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- Info
Social forestry and GIS: The Urban Resources Initiative involves communities in planning and decisionmaking
| Author: |
Grove, Morgan; Hohmann, Mark |
| Date: |
1992 |
| Periodical: |
Journal of Forestry |
| Abstract: |
For more than two decades, geographic information system (GIS) concepts and applications have heralded a new era for natural resource management. GIS allows forestry professionals to acquire, organize, evaluate, and present data in ways that were not previously available. It can examine different scales of information and integrate disparate satellite, aerial, and survey sources in order to address complex problems. This integration of disparate information sources with community issues is essential, since forestry professionals work in and alter complex biological and social systems that they only partially understand. An emphasis on the rationality of science at times "blinds us to the larger social purposes and realities of people's daily lives. In order to be effective, we must be open to asking different questions in different ways to elicit different answers" (Burch and Parker 1992, p. 60) to meet society's needs. This is a humbling experience. In essence, we need to know what we do not know. And we need to recognize that forestry plays a broad and profound role in our society-from the wilderness areas of Alaska to the rural regions of Arkansas and the urban areas of Baltimore. |
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