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Abstract
Social-ecological resilience has been embraced by the United States Forest Service (USFS) as an organizing principle for forest planning and management, but adoption is believed to have been asymmetrical and incomplete. This research effort seeks to evaluate the degree to which the concept has influenced the USFS’s activities. It does so via a quantitative content analysis of agency documents, evaluating “Resilience Thinking Factors” by means of a “Resilience Speaking Prevalence Index,” to find that the level of resilience rhetoric in a document does not have a significant relationship with indicators of resilience operationalization. A complementary document seeks to identify obstacles for the implementation of resilience and provide a practical guide to resilience for forest managers. Synthesizing best management practices from across the literature and the results of the above research, it is hoped that this document will be useful for practitioners seeking to employ this complex yet powerful concept.