Collaboration and Reflexivity in Wildland Fire Risk Governance in the Western United States
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Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 12-2020 Collaboration and Reflexivity in Wildland Fire Risk Governance in the Western United States Brett Alan Miller Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Miller, Brett Alan, "Collaboration and Reflexivity in Wildland Fire Risk Governance in the Western United States" (2020). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 7937. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/7937 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COLLABORATION AND REFLEXIVITY ON WILDLAND FIRE RISK GOVERNANCE IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES by Brett Alan Miller A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Sociology Approved: ______________________ ____________________ Courtney Flint, Ph.D. Steve Daniels, Ph.D. Major Professor Committee Member ______________________ ____________________ Jennifer Givens, Ph.D. Richard Krannich, Ph.D. Committee Member Committee Member ______________________ ____________________ William Pearse, Ph.D. Daniel Williams, Ph.D. Committee Member Committee Member _______________________________________ D. Richard Cutler, Ph.D. Interim Vice Provost of Graduate Studies UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, Utah 2020 ii Copyright © Brett Alan Miller 2020 All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Collaboration and Reflexivity in Wildland Fire Risk Governance in the Western United States by Brett Alan Miller, Doctor of Philosophy Utah State University, 2020 Major Professor: Dr. Courtney Flint Department: Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology Public lands in the western United States are experiencing more frequent and higher severity wildland fires due to even-aged forest growth after years of timber extraction, a legacy of aggressive fire suppression, climate change trends, and increasing human development in the wildland-urban interface; this development contributes to the transboundary nature of wildland fire risk and transmission since wildfire moves across boundaries, entangling a diverse array of actors in complex governance systems. For all of these reasons, actors involved in wildland fire risk governance need to explore alternative management strategies that leverage individual and institutional collaborative capacities that account for both the biophysical and social aspects of conjointly constituted wildland fire risk. This dissertation presents participatory, post-normal mixed-methods research examining collaborative governance of conjointly constituted wildland fire risk and alternative management strategies in transboundary social-ecological systems through iv Reflexive Sociology. This research is organized around four independent chapters. First, a general technical report, which is a co-produced problem analysis of wildland fire risk in transboundary landscapes, outlines the Co-Management of Fire Risk Transmission partnership. The second chapter is a qualitative analysis of twenty semi-structured interviews conducted with members of a wildfire governance social network in northcentral Washington. In these interviews, participants described structural opportunities and barriers as well as personal characteristics that facilitate collaboration. The third chapter is a mixed-methods analysis of a proposal to fund forest restoration through carbon offsets. This research included a regression analysis of potential carbon benefits and qualitative analysis of public and peer-reviewed comments on the proposal. Results demonstrated carbon benefits but also illuminated barriers to registering these reductions as carbon offsets. And finally, the fourth chapter is an autoethnographic reflexive essay on this research and my experiences. Taken together, these chapters cumulatively address different aspects of wildland fire risk governance as a single complex topic. These findings offer insight for improving the collaborative governance of wildland fire risk in this and similar social-ecological systems. Although far from comprehensive, the transdisciplinary nature of this post- normal research provides theoretical and methodological insights into the governance of wildland fire risk in transboundary settings in the face of an uncertain future. (312 pages) v PUBLIC ABSTRACT Collaboration and Reflexivity in Wildland Fire Risk Governance in the Western United States Brett Alan Miller This dissertation presents both quantitative and qualitative analysis on different aspects of wildland fire risk management in the western United States. Each of these chapters is framed by and examines the sociological concept of reflexivity, which describes a process of individual and/or collective reflection. This reflexivity is needed to identify and enact alternative management strategies that contend with the expected increases in the number and severity of wildland fires in the future due to the combined effects of even-aged forest growth after years of timber extraction, a legacy of fire suppression, climate change, and increasing human development in the wildland-urban interface. The first chapter in this dissertation is a general technical report that outlines theories and methods about the social dynamics of wildland fire risk management. The second chapter is a qualitative analysis of twenty semi-structured interviews conducted with members of a wildland fire management social network in northcentral Washington. In these interviews, participants described both opportunities and barriers to collaboration. The third chapter of this dissertation is a mixed-methods analysis of a proposal to fund restoration of northern Arizona ponderosa pine forests through vi registered carbon offsets. Results demonstrate potential carbon benefits from restoration but also illuminate administrative, technical, and theoretical barriers to registering these benefits as carbon offsets. And finally, the fourth chapter is an autoethnographic essay. These findings are important since wildland fire management will need to be even more collaborative in the future due to expected increases in the number and severity of wildland fires, which will also exacerbate the need for increased funding for forest restoration. Moreover, these results speak to the complex and contested nature of human values at risk in these fire-prone landscapes, which will also need to be incorporated into wildland fire risk management in order to achieve better outcomes in the face of an uncertain future. vii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my son, Corvid Aldo Miller, who was born less than a year before I submitted my final revisions. In the short time you have been alive, you have completely changed my life. I am so glad that you got to be a part of this journey with me, even though it was an added challenge, at times. Having you with me as I wrote up each of these chapters, or trying to finish editing them while you napped, are memories I will cherish forever. As I have been meeting deadlines towards publication, you have been skipping (i.e., crawling) past milestones, exceeding your own accomplishments every single day; you inspire me to engage each new challenge in my life as a new opportunity to surpass my limitations. I am amazed at how much of a scientist you already are, exploring and interacting with the world around you with determined curiosity. Whether you decide to follow this path and write your own dissertation someday, or whether you take a completely different path, I will be so proud of you; I already am. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, under Grant Number 1633756, awarded to me as part of my fellowship in the Climate Adaptation Science program. Without this opportunity, this dissertation and my Ph.D. program would have been very different. I also want to acknowledge the support of the USFS, Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado and the Co-Management of Fire Risk Transmission Project. As a project partner, this research was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture – Forest Service Award ID: 202266-00001, entitled “Investigating the Social Dimensions of Cross-Boundary Fire Risk Mitigation.” I need to acknowledge the tireless support of my advisor, Courtney Flint. Thank you for always pushing me to be a better scholar and helping me identify opportunities, encouraging me to pursue them, and never letting me give up on them, or myself. You have forever shaped who I am as a scholar, researcher, and teacher. I want to thank my committee members: Rick Krannich, I am extremely proud to be the last student to have you on my committee. I will always think of you and your enduring legacy when I reflect on my education, training, and involvement in IASNR. Speaking of legacies, thank you Steve Daniels, for always holding me to a higher standard. Jennifer Givens, I have benefited from your guidance as a teacher and mentor, and you have forever shaped my identity as an environmental sociologist. Will Pearse, when we connected about board games I had no idea what an influence you would have on my scholastic journey. Thank you for the single best statistics class I have ever taken, and for all your time, support,