Why was the Dialogue process abruptly ended before an agreement
had been reached? And why were many concerned parties excluded
from the process? This was not the first time the state made an attempt
to resolve the 15-year-long old-growth forest conflict in northern
Finland. Prior to the Dialogue, numerous policy and planning processes
had been established that were inclusive of stakeholders at the national
(Protection Program for Old-growth Forests in Northern Finland by the
Finnish government in 1996), regional (Natural Resource Planning
1998 and 2004) and local level (Landscape Ecological Planning 1996–
2001) (for more detailed description see Raitio, 2012). While the literature
on collaborative planning confirms that agreement is more likely
to emerge through processes that are inclusive of all affected parties
(e.g. Gray, 1989; Innes, 2004), it does not explain why an agency
would abandon an inclusive approach it has previously applied to con-
flict management. In order to understand why Metsähallitus chose a
different strategy for the Dialogue process, we need to analyse the institutional
and discursive factors affecting its choices in designing the
process.