| The goal of the research presented in this dissertation is to better understand expert and public perceptions of, and values placed on, logging options for the Chattahoochee National Forest. The public values and the citizens' and experts' perceptions of the ecological effects of logging on different forest scales were determined through in-depth interviews structured to elicit the respondents' mental models and through a subsequent questionnaire. Analysis of the data demonstrated that citizens and experts have different mental models about logging on small scales in the forest (e.g., thinning and shelterwood cuts). The two groups, however, have similar mental models regarding logging on large scales (e.g., clear cuts) in the forest. Interview respondents discussed the effects of logging policy options in a contextual manner, in terms of the Chattahoochee National Forest, which indicates that the context of environmental policy issues is implicitly linked with a discussion of the ecological effects of logging policy options. These differences in mental models, based on the spatial scale of logging, indicate that issues of ecological spatio-temporal scales, as well as policy context, are important variables in environmental policy analysis. The results of qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the in-depth interviews were then used to develop an environmental policy analytic model that includes three key factors which function within a particular policy context: (1) spatio-temporal ecological scales, (2) public values, and (3) social learning. |
