As land stewards, we spend most of our time discussing the hard science. If we take this action on the landscape how will that affect everything else? For today’s episode, we are stepping out of our comfort zone and into the mysterious and intimidating world of people. How do people’s views and relationship to nature change how we manage it? If we could adjust society’s perspective, how would that shift the outcomes of environmental management? Ultimately, how does sociology change things?Your Forest Podcast by Matthew KristoffEnvironmental Sociology with John ParkinsEpisode highlightJohn Parkins speaks about the role of society in forestry and how meaningful engagement with indigenous communities is the future of land management.ResourcesJohn Parkins’ Profile: https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/jparkins fRi Research: https://friresearch.ca/sites/default/files/HLP_2019_03_EBM%20Dialogue_Paper_Final.pdf SponsorsWest Fraser: https://www.westfraser.com/ GreenLink Forestry Inc.: http://greenlinkforestry.com/ Damaged Timber: https://www.damagedtimber.com/ GiveawayEnter YourForest10 at checkout at the Damaged Timber store for a 10% discount!Quotes 8.36 - 8.51: “We often think that... we can... get out there in the world when we are young and… we can change it, and I guess I realized that… changing the world is a lot more challenging than we think but... we also can make our own contributions in one way or another.” 17.16 - 17.27: “Pretty much every problem we are dealing with ultimately is a social problem... because .. [there] wouldn't be a problem unless humans came along and decided it was a problem.”20.46 - 21.06: “A lot of times, the… controversies that we are dealing with, at the heart of it, involve scientists themselves who are disagreeing with each other... and they are doing that because they are looking at different elements of a very complex world out there and measuring things in different ways.” 1.02.18 - 1.02.29: “That’s, I think, a part of the decolonization process - we need indigenous leaders in key positions of leadership, we need indigenous leaders in our industries, we need them in the government, we need them at the university.” Takeaways“It was less about me choosing sociology and more about sociology choosing me”  (4.25)John worked in East Africa for 2 years and felt inspired to work internationally in poverty alleviation and rural development, which led him to develop an interest in issues around sustainability. He did a Master’s in Rural Sociology from the University of Alberta and then worked on social issues in forestry at the Canadian Forest Service. He now works in the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology at the university.Society and forestry (10.42)John explains that sociology is the study of groups and group experience, using social facts or contexts to explain social problems. Environmental sociologists are interested in the interaction between society and the natural world, bringing environmental variables and factors into an explanation of human behaviour. Environmental sociology in forestry explores the forest-society relationship through forest-based communities, community sustainability studies, and the like.Every problem is a social problem (16.21)John laments that many people in the resource sector don’t think about social contexts. While the scientific method can be used to achieve breakthroughs, the biggest challenge in this work is conflict resolution amongst competing views of disagreeing social groups with varied scientific positions. He cites the example of the lack of consensus on the definition of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) in Alberta. Find a middle path or find the right answer (25.03)John believes that to move forward from the conflict of competing scientific views, we need to find a middle path or experiment to find the right answer. Even though the government fears experiments going badly, trying small experiments on small blocks of l