David N Bengston - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by David N Bengston

Journal of Futures Studies, 2015

Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and deliberati... more Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and
deliberation among multiple participants from multiple sites in which there is a delay in interaction between contributors. This method has been widely used for a variety of purposes in higher education and other settings, but has not been commonly used in futures research. This paper describes an asynchronous online foresight panel process. The method is illustrated with the case of a recent foresight panel on the future of wildland fire management

The Forest Futures Horizon Scanning Project, 2019

A clear and concise guide for volunteer scanners is essential for creating a rigorous, consistent... more A clear and concise guide for volunteer scanners is essential for creating a rigorous, consistent, and sustainable horizon scanning system. The scanner guide written for the Forest Futures Horizon Scanning system is presented in its entirety. The guide includes an overview of the USDA Forest Service; an explanation of horizon scanning and its goals, uses, and stakeholders; a "how to" guide for installing and using the Web-based system for collecting scanning hits; a description of the domain map used in tagging scanning hits; and a quick guide to getting started in scanning.

Journal of Forestry, Nov 22, 2021

Serious games are designed to achieve specific educational or other practical purposes beyond pur... more Serious games are designed to achieve specific educational or other practical purposes beyond pure entertainment. These games take many different forms-from card decks to massive multiplayer online games-and have proliferated across diverse fields. This note introduces IMPACT: Forestry Edition, a serious board game designed to help forestry professionals and stakeholders think more broadly, critically, and creatively about the future of forestry. We describe the game and feedback from beta testing and discuss the advantages and potential drawbacks of gaming methods. A "print and play" version of the game is included as supplemental material. Serious games can make an important contribution to forestry by engaging and informing diverse stakeholders and generating insight that other methods cannot.

The extent to which inflation has eroded the real purchasing power of public agricultural researc... more The extent to which inflation has eroded the real purchasing power of public agricultural research budgets is poorly understood. Official Government research and development (R&D) statistics use the gross national product (GNP) deflator to express research expenditures in constant dollars, despite the serious shortcomings of such a broad indicator of inflation for deflating research expenditures. A State Agricultural Experiment Station (SAES) research price index is calculated in this paper and compared with the GNP deflator. The GNP deflator substantially underestimated the rate of inflation in SAES research in recent years mainly due to real growth in faculty compensation during the 1980's. The divergence between the SAES research price index calcuated in this study and the GNP deflator indicates that the purchasing power of SAES research is significantly less than estimates based on the GNP deflator would suggest.

on environmental attitudes. beliefs, and values, as well as on the human dimensions of ecosystem ... more on environmental attitudes. beliefs, and values, as well as on the human dimensions of ecosystem management.

We live in a world on fire. In just the past few years, major wildland fires have struck at least... more We live in a world on fire. In just the past few years, major wildland fires have struck at least 13 U.S. states, as well as Indonesia, Australia, China, southern Europe, Russia, Canada, Bolivia, and other parts of the world. Wildland fires are increasing in number, size, and intensity. In particular, there has been an increase in large fire events—megafires—that account for more than 90 percent of the total area burned. These megafires can cause catastrophic damage in terms of human casualties, economic losses, and environmental destruction. We project that the trend toward larger and more damaging fires will accelerate, driven by two main factors: climate change and fire suppression policy.

This paper describes a new approach for monitoring the social environment for forestry. Computer ... more This paper describes a new approach for monitoring the social environment for forestry. Computer methods were used to analyze almost 30,000 online news media stories about the national forests for expressions of four main categories of benefits and values. Recreation benefits and values were expressed more often than other categories, both at the national and regional levels, followed by commodity, ecological, and moral/spiritual/aesthetic benefits and values. A slight downward trend was found in expressions of commodity benefits and values at the national level.

World Futures Review, 2016

Humans have used forests for millennia for heat, shelter, transportation, ceremony, and community... more Humans have used forests for millennia for heat, shelter, transportation, ceremony, and community. Foresters are professionals who grow and manage forests in response to society's needs. Foresters view forest products as sustainable because harvested trees can be replaced by new trees. Harvested timber is used for paper, building materials, furniture, and other wood products. Over time and through technological advances, foresters have 659650WF RXXX10.1177/1946756716659650World Future ReviewBengston et al.

Ecology and Society, 2012

The need for environmental foresight has increased in recent decades as the pace of change has ac... more The need for environmental foresight has increased in recent decades as the pace of change has accelerated and the frequency of surprise has increased. Successfully dealing with the growing impacts of change on social-ecological systems depends on our ability to anticipate change. But traditional scientific tools are blunt instruments for studying a future that does not exist. We propose that futures research, a transdisciplinary field of inquiry that has been developing for more than 50 years, offers an underused but fruitful set of approaches to address this important challenge. A few futures research methods--notably several forms of scenario analysis--have been applied to environmental issues and problems in recent years. But futurists have developed an array of other useful methods for exploring possible, plausible, and preferable futures, important insights into the nature of change, and perspectives for thinking creatively and deeply about the future. We present an overview of futures research and its potential to enrich environmental planning and policy by offering a cross-fertilization of new ideas and approaches, providing a more complete view of emerging environmental problems, and facilitating the development of strategies to increase adaptive capacity and deal more effectively with surprises.

Environmental communication professionals and other decision makers need to understand public sen... more Environmental communication professionals and other decision makers need to understand public sentiment toward environmental issues to effectively carry out their stewardship responsibilities. However, it is often difficult to obtain timely and reliable information about public discussion and debate regarding these issues. This paper describes an approach designed to address this dilemma: Rapid Issue Tracking is a method for quickly ‘‘taking the pulse’ ’ of public and other stakeholder discussion. The data source for Rapid Issue Tracking is online media stories, including traditional news media, social media, and other textual data such as public comments received by an agency. Two US Forest Service cases of Rapid Issue Tracking are presented to explicate the method and its usefulness in environmental communication and decision making.

The role of indigenous research institutions in the process of economic development has been incr... more The role of indigenous research institutions in the process of economic development has been increasingly recognized in recent years. Many factors outside the research system and beyond the control of research decision-makers may have a significant impact on the capacity. and effectiveness of these institutions. This paper reviews and discusses key exogenous factors affecting public research institutions in developing countries and makes suggestions for ameliorating the impacts of these factors. Implications for strengthening research institutions in developing countries are discussed in a concluding section.

Nature Plants

orests provide essential livelihoods and environmental services. They harbour a disproportionate ... more orests provide essential livelihoods and environmental services. They harbour a disproportionate amount of the world's biodiversity, regulate key aspects of the global carbon cycle and weather patterns, and contribute directly to national incomes and the local livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Their role in sustainability transitions is re-emphasized by multiple current international sustainability agendas. Forests can be linked to most-if not all-of the Sustainable Development Goals through contributions to ecosystem services, green economic opportunities, and social and environmental justice agendas 1,2. Forests are also essential to the Paris Climate Agreement, 3 the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework 4,5. Further, the Bonn Challenge aims to bring under restoration 350 Mha of degraded lands globally by 2030, and the New York Declaration on Forests identifies 10 specific global forest goals 6. Forests are a key mechanism for mitigating climate change through forest protection, restoration and afforestation 7,8. This prominent attention to forests, especially in human-dominated tropical and subtropical regions, creates a need for a comprehensive policy-oriented research agenda. Research on forests and livelihoods has typically focused on trying to understand how household-or community-level dynamics, including rights to resources and land-use decisions, affect local livelihoods and forests 9. However, new research on forests demonstrates the importance of links between human and natural systems at regional, inter-continental and global scales 10. For example, demand for commodity crops in Europe, North America and emerging economies is driving environmental degradation in the Amazon, Congo Basin and Indonesian peatlands 11. In turn, smoke from forest and peat fires in Indonesia affects human health in Southeast Asian countries 12. Identifying and understanding large-scale processes linked to forests and livelihoods with disproportionate effects on

Journal of Futures Studies, 2015

Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and deliberatio... more Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and deliberation among multiple participants from multiple sites in which there is a delay in interaction between contributors. This method has been widely used for a variety of purposes in higher education and other settings, but has not been commonly used in futures research. This paper describes an asynchronous online foresight panel process. The method is illustrated with the case of a recent foresight panel on the future of wildland fire management. Foresight panel, asynchronous online conferencing, wildfire management

Small-scale Forestry, 2020

The context within which family forest owners operate is constantly changing due to many internal... more The context within which family forest owners operate is constantly changing due to many internal and external factors. Many emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological changes could have profound effects on family forest owners and their land in the future. This paper explores a possible transformative technological change: A "Coming Age of Wood" in which a large number of technological innovations in wood products result in a significant increase in the use of woodbased materials throughout the global economy, substituting for a significant share of non-renewable materials. This high impact development could be transformative for forests and forestry, including small-scale forestry. We used a participatory Futures Research method called the Implications Wheel ® to explore the potential direct and indirect implications of a Coming Age of Wood for family forest owners. A total of 195 possible higher-order implications were uncovered, including implications related to major themes of negative ecological effects, positive economic effects, increased conflict between different stakeholders, and negative effects on rural communities. Anticipating some of the possibilities in advance can provide early warnings of the kinds of changes that may be coming, and help enable planners, managers and policy makers to be proactive and build barriers to undesirable change and bridges to facilitate positive change.

Journal of Futures Research, 2020

Future estrangement is a profound sense of alienation toward the future. It is the deep-seated fe... more Future estrangement is a profound sense of alienation toward the future. It is the deep-seated feeling that the future is a hostile and bewildering world that we may not have a place inor may not want to have a place in. This paper outlines numerous impending threats that are the main sources of future estrangement and discusses strategies to overcome this perilous attitude toward the future. Ultimately, reversing the spread of future estrangement will require both addressing its root causes and building resiliency at all levels and in all domains of society.

Futures, 2020

Anthropogenic climate change has been gradual to date, but if climate tipping points are crossed ... more Anthropogenic climate change has been gradual to date, but if climate tipping points are crossed the pace of change could accelerate significantly. This study explores possible implications of abrupt climate change, with a partial focus on implications for forestry. We used the Implications Wheel® participatory futures method to identify and evaluate direct and indirect, positive and negative implications of rapid change in the climate system. A large number of possible implications were generated, including a wide range of social, economic, and ecological costs and benefits. Participants identified many "likely strong negative" implications that were scored as both highly likely and strongly negative. A key conclusion of this study is the importance of developing strategies to increase social and ecological resilience given the likelihood of highly disruptive impacts of abrupt climate change. A second conclusion is the need to identify early warning signals for abrupt climate change and closely monitor those signals. Finally, the fundamental uncertainty about abrupt climate change suggests the importance of futures research that taps into creativity and imagination. Our inaction in the face of climate change has been characterized as a failure of imagination, an inability to envision a different and sustainable world, and so futures thinking and methods that encourage creative thinking have an important role in addressing the "inevitable surprise" of abrupt climate change.

Journal of Futures Studies, 2015

Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and deliberati... more Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and
deliberation among multiple participants from multiple sites in which there is a delay in interaction between contributors. This method has been widely used for a variety of purposes in higher education and other settings, but has not been commonly used in futures research. This paper describes an asynchronous online foresight panel process. The method is illustrated with the case of a recent foresight panel on the future of wildland fire management

The Forest Futures Horizon Scanning Project, 2019

A clear and concise guide for volunteer scanners is essential for creating a rigorous, consistent... more A clear and concise guide for volunteer scanners is essential for creating a rigorous, consistent, and sustainable horizon scanning system. The scanner guide written for the Forest Futures Horizon Scanning system is presented in its entirety. The guide includes an overview of the USDA Forest Service; an explanation of horizon scanning and its goals, uses, and stakeholders; a "how to" guide for installing and using the Web-based system for collecting scanning hits; a description of the domain map used in tagging scanning hits; and a quick guide to getting started in scanning.

Journal of Forestry, Nov 22, 2021

Serious games are designed to achieve specific educational or other practical purposes beyond pur... more Serious games are designed to achieve specific educational or other practical purposes beyond pure entertainment. These games take many different forms-from card decks to massive multiplayer online games-and have proliferated across diverse fields. This note introduces IMPACT: Forestry Edition, a serious board game designed to help forestry professionals and stakeholders think more broadly, critically, and creatively about the future of forestry. We describe the game and feedback from beta testing and discuss the advantages and potential drawbacks of gaming methods. A "print and play" version of the game is included as supplemental material. Serious games can make an important contribution to forestry by engaging and informing diverse stakeholders and generating insight that other methods cannot.

The extent to which inflation has eroded the real purchasing power of public agricultural researc... more The extent to which inflation has eroded the real purchasing power of public agricultural research budgets is poorly understood. Official Government research and development (R&D) statistics use the gross national product (GNP) deflator to express research expenditures in constant dollars, despite the serious shortcomings of such a broad indicator of inflation for deflating research expenditures. A State Agricultural Experiment Station (SAES) research price index is calculated in this paper and compared with the GNP deflator. The GNP deflator substantially underestimated the rate of inflation in SAES research in recent years mainly due to real growth in faculty compensation during the 1980's. The divergence between the SAES research price index calcuated in this study and the GNP deflator indicates that the purchasing power of SAES research is significantly less than estimates based on the GNP deflator would suggest.

on environmental attitudes. beliefs, and values, as well as on the human dimensions of ecosystem ... more on environmental attitudes. beliefs, and values, as well as on the human dimensions of ecosystem management.

We live in a world on fire. In just the past few years, major wildland fires have struck at least... more We live in a world on fire. In just the past few years, major wildland fires have struck at least 13 U.S. states, as well as Indonesia, Australia, China, southern Europe, Russia, Canada, Bolivia, and other parts of the world. Wildland fires are increasing in number, size, and intensity. In particular, there has been an increase in large fire events—megafires—that account for more than 90 percent of the total area burned. These megafires can cause catastrophic damage in terms of human casualties, economic losses, and environmental destruction. We project that the trend toward larger and more damaging fires will accelerate, driven by two main factors: climate change and fire suppression policy.

This paper describes a new approach for monitoring the social environment for forestry. Computer ... more This paper describes a new approach for monitoring the social environment for forestry. Computer methods were used to analyze almost 30,000 online news media stories about the national forests for expressions of four main categories of benefits and values. Recreation benefits and values were expressed more often than other categories, both at the national and regional levels, followed by commodity, ecological, and moral/spiritual/aesthetic benefits and values. A slight downward trend was found in expressions of commodity benefits and values at the national level.

World Futures Review, 2016

Humans have used forests for millennia for heat, shelter, transportation, ceremony, and community... more Humans have used forests for millennia for heat, shelter, transportation, ceremony, and community. Foresters are professionals who grow and manage forests in response to society's needs. Foresters view forest products as sustainable because harvested trees can be replaced by new trees. Harvested timber is used for paper, building materials, furniture, and other wood products. Over time and through technological advances, foresters have 659650WF RXXX10.1177/1946756716659650World Future ReviewBengston et al.

Ecology and Society, 2012

The need for environmental foresight has increased in recent decades as the pace of change has ac... more The need for environmental foresight has increased in recent decades as the pace of change has accelerated and the frequency of surprise has increased. Successfully dealing with the growing impacts of change on social-ecological systems depends on our ability to anticipate change. But traditional scientific tools are blunt instruments for studying a future that does not exist. We propose that futures research, a transdisciplinary field of inquiry that has been developing for more than 50 years, offers an underused but fruitful set of approaches to address this important challenge. A few futures research methods--notably several forms of scenario analysis--have been applied to environmental issues and problems in recent years. But futurists have developed an array of other useful methods for exploring possible, plausible, and preferable futures, important insights into the nature of change, and perspectives for thinking creatively and deeply about the future. We present an overview of futures research and its potential to enrich environmental planning and policy by offering a cross-fertilization of new ideas and approaches, providing a more complete view of emerging environmental problems, and facilitating the development of strategies to increase adaptive capacity and deal more effectively with surprises.

Environmental communication professionals and other decision makers need to understand public sen... more Environmental communication professionals and other decision makers need to understand public sentiment toward environmental issues to effectively carry out their stewardship responsibilities. However, it is often difficult to obtain timely and reliable information about public discussion and debate regarding these issues. This paper describes an approach designed to address this dilemma: Rapid Issue Tracking is a method for quickly ‘‘taking the pulse’ ’ of public and other stakeholder discussion. The data source for Rapid Issue Tracking is online media stories, including traditional news media, social media, and other textual data such as public comments received by an agency. Two US Forest Service cases of Rapid Issue Tracking are presented to explicate the method and its usefulness in environmental communication and decision making.

The role of indigenous research institutions in the process of economic development has been incr... more The role of indigenous research institutions in the process of economic development has been increasingly recognized in recent years. Many factors outside the research system and beyond the control of research decision-makers may have a significant impact on the capacity. and effectiveness of these institutions. This paper reviews and discusses key exogenous factors affecting public research institutions in developing countries and makes suggestions for ameliorating the impacts of these factors. Implications for strengthening research institutions in developing countries are discussed in a concluding section.

Nature Plants

orests provide essential livelihoods and environmental services. They harbour a disproportionate ... more orests provide essential livelihoods and environmental services. They harbour a disproportionate amount of the world's biodiversity, regulate key aspects of the global carbon cycle and weather patterns, and contribute directly to national incomes and the local livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. Their role in sustainability transitions is re-emphasized by multiple current international sustainability agendas. Forests can be linked to most-if not all-of the Sustainable Development Goals through contributions to ecosystem services, green economic opportunities, and social and environmental justice agendas 1,2. Forests are also essential to the Paris Climate Agreement, 3 the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework 4,5. Further, the Bonn Challenge aims to bring under restoration 350 Mha of degraded lands globally by 2030, and the New York Declaration on Forests identifies 10 specific global forest goals 6. Forests are a key mechanism for mitigating climate change through forest protection, restoration and afforestation 7,8. This prominent attention to forests, especially in human-dominated tropical and subtropical regions, creates a need for a comprehensive policy-oriented research agenda. Research on forests and livelihoods has typically focused on trying to understand how household-or community-level dynamics, including rights to resources and land-use decisions, affect local livelihoods and forests 9. However, new research on forests demonstrates the importance of links between human and natural systems at regional, inter-continental and global scales 10. For example, demand for commodity crops in Europe, North America and emerging economies is driving environmental degradation in the Amazon, Congo Basin and Indonesian peatlands 11. In turn, smoke from forest and peat fires in Indonesia affects human health in Southeast Asian countries 12. Identifying and understanding large-scale processes linked to forests and livelihoods with disproportionate effects on

Journal of Futures Studies, 2015

Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and deliberatio... more Text-based asynchronous online conferencing involves structured online discussion and deliberation among multiple participants from multiple sites in which there is a delay in interaction between contributors. This method has been widely used for a variety of purposes in higher education and other settings, but has not been commonly used in futures research. This paper describes an asynchronous online foresight panel process. The method is illustrated with the case of a recent foresight panel on the future of wildland fire management. Foresight panel, asynchronous online conferencing, wildfire management

Small-scale Forestry, 2020

The context within which family forest owners operate is constantly changing due to many internal... more The context within which family forest owners operate is constantly changing due to many internal and external factors. Many emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological changes could have profound effects on family forest owners and their land in the future. This paper explores a possible transformative technological change: A "Coming Age of Wood" in which a large number of technological innovations in wood products result in a significant increase in the use of woodbased materials throughout the global economy, substituting for a significant share of non-renewable materials. This high impact development could be transformative for forests and forestry, including small-scale forestry. We used a participatory Futures Research method called the Implications Wheel ® to explore the potential direct and indirect implications of a Coming Age of Wood for family forest owners. A total of 195 possible higher-order implications were uncovered, including implications related to major themes of negative ecological effects, positive economic effects, increased conflict between different stakeholders, and negative effects on rural communities. Anticipating some of the possibilities in advance can provide early warnings of the kinds of changes that may be coming, and help enable planners, managers and policy makers to be proactive and build barriers to undesirable change and bridges to facilitate positive change.

Journal of Futures Research, 2020

Future estrangement is a profound sense of alienation toward the future. It is the deep-seated fe... more Future estrangement is a profound sense of alienation toward the future. It is the deep-seated feeling that the future is a hostile and bewildering world that we may not have a place inor may not want to have a place in. This paper outlines numerous impending threats that are the main sources of future estrangement and discusses strategies to overcome this perilous attitude toward the future. Ultimately, reversing the spread of future estrangement will require both addressing its root causes and building resiliency at all levels and in all domains of society.

Futures, 2020

Anthropogenic climate change has been gradual to date, but if climate tipping points are crossed ... more Anthropogenic climate change has been gradual to date, but if climate tipping points are crossed the pace of change could accelerate significantly. This study explores possible implications of abrupt climate change, with a partial focus on implications for forestry. We used the Implications Wheel® participatory futures method to identify and evaluate direct and indirect, positive and negative implications of rapid change in the climate system. A large number of possible implications were generated, including a wide range of social, economic, and ecological costs and benefits. Participants identified many "likely strong negative" implications that were scored as both highly likely and strongly negative. A key conclusion of this study is the importance of developing strategies to increase social and ecological resilience given the likelihood of highly disruptive impacts of abrupt climate change. A second conclusion is the need to identify early warning signals for abrupt climate change and closely monitor those signals. Finally, the fundamental uncertainty about abrupt climate change suggests the importance of futures research that taps into creativity and imagination. Our inaction in the face of climate change has been characterized as a failure of imagination, an inability to envision a different and sustainable world, and so futures thinking and methods that encourage creative thinking have an important role in addressing the "inevitable surprise" of abrupt climate change.