Environmental Justice in Forest Management Decision-Making: Challenges and Opportunities in California

In response to the wildfire crisis across the American West, governments are increasing investments in forest health. Guidelines for these investments often include environmental justice (EJ) provisions. However, current processes for addressing EJ aren't consistently meeting the needs of commu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Society & natural resources 2023-12, Vol.ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print), p.1-25
Main Authors: Martinez, Deniss J., Middleton, Beth Rose, Battles, John J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cap and trade
Capacity building approach
Capacity development
Community
Decision making
Disadvantaged
Environmental justice
Environmental management
Forest & brush fires
forest ecosystem management
Forest management
Forestry
fuel treatments
Grants
indigenous environmental justice
Investments
Mitigation
Mobilization
Praxis
Procedural justice
Resource management
Rural communities
Wildfires
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Summary:In response to the wildfire crisis across the American West, governments are increasing investments in forest health. Guidelines for these investments often include environmental justice (EJ) provisions. However, current processes for addressing EJ aren't consistently meeting the needs of communities in forested areas. We analyze one source of wildfire mitigation funds in California, Forest Health Grants, to assess its adherence to distributive, procedural, and Indigenous aspects of EJ. We find that this program is not necessarily serving "disadvantaged" communities according to the State's definition. We argue that current metrics for identifying "disadvantaged" communities don't fully capture rural complexity, including the praxis of procedural and Indigenous EJ, respectively. We propose a rubric to evaluate projects along socioecological criteria and address EJ holistically via partnership building, long-term commitment to place, local capacity building, and mobilization of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. This rubric may also benefit other funding processes across California and other states.
ISSN:0894-1920
1521-0723
DOI:10.1080/08941920.2023.2203103