The construction of feelings of justice in environmental management: An empirical study of multiple biodiversity conflicts in Calakmul, Mexico

Abstract

A failure to address social concerns in biodiversity conservation can lead to feelings of injustice among some actors, and hence jeopardize conservation goals. The complex socio-cultural and political context of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, Mexico, has historically led to multiple biodiversity conflicts. Our goal, in this case study, was to explore perceptions of justice held by local actors in relation to biodiversity conflicts. We then aimed to determine the following: 1) people's definitions of their feelings of justice; 2) the criteria used in this assessment; 3) variability in the criteria influencing them; and 4) implications for environmental management in the region and beyond. We worked with five focus groups, exploring three examples of biodiversity conflict around forest, water and jaguar management with a total of 41 ranchers, farmers and representatives of local producers. Our results demonstrated that people constructed their feelings of justice around four dimensions of justice: recognition (acknowledging individuals' rights, values, cultures and knowledge systems); ecological (fair and respectful treatment of the natural environment), procedural (fairness in processes of environmental management), distributive (fairness in the distribution of costs and benefits). We identified a list of criteria the participants used in their appraisal of justice and sources of variation such as the social scale of focus and participant role, and whom they perceived to be responsible for resource management. We propose a new framework that conceptualizes justice-as-recognition and ecological justice as forms of conditional justices, and procedural and distributive justices as forms of practical justice. Conditional justice allows us to define who is a legitimate source of justice norms and if nature should be integrated in the scope of justice; hence, conditional justice underpins other dimensions of justice. On the other hand, procedural and distributive address the daily practices of fair processes and distribution. We propose that the perception of justice is a neglected but important aspect to include in integrative approaches to managing biodiversity conflicts. Addressing demands of justice in environmental management will require us to consider more than the distribution of costs and benefits among actors. We also need to respect the plurality of fairness perspectives and to recognize the benefits of dialogical approaches to achieve more successful environmental management.

Are We Defending the Indefensible? Reflecting on Policy and Practice Around ‘the Border’ in Plant Biosecurity for Tree Health

“…However, this definition belies an emotional or moral choice in perspective or practice (e.g., [36]) and emphasizes the 'stake' or interest of the individual. It has been suggested that the use of the term 'actor' better acknowledges these aspects, and permits us to see research participants more widely as people [37]. Whilst in our initial study we felt it appropriate to consider the interests of 'stakeholders', in this paper we recognize that, for some individuals, interest is not dictated only by role, and we thus term those working in the field of tree health as 'actors'.…”

Factors affecting feelings of justice in biodiversity conflicts: Toward fairer jaguar management in Calakmul, Mexico

“…obs). Despite these efforts, jaguar management is causing a latent and, at times, intense biodiversity conflict among the region's actors, leading to feelings of injustice in local populations (Lecuyer et al, 2018).…”

“…We adapted factors identified in Table 1 for the case of jaguar management (Table 2). As categorical questions might not capture the complexity of a particular situation, we asked questions based on information provided by local people in previous studies (see Lecuyer et al, 2018). Indeed, while some questions were simple to adapt, others required an understanding of the region and several iterations of pilot interviews with local actors to articulate clearly (see appendix 1).…”

“…We investigated the jaguar conflict in Calakmul to examine factors influencing feelings of justice within a theoretical framing of multiple dimensions of justice. This study complements the work of Lecuyer et al (2018), which used qualitative data to explain how feelings of injustice in local communities surrounding jaguar management in Calakmul are constructed. Here, we aimed to…”

“…We used a framework that accounts for four dimensions of justice: distributive justice (fair distribution of the costs and benefits of conservation), procedural justice (fair decision-making process), ecological justice (fair treatment of the natural world), and justice-as-recognition (fair integration of group identity, lifestyle, knowledge and viewpoints) (Lecuyer et al, 2018). While recent studies have often proposed frameworks where justice-as-recognition includes ecological justice (e.g., Jacobsen and Linnell, 2016;Martin et al, 2016;Schlosberg, 2007), we have previously shown that ecological justice can be a distinct dimension that may be addressed differently from justiceas-recognition (Lecuyer et al, 2018). These four dimensions of justice enabled us to broadly frame local actors' perception of justice and to explore variability among the dimensions.…”