The COBRA Project: a community-based approach to public engagement in science.

Scientific research and communications is dominated by a command-and-control approach which lacks the ability to engage the public in managing and adapting to surprises and rapid change. These initiatives emerge from higher-scale structures e.g. national institutions, which are not always compatible with the realities and perspectives of communities. The failure of top-down, 'deficit model' approaches to science communication have encouraged communities to support an alternative, bottom-up, culturally and ecologically sensitive approach to communication for addressing complex socio-ecological problems. This paper explores the development and promotion of a 'community-expertise' model of public engagement through the COBRA Project, a participatory project involving indigenous communities of South America. The project’s aim is to significantly scale up the sharing of indigenous expertise and knowledge through photography, video and online platforms. We will present the results of how this expertise is identified, recorded and shared with national and international scientists and policymakers. We report on the conflict between the principles behind participatory community engagement and the demands of policymakers for scientific, empirically validated data, which clearly require an imposition on the type and process of data collection, analysis and modes of communication. We argue that participatory methods that engage local indigenous communities are empowering for these involved, but it is in the end up to the scientific and policy-making establishment to accept the validity of these ‘non-standard’ forms of science communication

Our common future? Cross-scalar scenario analysis for social-ecological sustainability of the Guiana Shield, South America

Scenarios help build a shared understanding of potential futures and allow us to engage with how interventions or activities may impact on people and the environment. There are many scenario sets that have been developed at the global and regional level, but to a lesser extent at the national and local levels. Yet fewer studies have explicitly linked imagined futures at different social–ecological scales. In this paper, we discuss how scenario analysis was used with indigenous communities and national level stakeholders in Guyana, South America, to explore context specific futures in relation to linked social-ecological systems. These futures were then analysed against published regional (Amazonian) and international scenarios using a qualitative coding approach and supported by quantitative factorial analysis. This allowed us to develop a matrix of multi-scalar scenarios, showing how scenarios at all scales interact. From this, we were able to identify virtuous and vicious cycles amongst the different scales where developments produced feedbacks to make situations worse, better or counteract change at other levels. Our results show that there is considerable mismatch between the different scales of analysis, with the national scale playing a key role as mediator. In addition, we highlight the importance of focusing on the root causes shaping futures as well as participatory forms of scenario development in order to provide better policy and decision support, and stimulate engagement at all levels of organisation in the process of change