Integrating legal conflicts into US public forest policy analysis: A shift in paradigm

Political conflicts over the uses and management of the US national forests are increasingly being manifested in courts of law. Traditionally, forest policy analysis in the US has not adequately addressed the role that these lawsuits play, either in how they affect policy choices, or in how they affect agency behavior. This paper suggests that faced with litigation as a permanent fixture in US national forest management, public forest policy analysis must adopt tools explicitly designed to address the implications of judicial involvement in forest management in order to better provide guidance for policy and decision-makers.