Theories of the deep: combining salience and network analyses to produce mental model visualizations of a coastal British Columbia food web

Arriving at shared mental models among multiple stakeholder groups can be crucial for successful management of contested social-ecological systems (SES). Academia can help by first eliciting stakeholders’ initial, often tacit, beliefs about a SES, and representing them in useful ways. We demonstrate a new recombination of techniques for this purpose, focusing specifically on tacit beliefs about food webs. Our approach combines freelisting and sorting techniques, salience analysis, and ultimately network analysis, to produce accessible visualizations of aggregate mental models that can then be used to facilitate discussion or generate further hypotheses about cognitive drivers of conflict. The case study we draw upon to demonstrate this technique is Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. There, an immanent upsurge in the sea otter (Enhydra lutris) population, which competes with humans for shellfish, has produced tension among government managers, and both First Nations and non-First Nations residents. Our approach helps explain this tension by visually highlighting which trophic relationships appear most cognitively salient among the lay public. We also include speculative representations of models held by managers, and pairs of contrasting demographic subgroups, to further demonstrate potential uses of the method

Relational Values Resonate Broadly and Differently Than Intrinsic or Instrumental Values, or the New Ecological Paradigm

Value orientations used to explain or justify conservation have been rooted in arguments about how much and in what context to emphasize the intrinsic versus instrumental value of nature. Equally prominent are characterizations of beliefs known as the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), often used to help explain pro-environmental behaviour. A recent alternative to these positions has been identified as ‘relational value’—broadly, values linking people and ecosystems via tangible and intangible relationships to nature as well as the principles, virtues and notions of a good life that may accompany these. This paper examines whether relational values are distinct from other value orientation and have potential to alleviate the intrinsic-instrumental debate. To test this possibility, we sought to operationalize the construct—relational values—by developing six relational statements. We ask: 1) Do the individual statements used to characterize relational values demonstrate internal coherence as either a single or multi-dimensional construct? 2) Do relational value statements (including those strongly stated) resonate with diverse populations? 3) Do people respond to relational value statements in a consistently different way than NEP scale statements? Data for this work is drawn from an online panel of residents of northeastern US (n = 400), as well as a sample of Costa Rican farmers (n = 253) and tourists in Costa Rica (n = 260). Results indicate relational values are distinct as a construct when compared to the NEP

Social preferences for adaptation measures to conserve Australian birds threatened by climate change

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Debate about climate change adaptation for biodiversity, and the ethics and consequences of assisted colonization in particular, has polarized professional opinion but the views of the wider community are unknown. We tested four hypotheses about the acceptability of adaptation strategies among a sample of the Australian general public using a combination of direct questions and a choice experiment. We found that (1) among the 80% who wanted extinction avoided, increased in situ management of wild populations was preferred to captive breeding or assisted colonization, (2) preferences for adaptation strategies were not explained by gender, income, education or knowledge about birds, (3) genetically distinctive taxa were not actively preferred, (4) > 60% of respondents were content for conservation managers to make decisions about strategies rather than local communities or the general public. The results provide Australian policy makers with a mandate to bolster efforts to retain existing populations but suggest that assisted colonization and captive breeding could be accepted if essential

A social-ecological approach to conservation planning: embedding social considerations

Many conservation plans remain unimplemented, in part because of insufficient consideration of the social processes that influence conservation decisions. Complementing social considerations with an integrated understanding of the ecology of a region can result in a more complete conservation approach. We suggest that linking conservation planning to a social-ecological systems (SES) framework can lead to a more thorough understanding of human-environment interactions and more effective integration of social considerations. By characterizing SES as a set of subsystems, and their interactions with each other and with external factors, the SES framework can improve our understanding of the linkages between social and ecological influences on the environment. Using this framework can help to identify socially and ecologically focused conservation actions that will benefit ecosystems and human communities, and assist in the development of more consistent evidence for evaluating conservation actions by comparing conservation case studies

Opinion: Why Protect Nature? Rethinking Values and the Environment

A cornerstone of environmental policy is the debate over protecting nature for humans’ sake (instrumental values) or for nature’s (intrinsic values) (1). We propose that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to resonate with views on personal and collective well-being, or “what is right,” with regard to nature and the environment. Without complementary attention to other ways that value is expressed and realized by people, such a focus may inadvertently promote worldviews at odds with fair and desirable futures. It is time to engage seriously with a third class of values, one with diverse roots and current expressions: relational values. By doing so, we reframe the discussion about environmental protection, and open the door to new, potentially more productive policy approaches

When value conflicts are barriers: Can relational values help explain farmer participation in conservation incentive programs?

Agri-environmental incentive programs seek to compensate farmers for changes to enhance ecosystem services and/or biodiversity, yet enrolling participants is a common challenge. We examine this challenge using a relational values lens, a framework developed here in reference to three key relationships of farmers to: their land, community and landscape. We then apply this framework to better understand participation in an incentive program for riparian buffers in the US Northwest (the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program). Results are derived from in-depth interviews among participants and potential participants. Using qualitative coding and analysis, we identified five key value conflicts between participants and programs, via the implications of program rules for participant values: aesthetics, active land management, parcel-specific knowledge, and community knowledge about and agency over the landscape. Applying a relational values framework demonstrates how program conditions appear to threaten these valued relationships, leading to value conflicts between programs and participants. Analysis of participant responses suggests that grounding conservation programs in locally salient values could not only increase enrollment but also foster stewardship values that underlie conservation. We conclude with suggestions as to how agri-environmental incentive programs could adapt to better fit with farmer values—making programs more attractive without undermining their ecological effectiveness

Conservation and Society 6(3): 238-254, 2008 Seeking Social Equity in National Parks: Experiments with Evaluation in Canada and South Africa

Abstract Many national parks (NPs) and protected areas (PAs) worldwide are operating under difficult social and political conditions, including poor and often unjust relations with local communities. Multiple initiatives have emerged as a result, including co-management regimes and an increased emphasis on the involvement of indigenous people in management and conservation strategies more broadly. Yet, controversy over what constitutes an appropriate role for local people persists, and little research has been conducted as yet to systematically evaluate the extent to which NPs are socially (and not just ecologically) effective. This paper discusses a first attempt to examine the efficacy with which NPs address social equity, including property and human rights, and the relationship of indigenous people and NP managers. The results from an evaluation of equity in a purposive sample of six NPs in Canada and South Africa are presented. All but one of the case study NPs is found to be achieving or moving towards equity. In particular, NPs with more comprehensive co-management and support from neighbouring indigenous groups demonstrate higher equity scores across a variety of indicators, whereas NPs with lower levels of co-management do less well. NPs with settled land claims have not necessarily been more equitable overall, and a few NPs have been co-managed in name only

What Matters and Why? Ecosystem Services and Their Bundled Qualities

Much ecosystem service (ES) research is structured around four often implicit assumptions about ES, benefits, and stakeholders\u27 conceptions of these: 1) ES assessors can identify and characterize priority ES across stakeholders without local participation; 2) Stakeholders derive one kind of benefit from each ES in a one-to-one, production function manner; 3) Most ESs are amenable to market or non-market economic valuation; and 4) Stakeholders primarily conceive of the importance of nature in terms of ecosystems\u27 production of benefits. We empirically evaluated these assumptions with a map-based interview protocol to characterize what can be managed (ES and related activities), what matters (benefits) and why (values). Based on interviews with residents of coastal communities in British Columbia, 87% of responses to cultural ES interview prompts conveyed bundles of linked services, benefits and values. Many ES-related values (e.g., transformative and identity) matter in ways that are not adequately expressed using market or non-market valuation. Respondents used diverse metaphors about why the ocean is important, not only the ES production metaphor, which assumes that values are a function of ecosystem processes. Our research demonstrates the utility of our interview protocol for providing a fuller representation of ecosystem-related values and benefits, potentially informing environmental decision-making processes

How value conflicts infected the science of riparian restoration for endangered salmon habitat in America's Pacific Northwest: Lessons for the application of conservation science to policy

Conservation policy relies on input from science, yet scientists are often frustrated by the ‘gap’ between their recommendations and policy decisions. In this paper we examine one such ‘gap’: how a long-standing conflict of values functioned to ‘infect’ the synthesis and application of riparian science for salmon habitat restoration projects. We do this by analysis of a policy debate over the required minimum width of riparian buffers in voluntary conservation programs on agricultural lands in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. Based on an analysis of expert interviews and document analysis, we first outline the key features of the values debate. We then show the ways values ‘infected’ the debate over the science of riparian restoration. We identify a set of four ‘stumbling blocks’ in the science to policy gap that together led to both an intractable debate and an oversimplification of the science: conflation of science and policy, application of science out of context, limited consideration of alternatives, and obscuring debate via technical and bureaucratic language. We conclude with a set of ‘waypoints’ that can help ecologists, conservation managers and policy makers to better navigate the journey from science to policy

Value conflicts as barriers to farmer participation in incentive programs for riparian buffers in the Puget Sound

Payment for ecosystem services programs seek to compensate land managers for changes to enhance ecosystem services and/or biodiversity, yet increasing participant enrollment is a common challenge. Adapting PES programs to better fit with rural land manager and farmer values could make programs more attractive without decreasing their ecological effectiveness. We examine the possibility of value misalignment or conflict between participants and programs, which has proven an impediment to conservation efforts in many types of programs. We conducted in-depth interviews with farmers and rural land managers in Snohomish County in Washington State regarding programs to create riparian buffers along streams and rivers on their land. We found key value conflicts between participants and programs in the areas of aesthetics, knowledge bases used and relationships to land and nature. Analysis of participant responses suggests that grounding conservation programs of all sorts in locally salient values could not only increase enrollment but has the potential to foster the kinds of stewardship values that underlie conservation