Managing Forest Road Access on Public Lands: A Conceptual Model of Conflict

Conflicts around the provision, maintenance, and removal of forest road access abound in resource management. These conflicts arise since road access benefits some people while negatively affecting others. Through qualitative interviews with key stakeholders from two northern Ontario, Canada, communities, we examined issues around road access. Conflict emerged as the core category from the interviews, with conflicts primarily arising between tourism operators and local (road-based) recreationists. Social, physical, and managerial contexts are primary drivers of differences in conflict observed within the two communities. Contextual difference in scarcity and allocation of surface water between road-based recreation and remote tourism (i.e., train or float plane accessible tourism establishments) led to much greater conflict in the Dubreuilville than in the Ignace area. Conflict in the two communities also arises from goal interference, social values differences, and perceptions of inequities of past decisions (i.e., distributive inequity) and decision-making processes (i.e., procedural inequity).