Public participation in national forest management: a case study of the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

What does the public contribute to the decision-making process? Congress has mandated that the public be involved in environmental and natural resource policy-making, yet little is understood about what the public actually contributes to these decision-making processes. This research analyzes the public comments from an important national forest planning process to determine exactly who participated what they said and how they said if to better understand how the role for the public should be defined in environmental and natural resource decision-making efforts