Conservation conflicts represent complex multilayered problems that are challenging to study. We explore the utility of theoretical, experimental, and constructivist approaches to games to help to understand and manage these challenges. We show how these approaches can help to develop theory, understand patterns in conflict, and highlight potentially effective management solutions. The choice of approach should be guided by the research question and by whether the focus is on testing hypotheses, predicting behaviour, or engaging stakeholders. Games provide an exciting opportunity to help to unravel the complexity in conflicts, while researchers need an awareness of the limitations and ethical constraints involved. Given the opportunities, this field will benefit from greater investment and development.
Increasing numbers of previously threatened large grazing birds (cranes, geese and swans) are causing crop damage along their flyways worldwide. For example, the number of reported incidents of crop damage caused by common cranesGrus grus, followed by regulated inspections and governmental compensation in Sweden, has increased over the last few decades and was valued at ∼200,000 Euros in 2012. Consequently, their impact on agriculture is escalating which raises the need for evidence-informed preventative strategies. We surveyed arable fields for autumn staging common cranes in an area surrounding a wetland reserve in Sweden. We assessed the following factors in relation to the probability of cranes being present on fields: crop stage, crop type, distance to roost site, time of day, field size and time since harvest. Stubble fields had the highest probability of crane presence, progressively decreasing through grassland and grazing grounds, bare soil to growing crop. A stubble field at 5km from a roost site had a predicted probability (95% CI) of hosting cranes of 0.25 (0.19–0.32). The probability of cranes visiting a field was linearly and negatively related to distance to the roost site. For example, the probability of crane presence increased from 0.05 (0.03–0.07) to 0.09 (0.06–0.15) when distance decreased from 5 to 1km. At stubble fields, the probability of crane presence decreased with time since harvest and was highest for barley with progressively lower probability on wheat and oat. Illustrative scenario predictions developed from the models demonstrated that probability of crane presence could be high, 0.60 (0.42–0.77), if all favorable factors were combined (e.g. barley stubble, 1 day after harvest, 1km from roost site). Given the existing framework of international conventions and prohibition of culling, there is a need for preventative strategies to reduce crop damage. Based on our results, such strategies should focus on providing cereal stubbles as diversionary fields, especially close to wetland roosting sites. Stubble field availability can be achieved by careful crop rotation planning. We suggest that crop rotation and time of harvest should be added to flyway management plans recently developed for some large grazing bird species to facilitate stable co-existence between conservation practices and agricultural interests
Populations of large grazing birds have increased in Europe during the past five decades, raising conflicts between conservation and farming interests. Managing these conflicts requires knowledge about the currently unknown relationship between population sizes and crop damage levels. We analysed unique data on reported, inspected and compensated crop damage caused by geese, swans and cranes together with data from population surveys in Sweden to investigate how bird abundance is related to damage levels at the national scale between 2000 and 2015. Over the study period, the annual number of damage reports, yield loss and costs for compensation increased. These crop damage levels were positively related to national population indices of common crane, barnacle and greylag goose. The shape of these relationships varied between species and encompassed considerable uncertainty. However, on a year‐to‐year basis (detrended data) we found no evident association between damage levels and bird numbers. Yield loss and compensation costs per reported damage did not increase with higher population indices of greylag goose, but they did so for barnacle goose. Synthesis and applications. We present a novel study of the relationships between different crop damage level indicators (damage reports, yield loss and compensation costs) and population numbers of large grazing birds. We identified a positive relationship with high uncertainty for all cases. We also identified the need to (a) better synchronize the monitoring of damages and bird numbers in time and space and (b) further study the relationships between damage levels and bird numbers at smaller (local and regional) and larger (flyway) spatial scales to reduce the uncertainty of the relationship and to gain a more holistic understanding of the system.
Cooperative attributes were incorporated into a push-pull framework to explain exit/remain behavior for dairy farmers delivering to dairy cooperatives. The exit behavior meant establishing a marketing or processing operation in parallel to cooperative deliveries or the planning such an action. Scale development to measure cooperative attributes resulted in six latent variables: A need to restructure the farm business, the membership role in the cooperative, opportunity, fear of negative evaluation, self-efficacy, and cooperative (dis)loyalty. The latent variables identified were tested against behavioral intentions in two logistic regressions where the dairy farmers' plans for remaining or exiting the cooperative and their plans for postfarm gate entrepreneurial activities were the dependent variables. Two latent variables emerged as significant predictors: restructuring the farm business and the membership role. These predictors were push factors in the model, suggesting that dissatisfaction with delivery to existing dairy cooperatives, rather than job or life satisfaction from setting up their own business, acted as farmers' motive to exit. These results can be used in developing communication and strategies for more viable dairy cooperatives and in understanding the incentives behind the ongoing restructuring of the dairy market from a supply perspective.
The management of conflicts between wildlife conservation and agricultural practices often involves the implementation of strategies aimed at reducing the cost of wildlife impacts on crops. Vital to the success of these strategies is the perception that changes in management efforts are synchronized relative to changes in impact levels, yet this expectation is never evaluated. We assess the level of synchrony between time series of population counts and management effort in the context of conflicts between agriculture and five populations of large grazing birds in northern Europe. We reveal inconsistent patterns of synchrony and asynchrony between changes in population counts and impact management effort relating to population harvesting, monetary payments, or scaring practices. This variation is likely due to differing management aims, the existence of lags between management decisions and population monitoring, and the inconsistent use of predictive models across case studies. Overall, our findings highlight the need for more adaptive and timely responses of management to changes in target species numbers so as not to unexpectedly increase social conflicts and jeopardize the status of wildlife populations.
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