Nature Conservation Against All? Aquatic Macrophyte De-Weeding – Cut or Conserve? A Stakeholder Analysis

Abstract

De-weeding of streams and lakes occurs in Germany on a widespread level, mostly to ensure water runoff and to provide flood protection. But de-weeding also affects a range of stakeholders, who have their own reasons to support or oppose it. For the list of stakeholders identified, see chapter 4. As part of a project analysing the feasibility of using water plant biomass as a substrate for biogas production, we conducted a multi-method stakeholder analysis to evaluate stakeholders' opinions about de-weeding. The results show a preference of all stakeholders, except those identifying with nature conservation, for aquatic de-weeding. Our findings also point to a lack of communication between stakeholders, resulting in biased opinions of the stakeholders against other stakeholders and starting points for conflict.

Fifteen years of Landscape Online: Looking back at the development of an e-journal

“…In addition, Zurlini et al (2015) published a theoretical reflection on sustainable landscape development and value rigidity, demanding to reappraise values like in the case of 'the Pirsig's monkey trap'. However, comparatively few articles were published that had a rather direct natural scientific perspective, e.g., about the variability of vegetation due to climate change (Kullman, 2015), invasive pests (Schimmenti et al, 2017), aquatic Macrophytes (Brummer et al, 2017), and ecological assessments of biodiversity (Räsänen et al, 2015;Veselaj and Mustafa, 2015). Furthermore, several articles examined transition and landscape change with implications for sustainable landscape planning and development (Artmann and Breuste, 2014;Cabrera, 2015;Carlsson et al, 2017;Leibenath and Otto, 2014;Lüker-Jans et al, 2016;Schimmenti et al, 2017).…”