As part of a collaborative research project between the University of Houston’s Foresight program and the US Forest Service in setting up a Horizon Scanning system for the latter, we’ve published our first Forest Futures newsletter. Horizon scanning involves identifying emerging trends in the internal and external environment relative to an organization or an issue of concern, with the goal being to understand the driving forces that give insight to the most probable future, and forces of change suggestive of alternative future outcomes.
The newsletter is just one of a number of action steps identified by the US Forest Service Strategic Foresight Group toward using communications and science delivery tools to engage interested stakeholders as to relevant futures research with respect to forests, and features “emerging trends of importance to natural resource planners, managers and policy makers“.