2007), and for an organisational culture which promotes a shared vision and innovation (Richter et al., 2015). Scientic
reviews highlight the need for exible approaches which support
learning and capacity to change (Millar et al., 2007), and acknowledge that forest managers must be prepared to respond nimbly as
they develop (Park et al., 2014).
All this would result in profound changes in knowledge relations.
How can such shifts work? One place to start is in understanding how
forest management practitioners are changing what they do, and to
work outwards from that to understand better how organisations constrain or enable innovative practice. It is often asserted that with increasing complexity and uncertainty there is increasing need to
involve a wider range of stakeholders in forest management (Beratan,
2014), but practitioners themselves are rarely mentioned. Research on
the gap between policy and implementation focuses on communicating
science rather than on the knowledge and practices of forest managers
(Archie et al., 2012; Lawrence and Marzano, 2014; Milad et al., 2013).
We now know quite a lot about what forest managers perceive or believe (Seidl et al., 2016; Yousefpour and Hanewinkel, 2015) but not
what they do. Resilience researchers call for more effective ways of capturing practitioners experiential knowledge (Beratan, 2014).
To summarise: forest analysts propose that a coming time of extreme uncertainty and instability (characterised by some as the
Anthropocene) will make prediction and control difcult. Alternative
models focusing on indeterminate, bottom-up management are advocated, and highlight the value of practitioners' knowledge and actions,
but we know little about how forest managers are responding to uncertainty in practice. We also know little about how practice ts into
organisational governance and in turn how forestry organisations translate decisions into action, to learn and evolve (Cheng et al., 2015; Doelle
et al., 2012; Nelson et al., 2016).
This paper focuses on this need to understand practice empirically, and to consider what that means for forest governance. It looks at
change in public (state) forest management in the UK, through the
experiences of forest managers who are innovating to deal with
complex ecological, social and political challenges (described
below). It reects on those changes and constraints, in relation to
the discourses mentioned above, and asks whether a focus on practice helps to address some of the concerns mentioned above. The
study focuses on state forest management because the governance
context is quite different from that of private forestry. By focusing
on state forest districts in three countries of the United Kingdom,
we can explore a range of responses and adaptations within a shared
organisational structure and culture.

2. State forest governance and silviculture in England, Scotland and

Wales
The three countries of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales)
are covered by the Forest Act (1967) which with the Plant Health Action
(1967) sets out the roles of the Forestry Commission (FC), including
prevention of loss of tree cover and illegal felling, environmental protection, protection of trees from pests and disease, and management of the
state forests. The organisation of these roles has passed through various
historical permutations, resulting in a clear separation of policy, regulatory and management functions in each country as discussed below.
In the late 1990s, following devolved government in Scotland and
Wales, forest policy and management was also devolved to the new national administrations, and national forest strategies were prepared for
each of England, Scotland and Wales (Forestry Commission 1998;
National Assembly for Wales, 2001, Scottish Executive (2000). In
2002, the regulatory and operational functions of FC were divided into
FC Scotland (FCS), FC England (FCE) and FC Wales (FCW), with some
central functions retained by FC Great Britain (FCGB). Since then
Wales has taken a further step, and in 2014 subsumed the former functions of FCW into a new agency, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) which
also includes the former Environment Agency in Wales, and Countryside Commission for Wales.
The three roles of policy advice, forest management and forest administration/regulation are treated differently in the three countries.
In England, the former detailed strategy has been replaced by a Forestry
and woodlands policy statement, following a period of policy turmoil
and uncertainty during which proposals to sell the public forest estate
were robustly rejected by campaigners, leading to a retreat from the
proposed policy changes (DEFRA, 2007, 2013; Lawrence and Jollands,
2011). Severe budget cuts from 2010 onwards have accompanied
restructuring, reducing the number of districts to six very large ones.
Budget cuts and reorganisation have also affected Wales, following
the reorganisation of FCW into NRW. At the time of research however,
the Welsh Government Woodland Estate was managed through four
forest districts while harvesting, marketing and restock functions were
carried out by a national team. Wales has had relative policy stability
since 2006 based on the Woodlands for Wales strategy, but is struggling with the impact of enormous institutional change since 2014,
which put forestry into a new context of being only a small part in a
large environmental organisation.
Scotland has been less troubled by policy and organisational change
than Wales and England, but budget cuts have had recent impact. The
Scottish Forestry Strategy has served as the policy base since 2006
and is widely respected and implemented (Scottish Government,
2006). District structures have been more stable than in England but
have seen several mergers, so that the national forest estate is now
managed by ten forest districts.
In all three countries, private and public forests are regulated by a
body which is separate from the Forest Enterprise, but which historically has been part of the FC. In Scotland this is carried out by ve
conservancies, in England by ve area ofces, and in Wales by a national ofce.
The UK has recovered from a low point of 5% forest cover in the early
20th century, to an average of 13% forest cover, through concerted government action in the public sector, and incentives to the private sector,
to plant forests of (largely exotic) conifers, with the result that more
than half of the UK's forest cover consists of conifers (varying from
26% in England to 76% in Scotland), of which almost half are owned
and managed by the public sector. At least 50% of these conifer forests
are Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) monocultures; in Scotland 92% of all
state forest is conifer, of which 61% is Sitka spruce (Forestry
Commission, 2015). The prevalent forest management system is
clearfell and restock, with growing interest in mixtures and continuous
cover forestry (Cameron, 2015; Mason, 2015; Mason and Connolly,
2014).

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

Tree health is a major concern in the UK, with exponential growth in

the number of threats over the last decade, and further threats creating
a sense of urgency (DEFRA and Forestry Commission, 2011). Causes related to globalized trade, a changing climate and dependence on exotic
species, combined with decreasing genetic diversity of tree stock create
a situation where precautionary action and risk management is difcult
(Cavers, 2015; Potter, 2011). Those affecting commercial forestry at a
large scale include:
Phytopthora ramorum which affects larch (Larix species) and is controlled through statutory plant health notices (in effect, compulsory
felling orders);
Dothistroma needle blight which affects some pine species (of which
Pinus nigra is the most relevant in the UK context); new pine planting
is no longer permitted in large areas where pine monoculture plantations have predominated for many decades.

These changes form an important part of the context for forest managers working with uncertainty and global change.
3. Research sites and methods
This study uses a qualitative social research approach, suited to the
need to explore multiple perspectives on a complex problem, and to understand the situation through the eyes of actors situated in their particular contexts (Creswell, 2007). The aim is to focus on what is changing,
and to show, in forest managers' own words, how that change is happening, and what inuences ideas and actions. It uses purposive sampling to ensure that respondents are involved in change, and are able
to discuss ways in which they have engaged with drivers for change.
The analysis of interviews and eld observations is then used to interpret whether changing practice is related and relevant to the extreme
uncertainty that characterises Anthropocene discourse, and whether
that changing practice is symptomatic of a shift to a more indeterministic forestry as described by various theorists above.
Following initial contact with state foresters known to be making
changes in their forest management, seven state forest districts were selected purposively to explore different approaches to practitioner
knowledge, and consider the issues involved in making better use of
this form of expertise (Table 1). Unstructured and semi-structured interviews with 21 forest managers in seven forest districts in three countries, and visits to 18 sites on eight separate occasions in 201314, were
conducted to explore ve questions. The rst four are questions that
could be addressed directly by respondents while the fth relies on interpretation by the researcher:
1. What are the drivers for change in practice?
2. What role does the practitioner's knowledge play making those
changes?

3. How is learning contributing to scaling up and out?

4. How do governance structures and processes facilitate or impede
these changes in practice?
5. Does this change in practice constitute the kinds of shifts described
above (e.g. from deterministic to indeterministic)?
In each case study district, a senior planner or district manager was
contacted, and asked if they would be willing to participate in the research, and to suggest which member(s) of staff would be most relevant
and informed. Forest districts are large, but managed by a small number
of staff (one Forest District Manager or equivalent, a senior planner plus
a team of 13 other planners, and a similarly small team of forest managers, together with an environmental ofcer and one or more community rangers). Thus, there is only a small pool of state foresters from
which to select. Of ten districts in Scotland, six in England and four in
Wales, adaptation was studied in seven, or 35% of districts. Visits were
made to forestry ofces, and in most cases also to eld sites to observe
and discuss site conditions and performance of different species, often
with more than one forester. Some of the interviews thus took on the
nature of a group discussion.
The study follows guidance on the characteristics of good qualitative
research (Creswell, 2007): rigorous data collection through extended
interviews in respondents' workplaces supported by site visits; relative
large number of interviews; detailed notes and/or transcripts of interviews coded for the ve research questions. The research interpretation
is validated by the relatively large number of interview locations; and
through peer review of ndings and feedback on the publication of an
interim article (Lawrence, 2015). The number of interviewees is high
compared with similar published research such van Gils et al. (2014)
and Milad et al. (2013) with 10 and 13 interviewees respectively.
More important than the number of interviews is the validity and reliability of the data collected; both aspects were enhanced by the fact
that the forest managers were sharing their experiences about actions
that are in the public domain (because public forest management is
on open record); and that certain themes (highlighted in the discussion
below) were emphasised repeatedly. Furthermore the nal paper incorporates feedback and corrections following publication of interim conclusions, and the circulation of a draft of this paper to research
participants.
Analysis is based on the understanding that participants experience
multiple realities and that those realities are represented in their words.
Words (quotations) are therefore essential data in the study, and are
formatted below as indented paragraphs. Within the ve broad headings, themes were identied, and coded quotations sorted according
to those themes. In choosing quotations to illustrate points, I have
aimed to ensure that all the main views are represented, and to indicate
in the text whether a view is a common one or not. Except where mentioned, I have also avoided using more than one quote from any given
district, to support any particular point.

Table 1
Forest districts where interviews were located.
Country

Scale

Silvicultural challenge

District drivers of change

England

District

Recovery from tree health problems

England

District

Scotland District

Anticipated need to plant for changing climatic

conditions
Diversied resource of timber species

Scotland District

Reduced dependence on Sitka spruce

Scotland District

Successful establishment of a few alternative

conifer species
Transformation to low impact silviculture.

Major outbreak of Dothistroma needle blight; ban on planting of susceptible

Pinus species
District forest planning team's wish to reduce dependence on ve main
species.
Instruction from state forest enterprise (national ofce).
Affected by Dothistroma needle blight.
Instruction from state forest enterprise (national ofce).
Resistance within district ofce owing to local climate suitability for Sitka
spruce.
District forest manager's vision and interest.
Instruction from state forest enterprise (national ofce).
Welsh government policy change.

Wales

National (including two districts)

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

Table 2
Summary of emergent themes identied through iterative coding.
Topic (predened)

Themes (identied as emerging from research)

Comment on evidence and interpretation

Drivers

Policy to support resilience or climate adaptation.

All three countries have policy which addresses this, and in all three
expectations of behaviour change rely on information and persuasion rather
than nancial incentives.
Tree health policy is UK-wide and relies on regulation including compulsory
felling in affected areas, and bans on planting affected species.
A less tangible driver, this culture shift is widely reported amongst UK
foresters in this and other studies. It is both a driver and an outcome of
climate and tree health concerns, and also part of a wider reaction to the
shift from reductionist industrial forestry towards more multi-purpose
resource management.
Amongst participants in this study, the three trends of increasing use of own
judgement and knowledge, loss of site-specic knowledge, and increasing
interest in silvicultural research, were common, and also reported to affect
many of their colleagues. The increasing use of own and scientic
knowledge, contrasts with the loss of local knowledge owing to staff cuts,
reorganisation, and increase in recruitment of non-forestry staff.

Policy in response to tree health issues

Culture shift in forest management towards greater use of silvicultural
knowledge

Practitioners
knowledge and
actions

Resurgence of interest in silviculture

Loss of local site knowledge as staff become responsible for larger areas
and hire more contract workers
Increasing use of science and old research

Most of the respondents in this study were purposively selected because

they are conducting experiments in some form or another. They reported
that they are doing this more than before. There is not a strong basis for
Caution and variable condence
inferring that many others are also experimenting, but the respondents
were themselves acting at district level and therefore reect a shift in
behaviour of the whole district. It is likely that other foresters would have
less condence in experimenting.
The ndings from this study, that learning in natural resource management
State forestry is not good at learning.
organisations is constrained by a top-down culture, hierarchical planning,
and bureaucratic implementation, were consistence across all districts and
Resource cuts and reorganisation further undermine knowledge transfer.
countries, as was the impact of budget and staff cuts. This nding reects a
Poor record keeping: records in British state forestry are poorly maintained common theme from international literature.
and periodically destroyed. As a result information is lost from old trials,
The theme of poor record keeping was reected in some districts more than
and new staff cannot easily follow on long term work.
others, and is consistent with ndings reported in other studies focusing on
British forestry (Lawrence and Gillett, 2011; Lawrence and Marzano, 2014).
Comparisons made under this topic rely on respondents interpretation of
Bureaucratic structures are made up of individuals whose relationships
the relationship between their knowledge and work, and the wider
with each other and places affect outcomes.
institutional framework within which they work. There are themes in
common across all countries, and some contrasts. Because the number of
England, Scotland and Wales have different organisational structures
respondents from each country is relatively small, the themes identied
which affect condence, innovation and knowledge-sharing.
here should be treated as more subjective working hypotheses which
reect the experiences of the respondents.
Foresters conducting own experiments

Transferring
knowledge and
scaling up

Governance

Attitude and personalities of head ofce/senior management affect

success.

While state forest management is bureaucratic, both places and individuals

contribute to the functioning of that bureaucracy and make it a more
variable and exible process.

Monitoring and public accountability use up time and energy.

Relationships and locations affect the potential for, and outcomes of,
experimentation and knowledge-sharing.

The strategic plan has become the focus for discussions about adaptation.

Across all three countries respondents consistently pointed to the

personalities of senior managers, and the increasing burden of paperwork.
Shifts in forest planning processes (to focus on exibility of the strategic
plan, and interpretation by forest managers) were also apparent in all three
countries.
The themes listed here, are all recognised by participants in the research.
Their existence is interpreted by the authors, as symptomatic of a shift to
more adaptive/indeterministic forest management, but these changes are
only embryonic or emerging.

Former domination of nancial criteria drove neglect of good silviculture

Shift from
especially thinning.
deterministic to
interdeterministic
Current paradigm of multi-objective forestry allows more exibility but is
threatened by de facto dominance of timber production objectives.

For several themes, change was seen to be happening in two opposing

directions (e.g. More risk-taking/less risk-taking).

Mixed directions of change:

Widespread shift in public forestry, to more bottom-up, localised approach
At the same time in two of the three countries, top-down policy control is
increasing, creating ambiguous and uncomfortable spaces for
experimentation

Because this part relies more on researcher interpretation, it is signicant

that the conclusions were validated by the respondents who reviewed an
earlier draft of this paper. Several highlighted that while forest managers
may be working more exibly, senior management and organisational
structures are risk averse, and serve to block innovation.

Engagement with rhetoric of uncertainty but not so much with risk.

All of the interviews are with forest managers. They include forest
planners, forest management foresters (who take care of the forest between harvests), operations foresters (harvesting managers) and forest
district managers; two out of the 21 forest managers interviewed were
women. All had also worked in other roles; the unifying link between

them all is that they are district forest staff, whose practices directly affect the composition, process and ecosystem services of British stateowned forests. Because of the need for condentiality, and the small
size of the professional world of British forestry, I have not distinguished
between districts in the analysis. The aim is instead to understand a

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

range of experiences of forest managers who are changing their

practices, and where relevant to link those to perceived contextual
factors.
4. Results
The interviews were coded and analysed under ve topics which
were pre-dened as part of the research design. Within each topic,
themes were identied inductively, through iterative coding. These
topics and themes are summarised in Table 2, and described in detail
below.
4.1. Drivers
The interviews show three broad factors underlying change in forest
management practice, and they interact in ways that are specic to the
context of each district, according to national and district management
culture, and recent experiences of forest management impacts. Two of
these factors are overt and can be considered to be drivers in the conventional sense: change in policy to support adaptation, and change in policy
in reaction to tree health issues. The third is less tangible, and was not
identied by respondents as a driver, but is instead inferred through
later analysis. It relates to a changing culture of forest management that
supports greater use of silvicultural knowledge, and opens a space for innovation. This culture shift and new space for experimentation forms part
of the space in which foresters are conducted their management practices, and contributes to the effect of other more explicit drivers.
All three countries have policies that support diversication of species and of forest structure and have assigned national ofce staff to support this, through encouragement and information dissemination
(England), seminars and training materials (Wales) or more structured
plans which insert species quotas into district forest plans (Scotland).
Perceptions of the effectiveness of these drivers are mixed:
[They] have brought a lot more drive and energy to it.There is a drive
for diversity and resilient forests. People talk about resilience a lot
but nobody's told us what it means.
These shifts in policy and communication drivers provide a background to all the districts included in this study, but immediate experience provided a more compelling driver for many. Some saw this as
coming from national ofce, but were left puzzling over apparent
inconsistencies:
We've had a rush of diseases so there is a push to make forests stronger. The key thing it would seem is to diversify. But diverse is not the
same as resilient. Why go more diverse? Sawmilling is not keen.
So we must be doing it to become more genetically diverse and
stable.
For several districts, however, change had been forced because pests
or disease had rendered one or more of their main timber species unsuitable for planting:
It's not risky because what could happen if we don't diversify?
Sitka could get something [i.e. a disease] and we'd really be in trouble.
Some saw this as a way to turn crisis into an opportunity:
We were doing disease management. But we also took the opportunity to diversify and make it more resilient because of having the
canopy [under which shade tolerant species could be established].

4.2. Practitioners' knowledge and actions

The strongest theme emerging from many of the interviews was
the resurgence of interest in, and organisational space for, silviculture. The respondents all had an educational background in forestry
(although this is not the case across all such positions in the FC or
NRW), and had all been trained in the principles of silviculture.
Many felt that British forestry had passed through a time of poor
silviculture:
We'd lost our way with silviculture.
I would like to do what the old foresters did, practice good silvicultural practice, go back to mixtures.
Many expressed pleasure that they were getting back to decent silviculture but also noted that a shift to knowledge-rich approaches does
not t easily with budget cuts:
It's low input of physical resources but not of time. That's where we
are struggling the management time and getting people in the
woods.
Knowledge is lost because of changing budgets and structures,
which favour greater use of contractors rather than staff who have a
long-term connection with the site, leading to loss of local knowledge
and site memory.
When you're trying to convert from [even aged to uneven aged] it's
far more complex. You can only do that with a greater intimate
knowledge of it so you need people on the ground more, out in the
woods.
Applying that knowledge often requires a balance between condence and caution. Two members of staff from one district in particular
contrasted their actions with going mad:
[Choosing a few appropriate species] is better than going mad and
throwing lots of species around.
Until [the forest managers] get condent we aren't going to go mad.
A few hectares per year. It's all about getting used to the species. It's
more fun.
Respondents referred to their own observations and experience,
sometimes challenging received wisdom:
Western Hemlock [Tsuga heterophylla] - some see it as a weed, but I
can show you stands as good as any conifer. It's a good shade-tolerant species.
There are various published sets of recommendations on species site
suitability (Forestry Commission Wales, 2012, 2010; Wilson, 2011) and
one decision support tool developed by the state forest research agency,
Ecological Site Classication (ESC) (www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/esc). Foresters have made little use of these tools (Stewart et al., 2014) but the
need to change species choice and system, make them more inclined
to consult them, and to combine what they read, with what they also
know and trust:
Two [results] stood out Oriental Spruce [Picea orientalis] and Macedonian Pine [Pinus peuce]. What I liked about them was they
matched our existing market and matched our climate.

Others simply saw change as pragmatic:

Seventy-ve percent of my district consists of three species. There
are [health] problems with all of these. So we are doing pre-emptive
planning.

Sometimes scientic information challenged values of the foresters.

In one district, ESC recommended Silver Birch (Betula pendula), a species which had formerly been treated as a weed and eliminated with
herbicides. The planners found this recommendation hard to accept:

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

Disaster! Then we decided to embrace it and thought why not try!

this is what encouraged us to do birch.
Managers are stimulated to make use of new knowledge sources.
Some had arranged visits to an arboretum, others to the private sector.
They are making new use of old research plots, many planted in the
1960s, later abandoned and now nding new value (e.g. Mason et al.,
2012).
The rediscovery of these plots can be fortuitous. Planners in one district decided to inspect an unfamiliar coupe that was scheduled for harvesting. Contrary to what was stated in the records, they found a site
where ve conifer species and two hardwoods were thriving in mixed
multi-storey forest, some of them regenerating in the understory. The
plot is now protected and the focus of attention from scientists as well
as continuous cover acionados from other districts. Another forest
manager became aware of an experimental plot only when he asked
his staff to share knowledge of different stuff in preparation for a visit
from head ofce. He used this to show that Macedonian Pine regenerates well in local conditions information that is not yet available in
books and decision support tools.
During eld visits, foresters provided a running commentary on the
attributes and performance of species both familiar and unfamiliar.
Birch and Western Hemlock are two examples already mentioned,
where foresters revised their views. Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) is
another where a new tolerance for regeneration (regen) was apparent:
Researcher: what about all this sycamore regen?Forest manager: Im
happy with the mix.R: would you have said that 10 years ago?FM:
probably less so! We were a bit more aggressive at removing all
the birch and sycamore.R: so what has changed?FM: It's not actually
doing any harm, we can sort it out when it comes to thinning, it will
be thinned at age 20, why not do that then? You'll get a very good
price for rewood, I don't think there's the same stigma attached
to birch and sycamore.
So we see a mixture of changing external conditions, and a new exibility in the thought processes of the forest managers.
Information also comes from the private sector, particularly the
mixed estates which have a tradition of more integrated land use, and
wider species choice. Two managers from different districts in different
countries looked to the private sector for good practice on thinning:
If [private] estates can thin to maintain the mix, we can thin!
You'd go into private estates and it was a breath of fresh air, they were
doing things properly, they were thinning when they should have.
In many cases however, existing information and experience
provided little guidance, and foresters had embarked on a range of
experiments, at varying scales and levels of formality. These experiments focus in particular on establishment of unfamiliar species,
thinning species mixtures and transforming single age stands to
uneven aged stands through heavy thinning. Practitioners rarely
used the word experiment but agreed that was what they were
doing.
We are feeling our way. This enrichment planting is in its infancy.
This approach encourages younger staff to think on their feet, applying knowledge to new situations:
The brash mats prevented regen, so I got the digger to break up the
brash mats, scooped up the dense regen and moved it wholesale.
In all the districts, staff emphasised that not only are the choice of
species and silvicultural techniques new, but the process of conducting
small experiments is also novel. Comments from several districts
highlighted this:

I don't mind experimenting on a small scale Im not sure I have the

condence [to make bigger changes] - you could put stuff in and it
could all go badly wrong.
For example, managers who eventually won a national Woodlands
for Climate Change award began their trials rather quietly. They planted
10 shade tolerant conifers under heavily thinned pine; only later, when
national ofce staff learnt about the trials, were they encouraged to expand the scale.
Policy directives in some ways seemed to suppress condence to experiment, when not supported with engagement and two-way
communication:
It's still not clear exactly what we are talking about. Here we had DNB
[Dothistroma needle blight] killing Lodgepole Pine [Pinus contorta].
We've set up a programme, gone in and felled, restocked it's resilient
because we've managed it. Is that what they mean or [do they mean]
something that is naturally resilient?
There are a lot of things which haven't been thought out with [continuous cover forestry], and to my mind it hasn't been thought out
how are you going to deal with the regeneration?
On another site, the manager was less worried about reading the mind
of Head Ofce. He felt he had reliable options for lower sites, but:
On the upland sites it is more of a puzzle what to plant. This is where
my knowledge runs up against limits. I don't know how radical to be
It gets more challenging here. Sites are much less forgiving and
the scale is bigger [at higher altitude].
While he didn't fear criticism, like his more stressed colleagues he
felt advice was lacking:
Either Im not good at asking, or the support isn't there.
This question of support and transferring knowledge is addressed in
the next section.
4.3. Transferring knowledge and scaling up
Many foresters reported a changing sense of freedom to experiment,
and that this leads to learning from experience:
You just need to go out there and start playing and doing it because
that's where you learn.
As I started doing and seeing and gaining experience, it really is not a
complicated system.
However while individuals seem more inclined to experiment, comments about transferring that learning were not positive. Staff talked
about a pragmatic attitude:
As an organisation we are not good at transferring knowledge. It's in
the nature of folk here they do something, they move on to the
next thing.
Recent budget and staff cuts, and structural reorganisation affects
transfer of knowledge:
We're quite insulated, we've got big areas, we tend to work in those
areas.
I nd it increasingly difcult to even talk with my forest managers
they are so busy, so swamped. It's very obvious how stressed they are.
Respondents highlighted problems with record keeping. They would
monitor experiments informally and enjoy sharing the story with

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

visitors. But records of species and silvicultural trials from the past were
routinely discarded:
We've never been good at keeping records, after every ofce move
it's always skip-loads of records going down the road.
I don't know what the old provenance was because the records have
all been destroyed.
This affects institutional memory, and hence the capacity to learn
from experience, and apply that experience in novel circumstances in
the future.
4.4. Governance
The interviews reveal a range of experiences, from both those who
feel empowered, and those who feel disempowered. In England, the national ofce was keen to encourage innovation and to facilitate learning
between districts:
As a district, in England I feel very empowered. If you want to try
something you just get on with it. Use your experience and discretion. We had a local start, then looked at the national ofce to adapt
it.
Others felt overloaded with policy directives, documentation and
targets:
There's accountability in everything now, you've got to be able to
demonstrate you're delivering effectively and efciently, and all of
this takes resources and has slowly diluted that centre core of forest
management [Scotland].
The rst cut backs are in forestry and it is practical on the ground experience that is being lost in favour of more management by systems, by numbers. [Wales].
The three countries, and even different districts within each country,
have different arrangements for allocating work to functions and staff,
for example in whether harvesting and marketing functions are managed at national or district level. Different views were expressed about
the merits of these different organisational arrangements. While some
felt that cross-district functions were a strain on resources and a need
to get used to so many personalities, others saw mixing up the
teams as a chance to learn from different ways of doing things. A recurring theme from all the interviews was that if functions were separated,
it was important to work in the same ofce location to avoid splits developing which undermined innovation and knowledge sharing. In the
more stressed districts, a lot of comment was made on the need to get
out of silos, in other words to communicate across functions and in
particular, to do that by making eld visits and discussing the situations
with colleagues from other teams.
Overlapping with structural differences is the importance of personality. This was alluded to by almost all interviews. Line management,
and the preferences of the district manager, or line manager, affect foresters' condence in innovation:
We are part of a structure you can't completely break out because
that's just chaos. You need senior management to say give it a go.
Otherwise it goes underground.
[My manager] gave me the condence to go out and try things, Ive
always been a cautious forester.
Government bureaucracy is not standardised and hierarchical, in the
picture revealed here; some parts are more interactive and exible than
others. This was reected particularly in the relationship between the

districts (managing the public forests) and the conservancies or areas

(regulating and approving plans). In some districts, forest managers
felt that relations with the regulatory branch of the FC made it difcult
to implement policy in a exible way.
There is no set of guidelines that gives conservancies rules on how to
approve a plan. Each ofce has its own idiosyncrasies we really
want that consistency.
Forest managers described the challenge, which focuses on the strategic plan (known as the Forest Design Plan or Forest Resource Plan),
the central tool for seeking approval by the conservancy or regulatory
branch. They felt that a new language was needed for the plans, which
currently indicate whether a coupe is to be managed as conifer or
broadleaf, and as continuous cover forestry or as clearfell and restock.
For forest managers to develop their site specic responses, and use
the full range of their silvicultural knowledge, they must be able to interpret such categories exibly but appropriately. This is a challenge
for regulation, and for trust:
We are struggling with it at the moment how prescriptive should
the FDP be the Conservancy wanting it to be exact we want the
guys to use their skills on the ground.
We don't want to be more prescriptive because we want to react to
what happens depending on whether we get regen or not.
This is also a challenge for the culture in the public sector described
by one manager:
[There is a] culture of no risk taking by higher management that is
embedded in procedure.
In another district, the forest manager commented more assertively:
Here we encourage folk to think about what they do not just what
it says in the plan. If you do a 20 year Forest Plan, it becomes a template it cannot be particularly accurate. So there is a risk that people who go to do the felling and restocking take it as gospel. This
depends on the culture.
The planning team is aware that this is a precarious balance:
We want our planting teams to use their expertise and choice but
we're wary they could plant something quite different [from what
was intended on the FDP].
It is this difference between the letter and the spirit of the plan that
is so difcult to monitor and regulate, and which forms the heart of the
challenge in moving from deterministic to indeterministic forestry.

4.5. Shift from deterministic to indeterministic

This last topic has been analysed in a different way from the other
four. Respondents did not use the language of social and political analysts, such as the phrases highlighted in the introduction to this paper
(indeterministic approaches; complex adaptive systems; tentative
science of coping), but they did describe many changes which t with
the characteristics of those approaches. This section outlines those
traits, in the words of respondents. They have been selected using the
thematic analysis approach, as traits which may be symptomatic of a
less deterministic or reductionist approach to forest management. This
interpretation is assessed further in the discussion section.
The culture of state forestry in Britain has shifted from the 1970s
when each district was committed to a relatively high nancial rate of
return on internal investment. On the face of it, this was the era of deterministic forestry, with species chosen to maximise yield class and volume. The nancial imperative meant that good silviculture was often

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

abandoned. In all three countries, respondents noted a past neglect of

thinning:
Our history of thinning is a constraint; it's a very poor history.
The policy was to make money out of rst thinning [so left
the trees too long]. This was detrimental it led to unstable
crops.
The forests have suffered from past management; there's been a lack
of thinning for years and years because of the economics.
The shift to multi-objective forestry has opened up opportunities for
more exible management. This is reected in a shift in planning systems. The key to more exible planning, according to respondents, is
timeframe, a culture of treating 1020 year plans as indicative rather
than prescriptive; focusing on prescriptions in small scale, shorter
term work plans, management plans and coupe plans; and a relationship of trust with the regulators.
Despite a rhetoric of multiple objective forestry, timber production
drives the thought processes of all the districts. Several saw this as a
short term context which was problematic:
When your planning is to targets that are quite short term you
can't be as sure of the quality of your decision making into the future.
Many respondents saw wider change, and a growing culture of
experimentation:
There is change right across Scotland. Everyone is trying out new
things.
We've thrown the book on yields and yield models out the window.
It's holding a nger in the air, asking, does that look right?
This is reected in comments about risk which suggested a move
towards more positive risk-taking:
We are becoming less risk averse the biggest risk is not doing anything.
I don't think we are taking a risk, we have to do something. To do
nothing was the risk of having dead trees.
These comments could just reect crisis management, but a tentative move towards more exibility, and a changing source of initiative,
was also emerging:
Nobody knows how Macedonian Pine grows here I'm just a practising forester, let's just give it a go and see.
It's denitely not top-down here. It's being driven from the bottom.
Still there are managers who say There is less exibility now. Some
are changing because they have been told to, but they are uncertain
about the policy:
It will be nothing like the forests we have now. If that's what people
want we can deliver it but Im not sure that's what people want.
There is a knock on in terms of production. We want guidance and
parameters.
These and similar comments were concentrated in particular districts. They imply a need for a roadmap, precise instructions; the security of the deterministic approach. Yet they come from foresters who are
experimenting, and who go to eld sites together to discuss what they
see; who are intrigued by the novelty of planting Silver Birch, or of

heavy thinning. The silvicultural knowledge is there, but the history of

hierarchical organisation and public scrutiny inhibits them from using
it.
Nevertheless many felt there was a change in the air. Some described
it as immensely exciting and a great time to be a forester. And some
saw this as a wider challenge to the way things are done:
We are absolutely convinced that one size doesn't t all. We need to
get away from forestry by numbers.

5. Discussion and conclusions

This paper started with the theoretical context of the Anthropocene
and its projections of extreme uncertainty. Others use related concepts
and language, of no analogue futures, a shift to indeterministic forest
management, and a practical science of coping; but much of the literature focuses on science as separate from practice, and we know little
about how practice is changing and coping. We need to move beyond
attitudes and beliefs of forest practitioners to understand what they
are actually doing, and to assess whether it does in fact reect the
more abstract changes described by theorists. In this section, we examine the relationship between what we have shown is happening in practice, and the ideas from theory that were identied in the introduction.
At the broadest level, the empirical research highlights and details a
general move from the homogenizing practices of the past, to diversication of species, structures and silvicultural systems. This tendency is
supported by both the natural inclinations of the foresters concerned,
and by the wider governance context. However, this change is still
small scale, and not all foresters feel condent to experiment, or to publicise their experiments. These are signs of a changing paradigm, but the
paradigm, the culture, and the practice are not yet accomplished. This
research indicates that the practices of these foresters, and foresters
like them, have much to contribute to the tentative science of coping,
but that internal (organisational) and external (political) governance
will have to recognise, support and learn from these practices, to
make this potential real.
Dilemmas in current forest management in the UK reect the global
themes of uncertainty. While all the cases explored here were chosen
for innovative practice, some showed great condence and enthusiasm
to do good silviculture while others felt puzzled and frustrated by a
lack of guidance on how to respond to this uncertainty. While changing
practice was in some cases sudden and unforeseen, in others gradual
and adaptive, it is signicant that none of it was precipitated by climate
change and the cascades of uncertainty resulting from modelling challenges (Lindner et al., 2014). Instead the challenges and sources of uncertainty are both more complex (including policy and economic
uncertainties), and more urgent (in many cases precipitated by tree
health crises). This point is important: foresters are dealing with extreme changes in biological, economic and regulatory context and
none of those changes were predicted or factored in to any models
available to the forest managers.
These challenges, and the changes in practice which ow from them,
therefore represent a different transition from that which focuses on the
role of science (e.g. Blades et al., 2015; Keenan, 2015; Lindner et al.,
2014). In contrasting deterministic and indeterministic management,
Wagner et al. (2014) characterise deterministic approaches as deriving
from ever-increasing attempts to improve accuracy of modelling, prediction and intervention. Here, professional science is taking a relatively
minor role. Instead, practitioners use their site knowledge and direct observations of something different, informed rather than steered by science, making new use of their own knowledge, and supplementing that
with external sources. Many forest planners and managers do not favour decision support tools, preferring to rely on their own professional
judgement (Stewart et al., 2014). Here however we see a judicious mix
of new information combined with personal expert assessment of its

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

value, similar to the healthy skepticism advocated by Millar et al.

(2007) to extend and assess the range of possible interventions. Hence
the knowledge underpinning practice is scientic in its origins, and is
characterised by the idea of domesticating science (Andr and
Jonsson, 2015).
Changing practices reect different approaches and attitudes
amongst foresters. We are told that there can be no simple recommendations or widely applicable silvicultural response (Puettmann, 2011),
so research into what is actually happening is necessary. From the
silvicultural point of view, shade tolerant conifers on the dry sandy
soils of East Anglia, or Silver Birch on the peat uplands of Aberdeenshire,
are interesting innovations; perhaps the most striking is the rediscovery
of an old species trial, which 50 years later had resulted in a mixed conifer and broadleaf, multi-storey plot with thriving regeneration, in
the midst of many square miles of Pinus nigra plantation in eastern England. This untended, unmonitored plot comes close to the selforganising systems which typify complex adaptive systems (Messier
et al., 2013b).
To summarise reections thus far: practitioners are coping with unforeseen and large-scale change, such as characterises the Anthropocene
(Sample and Bixler, 2014); we can see elements of the indeterministic
approaches and self-organising systems which some see as part of the response (Messier et al., 2013a; Wagner et al., 2014), and important parts
of the adaptive process lies with practice and innovation in the forest,
rather than hierarchical, science-led approaches.
To this extent, revelations about changing practice and culture of
forest management indicate valuable parts of the system that needs
to change. However the constraints experienced by practitioners
point to other parts of the system which may cope less well with sudden change or extreme uncertainty. We are a long way from embedding such approaches and scaling them up through learning. Local
experiments are contributing to local adaptive practice, but the
wider relevance depends on spatial and time scales that are beyond
a practitioner's capacity to address (Beratan, 2014). The social learning needed for scaling up requires collective action and reection in a
community of practice (Cundill et al., 2012). Such a deliberate approach to learning is still absent. Indeed it is still widely assumed
that better understanding and perceived usefulness of science will
inuence the effect of organisational barriers on intention to
adapt (Blades et al., 2015). These ndings suggest that it is not the
perception of science that needs to change, but the perception of
the value of local knowledge and learning. There is a need to not
only value, but document and disseminate practitioners' experiential
knowledge in a form that is accessible to practitioners and useable in
practice (Beratan, 2014). Here we see this need, and lack, applying to
both practitioners' condence and capacity to experiment, and the
kinds of knowledge that they want to access including records for
old trials.
It is not novel to point out that aspects of natural resource governance constrain learning. We know that organisational psychology (including perceived organisational support, work attitudes, personalities,
performance and commitment) can obstruct the implementation of
policy (Asah, 2014). Internal barriers, including unclear mandates
from superiors and bureaucratic rules and procedures, are perceived
as greater constraints than external barriers (Jantarasami et al., 2010).
In the cases studied here, we see a general tightening of control, and increased level of policy directives and monitoring, in the public forest
sector in the UK. Top down planning approaches and over-regulation
stie experimentation and adaptive capacity in the USA and Europe
(Archie et al., 2012; Bouriaud et al., 2013). Similarly, Brown and
Squirrel (2010) conclude that although the US Forest Service has
some attributes of a learning organization, these attributes may be insufciently strong for the learning demands required in adaptive management (p. 385).
Given these traits of government natural resource management agencies, what seems more surprising is that this level of experimentation and

exibility is occurring at all. Adaptation takes place at the interface between new drivers with existing conditions (Doelle et al., 2012) and it is
notable that the new circumstances are stimulating an approach which
is both creative and grounded in silvicultural knowledge and experience.
Change is happening, through necessity and individual initiative.
Richter et al. (2015) tell us that a sustainable, ecosystem approach
requires four criteria: shared vision, organisational co-evolution,
organisational culture promoting innovation, and the autonomy to
self-organise. Here, across seven districts, in three national contexts,
we see high variability: in at least two countries there is a wide gulf
between the vision of the national ofce, and of forest planners
and managers in the districts. Of Richter's four criteria, the culture of innovation seems to be the one which is showing most promise. Organisations are changing, not according to the needs of adaptive forestry,
but rather as a response to budget cuts. Further political uncertainty
(distancing of central government from its own agencies in England, integration of forestry with land use regulatory bodies in Wales, and an
expectation that foresters will reposition themselves as integrated
land managers for the Scottish government), all create new and uncertain circumstances which pose further limits to the ability to learn and
to self-organise.
Reality does not present us with a simple dichotomy between deterministic/reductionist/positivist forest management, and indeterministic/adaptive/ecosystem approaches. Results here suggest a spectrum;
we can see at least two distinct stages along this path: from conventional to crisis response (reactive and abrupt change); and from crisis response to more intrinsic, proactive innovation and learning.
Recognising the role of crisis is important. Shifting systems doesn't happen without a shock, and forest adaptation in Europe has been described as driven by extreme events (Keskitalo et al., 2015). Crisis has
created opportunity, and some of the forest managers here took that opportunity not only to try different species, but to change the way that
they generate knowledge, explore options and plan forest management.
More empirical research is needed, to understand how forest managers in different contexts are steering through real change, and cultivating the skills and condence to support the ability to cope with
both gradual and abrupt change. These are not easy tasks for governance, not least because these skills, and their outcomes are less susceptible to monitoring and measurement than (for example) climate
change mitigation (Buizer and Lawrence, 2013; Puettmann, 2011). But
these cases show that resource managers can deal with that, and nd
opportunities to respond to crisis, and even to move beyond crisis response to a more exible forestry. That will not be enough to cope
with extreme uncertainty, but it is certainly part of what is needed;
this research shows that practitioners contribute creatively to the
situation and are not merely consumers of science or policy decisions.
This contribution must be included in designing governance for
Anthropocene forestry.

Acknowledgements
Thanks are rst owed to the participants in this study, the forest
managers and planners who shared time, information and enthusiasm
for their changing practices. Thanks also to those who commented on
interim papers and presentations, and an earlier draft of this paper; as
respondents in the study they are not named here but are greatly appreciated! Some of the data used in this paper was collected while the author was employed by Forest Research, the research agency of the
Forestry Commission. Further data collection, and all analysis and interpretation were conducted in the authors own time. Responsibility for
the interpretation presented here lies solely with the author. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the IUFRO Landscape Ecology conference in Tartu, Estonia, August 2015; and at a seminar for the Italian
Academy of Forest Sciences, Florence, Italy. The author thanks colleagues at those events for feedback and links to literature, and two

Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011

10

A. Lawrence / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2016) xxxxxx

anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft which have led

to an improved paper.

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Please cite this article as: Lawrence, A., Adapting through practice: Silviculture, innovation and forest governance for the age of extreme
uncertainty, Forest Policy and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2016.07.011