Murky waters: divergent ways scientists, practitioners, and landowners evaluate beaver mimicry

Abstract

Beaver mimicry is a fast-growing conservation technique to restore streams and manage water that is gaining popularity within the natural resource management community because of a wide variety of claimed socio-environmental benefits. Despite a growing number of projects, many questions and concerns about beaver mimicry remain. This study draws on qualitative data from 49 interviews with scientists, practitioners, and landowners, to explore the question of how beaver mimicry projects continue to be promoted and implemented, despite the lack of comprehensive scientific studies and unclear regulatory requirements. Specifically, we investigate how these three groups differentially assess the salience, credibility, and legitimacy of evidence for beaver mimicry and analyze how those assessments affect each group's conclusions about the feasibility, desirability, and scalability of beaver mimicry. By highlighting the interaction between how someone assesses evidence and how they draw conclusions about an emerging natural resource management approach, we draw attention to the roles of experiential evidence and scientific data in debates over beaver mimicry. Our research emphasizes that understanding how different groups perceive salience, credibility, and legitimacy of scientific information is necessary for understanding how they make assessments about conservation and natural resource management strategies.

Geomorphic context in process‐based river restoration

“…Several studies suggest that modern cultures in the global North consider a meandering river surrounded by park‐like open woodland to be an ideal, esthetically attractive riverscape (Gregory & Davis, 1993; House & Ba, 1991; Kondolf, 2006; Wilson et al, 2020). Conversely, features such as abundant large wood in the channel (Chin et al, 2008; Le Lay et al, 2008; Piégay et al, 2005), a braided planform (Le Lay et al, 2013), or the presence of beaver and associated beaver dams, canals, and overbank inundation (Charnley et al, 2020; Pfaeffle et al, 2022; Pilliod et al, 2018) can be negatively perceived. Individual perception of desirable river corridor attributes can reflect that of the broader society, as well as individual history including education (Auster et al, 2020; Flotemersch & Aho, 2021), living conditions (Hong et al, 2019), and work‐related experiences for those involved in river management (Chin et al, 2014).…”

Cap. 25. Grandes Llanuras del Norte. En: La Quinta Evaluación Nacional del Clima

“…Otros ejemplos de barreras incluyen un menor financiamiento de la investigación que otras regiones 183 , menor capacidad de adaptación (Recuadro 25.1), distintas percepciones del cambio climático 184 y un conjunto confuso, y en ocasiones contradictorio, de normativas y derechos sobre el agua en torno al almacenamiento de aguas superficiales (p. ej., la implementación de presas artificiales de castores para retener el agua en el paisaje) 185,186 . Estos factores limitan la planificación de la transición y socavan la resiliencia de las comunidades 168 .…”