In this paper, we refer to "forestry domain" in a broad sense, including activities, forest sector components, actors and policies connected with the use and management of forest resources. For example, "nature tourism" is included within the forestry domain if it is based on recreational or educational activities organized in a forest site or in relation to forest resources (e.g., Wilkes-Alleman, J., Ludvig, A., 2019). 2 More information about the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project SIMRA (Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas) that is at the basis of this definition is available at: www.simra-h2020.eu. Such project involves scientists, NGOs and practitioners aimed at understanding how social innovation emerges, what its impacts are and how it can be supported through policy. 10 The GIZ Monitoring and Evaluation Unit does not distinguish between outputs, outcomes, impacts, but simply refers to 'results'.According to this model, any output, outcome, or impact is a goal, and anything that may be achieved, more or less directly or indirectly, is a result. 11 The identification of existing evaluation frameworks, approaches, methods and tools for analysis was carried out by expert teams each working on one of four main domains, namely the economic, social, environmental, and institutional aspects. They each followed common selection criteria and procedures defined by specific guidelines . Overall, 111 frameworks, approaches and methods were fully analysed through the use of 107 variables. They have been identified in the four domains and pre-analysed for the purposes of SIMRA project respectively by: ICRE8 (Greece) (economic aspects), University of Foggia (Italy) (social aspects), EFI (Finland) (environmental aspects) and DLO (The Netherlands) (governance/institutional aspects). The trans-disciplinary frameworks/approaches/methods and tools have been identified and pre-analysed by the University of Padova (Italy). More details are available on: Secco et al. 2017 (Deliverable 4.2; www.simra-h2020.eu). 12 These experts and stakeholders are the official members of the SIMRA Social Innovation Think Tank (SITT), created in 2016 by the SIMRA Consortium. Since its creation, SIMRA has carried out three consultations, two online (July 2016 and July 2017), and one face-to face workshop (held in Bratislava, Slovakia, October 26 to 28 2016). The SITT stakeholder consultation is one of the key elements of SIMRA project, carried out under main responsibility and coordination of IFE SAS (Slovakia), which arranged both the workshop in Bratislava and the two online consultations. In the various rounds, the SITT members were consulted on several different issues related to social innovation in marginalised rural areas, not only on methodology aspects. More information are available at: www.simra-h2020.eu.
Present-day conservation policies generally include the aim to integrate biodiversity conservation and local development, and describe this as a win-win solution that can satisfy all interests. This is challenged by research claiming that many efforts fail to match practice to rhetoric. South Africa has made strong commitments to fulfill the dual goals of conservation and development, and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is promoted as an example of this. We explore present and potential outcomes of conservation and development interventions in a community bordering the Wetland Park through the perspective of different stakeholders, with the aim of uncovering opportunities and risks. In terms of improving local livelihoods as well as involvement in conservation, the success of the studied interventions varied. Local communities may accept restrictions on resource use as a result of realistic and fairly negotiated trade-offs, but if perceived as unjust and imposed from above, then mistrust and resistance will increase. In this area, collaboration between conservation organizations and the local community had improved, but still faced problems associated with unequal power relations, unrealistic expectations, and a lack of trust, transparency, and communication. As unsustainable efforts are a waste of funds and engagement, and may even become counterproductive, policy visions need to be matched by realistic allocations of staff, time, funds, and training. At the national and international level, the true cost of conservation has to be recognized and budgeted for if efforts at integrating conservation and development are to succeed.
Innovation actions within European Horizon 2020 (H2020) projects aim at testing research results in practice. When supporting social innovations in rural areas, such testing requires the alignment of several rural actors in order to entail behavioral changes beyond the individual level. Recently, social innovation has been recognized as an important tool for rural areas, developing new solutions to respond to wicked problems for improving local living conditions at the grassroots level. In this study, we analyzed the use of an operational framework to support the early governance of social innovation actions. This framework was applied to co-construct seven innovation actions across Europe and the Mediterranean basin applied to forestry, agriculture, and rural development. Our results showed that supporting social innovators and local actors at the early stage of social innovation processes is key for efficiently addressing and tackling challenges and opportunities. Additionally, we showed that the process of defining a social innovation is complex and requires recursive engagement, which might lead to evolution through time, especially in the first phases of the process. Lastly, conducting the feasibility assessment enabled strategic thinking on crucial dimensions for designing a promising social innovation action, such as social networks management, financial sustainability, and know-how. Such findings helped us to draw general lessons for the development and governance of social innovation actions in rural areas, potentially applicable to any rural sector.
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