Title: Monitoring the Social Environment for Forestry: The case of National Forest Benefits and Values

Author: Bengston, David N.; Fan, David P.; Celarier, Doris N.

Year: 1997

Publication: Unites States Department of Agriculture. p.1-17. (1997)

Abstract: 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.