ABSTRACT
Over the last several decades, US forest governance has changed significantly, but without attendant policy changes to support collaboration, prioritization of investments, and coordinated planning. The CFLRP was a policy innovation meant to support improved governance approaches and it incorporates many aspects of policy design that are thought to support participatory planning, learning, and improved matching of the scales of management actions to those of key ecological processes. We evaluated the CFLRP in the eighth year of its implementation to understand how it had affected governance approaches. Through 81 interviews and a survey of 229 agency staff working on CFLRP projects, we investigated the governance-related benefits of the CFLRP program, gathered suggestions for future policy approaches, and assessed the other factors that supported and impeded the implementation of the program. Our findings reveal that the combined requirement for collaboration with multi-year funding commitments to particular landscapes supported collective action and improved both the pace and scale of restoration efforts. Challenges included finding ways to maintain restoration treatments over time and engage industry more successfully. Future efforts will need to build collaborative capacity and ensure agency capacity and leadership are in place to support focused funding investments.
