Being good neighbours: current practices, barriers, and opportunities for community engagement in Australian plantation forestry

Although community engagement (CE) is widely recognised as an essential element of sustainable management, few studies have evaluated CE at an industry-wide scale, i.e. in terms of the specific CE needs and best practice methods needed when addressing engagement issues that apply across more than one business in an industry. We explored stakeholder views of the barriers to industry-wide CE within the Australian plantation forest industry. Interviews with key informants were conducted in 2010 throughout three major plantation regions in Australia: Tasmania, south west Western Australia, and the Green Triangle region (south west Victoria and south east of South Australia).