Community-based management induces rapid recovery of a high-value tropical freshwater fishery

Tropical wetlands are highly threatened socio-ecological systems, where local communities rely heavily on aquatic animal protein, such as fish, to meet food security. Here, we quantify how a ‘win-win’ community-based resource management program induced stock recovery of the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish (Arapaima gigas), providing both food and income. We analyzed stock assessment data over eight years and examined the effects of protected areas, community-based management, and landscape and limnological variables across 83 oxbow lakes monitored along a ~500-km section of the Juruá River of Western Brazilian Amazonia. Patterns of community management explained 71.8% of the variation in arapaima population sizes. Annual population counts showed that protected lakes on average contained 304.8 (±332.5) arapaimas, compared to only 9.2 (±9.8) in open-access lakes. Protected lakes have become analogous to a high-interest savings account, ensuring an average annual revenue of US$10,601 per community and US$1046.6 per household, greatly improving socioeconomic welfare. Arapaima management is a superb window of opportunity in harmonizing the co-delivery of sustainable resource management and poverty alleviation. We show that arapaima management deserves greater attention from policy makers across Amazonian countries, and highlight the need to include local stakeholders in conservation planning of Amazonian floodplains

Participatory scenario planning in place-based social-ecological research: insights and experiences from 23 case studies

Participatory scenario planning (PSP) is an increasingly popular tool in place-based environmental research for evaluating alternative futures of social-ecological systems. Although a range of guidelines on PSP methods are available in the scientific and grey literature, there is a need to reflect on existing practices and their appropriate application for different objectives and contexts at the local scale, as well as on their potential perceived outcomes. We contribute to scenarios theoretical and empirical frameworks by analyzing how and why researchers assess social-ecological systems using place-based PSP, hence facilitating the appropriate uptake of such scenario tools in the future. We analyzed 23 PSP case studies conducted by the authors in a wide range of social-ecological settings by exploring seven aspects: (1) the context; (2) the original motivations and objectives; (3) the methodological approach; (4) the process; (5) the content of the scenarios; (6) the outputs of the research; and (7) the monitoring and evaluation of the PSP process. This was complemented by a reflection on strengths and weaknesses of using PSP for the place-based social-ecological research. We conclude that the application of PSP, particularly when tailored to shared objectives between local people and researchers, has enriched environmental management and scientific research through building common understanding and fostering learning about future planning of social-ecological systems. However, PSP still requires greater systematic monitoring and evaluation to assess its impact on the promotion of collective action for transitions to sustainability and the adaptation to global environmental change and its challenges

PES What a Mess? An Analysis of the Position of Environmental Professionals in the Conceptual Debate on Payments for Ecosystem Services

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are becoming increasingly widespread as they are being promoted by government and non-governmental organisations across the globe. Alongside this, an academic debate has unfolded regarding how PES ought to be conceptualized and defined. Using the first survey of environmental professionals on this topic, we explore their position in this conceptual debate in the UK. Our study shows that all aspects of the key academic debates are reflected in the views of environmental professionals, whose range of understandings suggests no viewpoint is either dominant or uncontested. Expecting all to share a single 'perfect' definition of PES may be neither necessary nor feasible. However, at present this term invokes a very wide range of ideas that may generate frictions as PES are further implemented. This risks PES becoming a ‘mess’ from which few insights can be derived as to whether, when and why they are useful instruments. It essential that those debating and proposing PES concepts more closely consider the complex processes by which professionals engage with and shape its application as an abstract construct

Stakeholders' views on Natural Flood Management: Implications for the nature-based solutions paradigm shift?

An exemplar of nature-based solutions (NBS) is natural flood management (NFM), for which interest is growing worldwide. As with many NBS, implementing NFM requires the participation of support of multiple stakeholders. However, we lack understanding about the views and expectations of the many stakeholders who might be expected to enable or implement it. Understanding such views may offer insights regarding whether and how the dominant flood risk management protection paradigm is really being challenged. Using the first survey (N = 118) across a range of water and environmental management stakeholders in the United Kingdom (UK), this research explores whether there is support for a paradigm shift to “work with nature” as intended with NBS. We find evidence that some stakeholders view NFM as a “no-brainer”; a judgement based on perceived cost-effectiveness, social and environmental benefits and the failure of the protection paradigm exposed in recent floods. Others, typically farmers and landowners, have more cautious views about change. All our respondents generally agree that responsibility to enable, implement, and fund NFM should be shared across society, but disagreements remain about the detail and the basis for any enabling payments. We argue that the shared perception of roles and responsibilities provides a foundation for further work to facilitate NFM, explicitly considering principles and specific contractual details. In the UK, the possibilities of post-Brexit agri-environment policy make such a debate particularly pertinent. It is also likely to be productive in many other cases and places, since the paradigm shift entailed by ideal visions of NBS often entails new relationships between stakeholders and new activities ‘on the ground’

Policy instruments for environmental public goods:interdependencies and hybridity

The mixture of public goods that arise from rural land is shaped by multiple policy instruments, such as regulations and economic incentives. Whilst there is a vast literature focusing on categories of policy instruments, there remains the need for a deeper exploration of the interaction between these instruments and the consequences for managing public goods in agricultural and/or forested landscapes. Therefore, we explore how policy instruments influence the mix of public goods provided by Scottish agricultural and forested areas, drawing on desk based and empirical research. Our data suggest that whilst environmental policy instruments in Scotland are designed to coordinate - i.e. not to conflict - with each other, the design and implementation of instruments often go beyond this. We find that many instruments are hybrid and/or rely on interactions with other instrument types (interdependency) to achieve their objectives. This seems well understood by those involved in the implementation of policy instruments. In light of these results, we argue that the literature about types of policy instruments must evolve to explicitly acknowledge interdependency and hybridity: these concepts can become starting points for understanding how public goods can be governed in a more systemic way. Our work also draws attention to the need to study policy instruments 'on the ground' in order to understand their role and use in the wider debates about new environmental governance. Finally, while the idea of interdependency and hybridity brings challenges and even resistance by some who design policy, it may also help to overcome the existing policy implementation deficit between the aims and achievements of environmental policies