Strategic planning in a dynamic world - Exploring planning horizons with the forestry example
Final Report Abstract
Long range (or strategic) planning is an important tool for forest management to deal with the complex and unknown future. It is however particularly this ability to make meaningful predictions about the (rapidly changing) future that is questioned. Especially the question of the length of time horizons and the limits (if any) to these horizons seems to be neglected, although these horizons are generally considered to be one of the critical factors in strategic planning. This research therefore empirically explored planning horizons, more specifically individual time horizons, as the whole responsibility for the creation of future-oriented values lies on the horizons of the individual. Data were collected through telephone surveys among forest managers in the state/national forest services of two different countries, i.e. the Netherlands and Germany, to make a comparison between countries with different traditions in forest planning. In order to minimize other cultural differences. In Germany the research concentrated on the federal state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, which has considerable similarities with the Netherlands, e.g. in topography, forest types, forest functions. The results show that in practice 15 years seems to be the most distant horizon that makes sense to foresters. This is in sharp contrast to the time horizons spanning decades and even generations that are always said to exist in forestry. The 'doctrine of the long run' - the faith in the capacity of foresters to overcome the barriers of the uncertainty future and look ahead and plan for long-range goals - which in many countries still underlies traditional forest management, can therefore be rejected.
Publications
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(2008). Coping with the long term : an empirical analysis of time perspectives, time orientations, and temporal uncertainty in forestry. WUR Wageningen UR, Dissertation
Hoogstra, M.A.
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(2008). The future orientation of foresters: An exploratory research among Dutch foresters into the prerequisite for strategic planning in forestry. Forest Policy and Economics 10 (4). - p. 220 - 229
Hoogstra, M.A.; Schanz, H.
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(2009). Future orientation and planning in forestry: a comparison of forest managers' planning horizons in Germany and the Netherlands. European Journal of Forest Research 128 (1). - p. 1 -11. Berlin/Heidelberg : Springer
Hoogstra, M.A.; Schanz, H.
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Climate Change Adaptation at the Interface of Science and Practice in Forestry: An Outline of a Theoretical Toolkit for Studying Organizational Decision-making under Uncertainty. In: Proceeding of the 2010 Summer Institute for Advanced Study of Disaster and Risk - Disaster, Risk and Climate Change, August 2-13 2010, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. Beijing: Hazard and Risk Science Base, October 2010, p. 51-58
Faber, F.
