Citizen Participation in Urban Forests: Analysis of a Consultation Process in the Metropolitan Area of Rouen Normandy

Abstract

The article examines the results of a "citizen consultation" organised by local public officials through a questionnaire-based consultation approach to the management of urban and peri-urban forests. The study shows how forests are at the same time strong, complex, and ambivalent policy levers in a public consultation process. The article, first of all, specifies the economic context of the case study, namely that of a metropolis in the north of France with a population of 500,000 people. It then presents the methods and the occasionally divergent results of the metropolitan "dialogue" survey (dated 2020, n = 375) on the one hand, and a university survey (dated 2020, n = 774) on the other. The results obtained reveal the challenges, difficulties, and limits of a participatory approach, given the high degree of ambivalence and contrast in the way population groups relate to woodland and the representative/participatory systems. The article highlights the complexity involved in the management of woodlands and their use as part of a political process that is both participatory and sustainable.