Case Puijo—Evaluation of a participatory urban forest planning process

• We evaluate a forest planning case using both normative and subjective assessment.
• We produce guidelines for future urban forest planning projects.
• It is important that stakeholders can see their influence on the outcome.
• It is important to define the goals of the plan in a concrete way.
• It is important to structure and facilitate the process efficiently.

Participatory planning is becoming increasingly important in forest management, especially in the urban areas. In order to obtain good results, the managers need to have guidelines to help them in designing and carrying out a successful participatory planning process. In this study, a planning process in Puijo urban forest in central Finland was evaluated against a set of success criteria found from the literature. In addition, the people involved in the process—both the stakeholders and managers—were asked to complete a Q-sort questionnaire and rank a set of statements describing the process. The evaluation of the process documents and videotapes showed that the process was successful with respect to most of the criteria used. The Q-sorts, on the other hand, revealed more critical viewpoints in the areas of power to influence the process and outcomes, access to information and enabling of social conditions necessary for future processes. Thus, these two evaluations complemented each other well. The results of this study can be used to further develop the process guidelines for participatory planning in urban areas.