Integration of local ecological knowledge and conventional science: A study of seven community-based forestry organizations in the USA

Natural resource management decisions can be based on incomplete knowledge when they lack scientific research, monitoring and assessment and/or simultaneously fail to draw on local ecological knowledge. Many community-based forestry organisations in the United States attempt to address these knowledge gaps with an integrated ecological stewardship approach that balances ecological, social and economic goals. This paper examines the use and integration of local knowledge and conventional science in ecological stewardship and monitoring by seven community-based forestry demonstration projects. Through document reviews and interviews with both participants and partners of all of these community based organisations, it was found that all the community-based forestry groups incorporated local ecological knowledge into many aspects of their management or monitoring activities, such as collaboratively designing monitoring programmes with local ranchers, forest workers and residents; involving local people in collecting data and interpreting results; and documenting the local ecological knowledge of private forest landowners, long-time residents and harvesters of non-timber forest products. It was found that all the groups also used conventional science to design or conduct ecological assessments, monitoring, or research. It was also found that there was evidence, in the form of changes in attitudes on the part of local people and conventional scientists and jointly produced reports, that the two types of knowledge were integrated by all groups. These findings imply that community-based forestry groups are redistributing the power of conventional science through the use of diverse knowledge sources. Still, several obstacles prevented some local, traditionally underrepresented groups from being significantly involved in monitoring and management decisions and their knowledge has not yet been consistently incorporated.