Critical Review of the Complex Interactions between Trust and Credibility Associated with Conservation Science

The credibility enjoyed by natural science and scientists during most of the 20th Century has been challenged in the 21st Century. Philosophers of science have noted waning trust in science as an appropriate foundation for socio-political decisions (Haack, 2012). We propose a preliminary critical review of professional conservation literature that defines trust, explains its emergence, and acknowledges benefits and risks associated with trust. Second, we explore how trust and credibility interact to enhance or detract from scientific legitimacy

Integrating social power and political influence into models of social–ecological systems

Shaping policy for environmental sustainability depends upon decision-makers conceptualizing problems in ways that are either shared or similar enough to communicate about, diagnose, and act. The quality of this shared mental model of a social–ecological system (SES) is paramount to its effectiveness. Fundamentally, the mental model must integrate multiple kinds of knowledge about the system. If the decision-making body's assumptions about, description of, and solution for a problem do not to reflect the many ways stakeholders know a system, then the products of that decision-making process are viewed as illegitimate. Sustainability policy must fit the often subtle social order of the communities expected to implement it. In this essay, we discuss how a systems-based perspective can be a versatile tool for tackling these challenges of knowledge integration and decision-making in the context of a complex SES. Using social theory of Pierre Bourdieu, we construct a conceptual model that illustrates a route for integrating locally known social complexities (power, influence) gleaned from stakeholder interviews (N = 57). Stakeholders and end-user groups may dismiss any model that they perceive fails to satisfactorily account for specific, locally salient social nuances. Our approach leverages the overlapping notion of “capital” in social and ecological theory to demonstrate how reciprocal interactions between human and ecological systems can be adopted into tools for reaching viable solutions to SES problem

Om illegal jakt i Fennoskandia

Ett ökat missnöje bland delar av landsbygdsbefolkningen och jägarsamhället gentemot bevarandepolitiken för stora rovdjur har påverkat den sociopolitiskt motiverade illegala jakten på dessa arter. Denna typ av jaktbrott har legat som grund för undersökningen i ett tvärvetenskapligt internationellt samarbetsprojekt lett av forskare vid Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, vid Ultuna. Efter tre år av djupintervjuer med jägare, en enkätundersökning, jämförelser med andra delar av världen och nära samarbete med forskare i Fennoskandia avslutades projektet 2016. Föreliggande rapport fullbordar resultatförmedlingen och den avslutande diskussionen omkring forskningsresultaten från projektet och ger samtidigt uppslag för framtida forskning. För första gången presenterades hela projektet och dess medlemmar för en publik bestående av praktiker och intressegrupper runt jakt. Rapporten sammanfattar på detta sätt två dagars temadiskussioner i en workshop med 45 representanter från olika samhällssektorer, bland annat jägare- jordbruks- och naturskyddsorganisationer, länsstyrelser, Naturvårdsverket, polis och åklagare som de ser ut i länderna som utgör Fennoskandia: Sverige, Norge, Danmark och Finland. Diskussionerna handlade om social kontroll och illegal jakt, att flytta viltförvaltningen till domstolarna, EUs inflytande och olika plattformar för att förebygga illegal jakt, speciellt på stora rovdjur, som vargar. Rapporten riktar sig till både forskare och praktiker som möter problem med social accepterade, men hemliga och gömda, former av illegal jakt som i sin tur beror av statsapparatens legitimitetskris, misstro mot politik och politiker och som också är en manifestation för landsbygdens motstånd i ett modernt samhälle.The following report marks the dissemination and discussion of the research results and insights for future research produced by this project. Hence, it represents the first time the full research project and its members stand before the public and interest groups. The report synthesizes two days of workshop thematic discussions between 45 participants from societal sectors including hunting and nature conservation NGOs, county administrative boards, Environmental Protection Agencies, law enforcement, environmental attorneys and farming associations as they feature across the Fennoscandian countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Its discussions center on social control in wildlife crime, the juridification of hunting issues, the influence of the EU and platforms for going forward to mitigate poaching, in particular of large carnivores like the wolf. The report is an essential read for both researchers and practitioners faced with the problem of socially accepted, but secretive and hidden, forms of illegal hunting in response to governmental legitimacy crises, distrust of policy and policy-makers, and as a manifestation of rural resistance in modernity

On illegal killings of wildlife in Fennoscandia

Rising levels of discontent among rural residents and parts of the hunting community toward large carnivore conservation policy has effected a phenomenon of socio-politically motivated illegal killing of these unpopular species. Such wildlife crime formed the investigation of an interdisciplinary and internationally collaborative research project headed by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Ultuna, Uppsala. Through 3 years of in-depth interview studies with hunters in Sweden, a quantitative survey to hunters, comparative studies in other parts of the world and close collaboration with Fennoscandian researchers and practitioners, this project ran to completion at the end of 2016. The following report marks the dissemination and discussion of the research results and insights for future research produced by this project. Hence, it represents the first time the full research project and its members stand before the public and interest groups. The report synthesizes two days of workshop thematic discussions between 45 participants from societal sectors including hunting and nature conservation NGOs, county administrative boards, Environmental Protection Agencies, law enforcement, environmental attorneys and farming associations as they feature across the Fennoscandian countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Its discussions center on social control in wildlife crime, the juridification of hunting issues, the influence of the EU and platforms for going forward to mitigate poaching, in particular of large carnivores like the wolf. The report is an essential read for both researchers and practitioners faced with the problem of socially accepted, but secretive and hidden, forms of illegal hunting in response to governmental legitimacy crises, distrust of policy and policy-makers, and as a manifestation of rural resistance in modernity

Farmers’ attitudes about farming and the environment: A survey of conventional and organic farmers

Farmers have been characterized as people whose ties to the land have given them a deep awareness of natural cycles, appreciation for natural beauty and sense of responsibility as stewards. At the same time, their relationship to the land has been characterized as more utilitarian than that of others who are less directly dependent on its bounty. This paper explores this tension by comparing the attitudes and beliefs of a group of conventional farmers to those of a group of organic farmers. It was found that while both groups reject the idea that a farmer’s role is to conquer nature, organic farmers were significantly more supportive of the notion that humans should live in harmony with nature. Organic farmers also reported a greater awareness of and appreciation for nature in their relationship with the land. Both groups view independence as a main benefit of farming and a lack of financial reward as its main drawback. Overall, conventional farmers report more stress in their lives although they also view themselves in a caretaker role for the land more than do the organic farmers. In contrast, organic farmers report more satisfaction with their lives, a greater concern for living ethically, and a stronger perception of community. Finally, both groups are willing to have their rights limited (organic farmers somewhat more so) but they do not trust the government to do so.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/83671/1/Sullivan,_S.,_E._McCann,_R._De_Young_&_D._Erickson_(1996)._Farmers_attitudes_about_farming_and_the_environment,_JAEE,_9,_123-143.pd

How Key Sociodemographic and Spatial Variables Influence Stakeholders\u27 Social Control Frames Regarding Natural Resource Conservation in East Sikkim, India

Public engagement is fundamental to environmental planning, yet natural resource professionals often struggle to achieve desired stakeholder participation. This policy intention–action gap often is attributed to failure to integrate people\u27s preferences into policy recommendations. Understanding stakeholders\u27 social control frames, or preferences regarding how society should be organized, offers one response to this challenge. Understanding how these frames (i.e., hierarchist, individualist, egalitarian, and fatalist) emerge may facilitate natural resource planning that appropriately addresses uncertainties implicit in managing complex human-dominated systems. We hypothesized that sociodemographic and spatial variables play an important role in an individual\u27s social control frames related to forest conservation in Sikkim, India. Here we (1) describe administration of a questionnaire to identify social control frames, (2) report results of logistic regression examining the probability of association among key variables and social control frames, and (3) discuss conservation implications of these associations. Our results indicate that although familial generations in region was the only independent variable occurring in all four social control models, other sociodemographic variables that occurred in only one or two models also could be critically important. Similarly, altitude-related preferences may be instructive as natural resource managers assess the suitability of altitude-specific conservation. We suggest that examining how sociodemographic and spatial variables interact with social control preferences may enable resource managers to re-imagine their responsibilities in ways that are more consistent with local cultures. This can serve as a catalyst for designing and implementing policies that sustain long-term conservation goals along with broader social legitimacy and acceptance

Electric (dis) connections: Comparative review of smart grid news coverage in the United States and Canada

The term smart grid (SG) has been widely used in both the United States (U.S.) and Canada to represent multiple visions and configurations of electricity system change. In both countries policies, programs, and initiatives have emerged to promote technological and social changes associated with SG, and different patterns of SG implementation and governance are apparent at local, regional, and national levels. This paper reports on a comparative analysis of SG media content in nationally-circulating newspapers in the U.S. and Canada to explore patterns of SG conversations in the two countries. Media reporting about SG provides a valuable lens that reflects public discourse and also contributes to setting the public agenda by shaping public opinion and framing key issues. Despite similarities in terms of policy, program design, and SG deployment strategies, several prominent differences between the two countries emerge in public conversations. Firstly, Canadian SG newspaper content focuses more on implementation and describing people's experiences with smart meters, while the U.S. content focuses more on commercial opportunities with more reference to private sector actors and various technological components beyond smart meters. Secondly, although media coverage in both countries frequently highlights technological and economic benefits of SG, positive SG framing is more frequent in the U.S. newspapers than in the Canadian ones. Negative SG portrayals, including cultural, political and health and safety risks, are more frequently mentioned in the Canadian newspapers. These differing SG framings could be due to national level cultural differences. In the U.S

Data from: Potential limitations of behavioral plasticity and the role of egg relocation in climate change mitigation for a thermally-sensitive endangered species

Anthropogenic climate change is widely considered a major threat to global biodiversity, such that the ability of a species to adapt will determine its likelihood of survival. Egg-burying reptiles that exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination, such as critically endangered hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), are particularly vulnerable to changes in thermal regimes because nest temperatures affect offspring sex, fitness, and survival. It is unclear whether hawksbills possess sufficient behavioral plasticity of nesting traits (i.e., redistribution of nesting range, shift in nesting phenology, changes in nest-site selection, and adjustment of nest depth) to persist within their climatic niche or whether accelerated changes in thermal conditions of nesting beaches will outpace phenotypic adaption and require human intervention. For these reasons, we estimated sex ratios and physical condition of hatchling hawksbills under natural and manipulated conditions and generated and analyzed thermal profiles of hawksbill nest environments within highly threatened mangrove ecosystems at Bahía de Jiquilisco, El Salvador and Estero Padre Ramos, Nicaragua. Hawksbill clutches protected in situ at both sites incubated at higher temperatures, yielded lower hatching success, produced a higher percentage of female hatchlings, and produced less fit offspring than clutches relocated to hatcheries. We detected cooler sand temperatures in woody vegetation (i.e., coastal forest and small-scale plantations of fruit trees) and hatcheries than in other monitored nest environments, with higher temperatures at the deeper depth. Our findings indicate that mangrove ecosystems present a number of biophysical (e.g., insular nesting beaches, shallow water table) and human-induced (e.g., physical barriers, deforestation) constraints that, when coupled with the unique life history of hawksbills in this region, may limit behavioral compensatory responses by the species to projected temperature increases at nesting beaches. We contend that egg relocation can contribute significantly to recovery efforts in a changing climate under appropriate circumstances