Fighting over the forests: Environmental conflict and decision-making capacity in forest planning processes

This paper tells a story of environmental conflict and the attempted political resolution of issues of planning for native forests in Western Australia. It refers to the Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement and Draft Forest Management Plan processes to demonstrate how a range of actors utilise various discourses and network relations in attempts to influence governmental decision-making capacity. Adapting elements of a model of capacity-building for environmental decision-making, the paper indicates how traditional exclusionary decision networks serve to inhibit decision capacity, whilst more inclusive processes may be more likely to cope with challenges of reconciling multiple values and decision-making for managing the forests in the interests of society as a whole.