Investigating Stakeholder Perceptions of Fish Decline: Making Sense of Multiple Mental Models

Abstract

Abstract:Stakeholders have different educational backgrounds, personal experiences and priorities that contribute to different perceptions about what causes natural resource decline and how to sustain a resource. Yet stakeholders have a common interest, which is to keep the resource of interest from declining. Effective co-management requires sharing of perceptions pertaining to the sustainability of a resource and making decisions that benefit all stakeholders. Therefore, this study used modified causal networks, referred to here as mental models, to elicit and compare stakeholder perceptions about fish decline in the Danajon Bank, Philippines. Perceptions were elicited from three types of stakeholders, each composed of two or three elicitation groups: fishers, local government and environmental organizations. Data were also elicited through semi-structured discussions to investigate why perceptions differed and how stakeholders communicated with one another. Hierarchical clustering revealed two broad clusters of similar perceptions about drivers of fish decline: one being environmental groups and the second being local government and fisher groups. Stakeholder communication patterns revealed that communication was weakest between environmental groups and fishers. A likely contributing factor for the lack of shared perceptions was that knowledge-sharing was constrained by the small number of environmental personnel available to exchange information effectively with the much larger number of fishers and local government personnel. To better co-manage fish populations in Danajon Bank, we suggest modifications to the governance framework to improve knowledge-sharing and social and ecological outcomes.

Convergence of stakeholders’ environmental threat perceptions following mass coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef

“…Increased similarity in perceptions of the most serious threats to the GBR across stakeholder groups in 2017 suggests that GBR managers may be better situated to develop management strategies likely to receive broad‐based support (Horowitz et al. 2018). Our findings also suggest which strategies are likely to work well in public communication because they are directed toward threats that resonate with the majority of stakeholders.…”

“…Shared perceptions within the community can help practitioners identify joint management goals and reduce disagreement among stakeholder groups that potentially hold dissimilar knowledge and values (Sutton & Tobin 2009;de Nooy 2013). Increased similarity in perceptions of the most serious threats to the GBR across stakeholder groups in 2017 suggests that GBR managers may be better situated to develop management strategies likely to receive broad-based support (Horowitz et al 2018). Our findings also suggest which strategies are likely to work well in public communication because they are directed toward threats that resonate with the majority of stakeholders.…”

Many mountain paths: Perceiving change in the management of community forests in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India

“…Despite this superb work on erosion of forest governance in the literature on mountain regions and Uttarakhand's VPs in the HKH specifically, less is documented about the perceptions of change co-occurring among local forest stewards, diversity across attributed drivers of change, and associated responses. Several scholars have called for closer examination of heterogeneity within local natural resource management (e.g., Horowitz et al, 2018; van den Broek, 2018) and engagement with environmental perceptions as an important evidentiary basis for decision making on conservation (Bennett, 2016; Reyes-Garcia et al, 2019). Case studies across various sectors, from biodiversity conservation (e.g., Boubekri et al, 2023; Dencer-Brown et al, 2018) and agriculture (Below et al, 2015; Carmichael et al, 2023) to the effects of glacier recession (Gagne et al, 2014), have demonstrated the value of these insights for enriching understanding of social-ecological systems.…”

Why Won't They Listen to Us? Communicating Science in Contentious Situations

“…Incoming information is held up against our personal mental model, and we are predisposed to accept or reject the information based on how well it fits in with our understanding. There is extensive literature exploring methods for eliciting mental models and documenting the mental models of resource users (see, for example, Zaksek and Arvai 2004;Biggs et al 2011;Gray et al 2015;Horowitz et al 2018;Moon et al 2019), and an understanding of the mental models held by people can be critical for effective communication.…”