The role of trust in the resolution of conservation conflicts

Young, Juliette; Searle, Kate R.; Butler, Adam; Simmons, Peter; Watt, Allan D.; Jordan, Andrew

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2015.12.030

Cited by 205 publications

(153 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Young et al () highlighted the importance of building and maintaining trust between stakeholders where conservation conflicts occur. Working in collaborative teams can help in this process (Stern, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Value diversity and conservation conflict: Lessons from the management of red grouse and hen harriers in England

et al. 2018

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Conflicts between people over wildlife management are damaging, widespread, and notoriously difficult to resolve where people hold different values and worldviews. Cognitive approaches examining steps from human thought to action can help us understand conflict and explore strategies for their management. We focused on the conflict between hunters and conservationists over the management of red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus) and hen harriers (Circus cyaneus) in the English uplands which represents a classic, persistent conflict, where human dimensions are poorly understood. Guided by conceptual frameworks from social and environmental psychology, we conducted a questionnaire‐based study to assess wildlife value orientations of key stakeholders. We quantified attitudes towards hen harriers, grouse shooting, gamekeepers, and raptor conservationists. We also measured support/opposition for harrier management strategies in England and investigated trust in the responsible government authority. We present data from 536 respondents from field sport or nature conservation organizations. Respondents were categorized according to the primary objectives of their affiliated organization: Field sport (i.e., hunters), Non‐raptor, Pro‐raptor, and Pro‐bird (i.e., organizations promoting conservation of birds excluding raptors, raptors specifically, or birds generally). Utilitarian value orientations were prominent among Field sport and Non‐raptor respondents. Most Pro‐raptor and Pro‐bird participants held mutualist value orientations, indicating they did not support shooting or management of wildlife. As suggested by the cognitive hierarchy, we found strong correlations between attitude and support for management options, our proxy for behaviour. Pro‐bird affiliates showed clear preference for less invasive management, and along with Pro‐raptor respondents did not support brood management (removal and later release of eggs/young when harrier density is high). Field sport individuals expressed a degree of support for all management types. Trust in Natural England was limited. Understanding value orientations and attitudes of stakeholders helps explain differences in levels of support for management approaches. Our study highlighted strongly divergent beliefs. Such positions are hard to change. Increasing the level of ecological knowledge alone is unlikely to facilitate conflict management. Instead, conflict management would benefit from combining such knowledge with a focus on relationships, deliberation, and trust in addition to exploring comanagement interventions. A plain language summary is available for this article.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Value diversity and conservation conflict: Lessons from the management of red grouse and hen harriers in England

et al. 2018

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“…Such a scale mismatch may have impact on conservation outcomes when management actions cannot be adapted to national population goals (Linnell, 2015). If conflict mitigation is limited by known underestimation of population size, this could have detrimental consequences for stakeholders' trust in management (Young et al, 2016), and thus decrease acceptance for wolverines and their conservation in the reindeer husbandry area. The observed range expansion is an important step towards the political goal of increasing the wolverine range to reduce depredation levels within the reindeer husbandry area .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mismatch between goals and the scale of actions constrains adaptive carnivore management: the case of the wolverine in Sweden

Aronsson

Persson

2016

Anim Conserv

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Efficient conservation of wide-ranging carnivores requires that adaptive management consider the varying ecological and societal conditions within the entire range of a population. In northern Europe, large carnivore management has to balance carnivore conservation and maintaining the indigenous reindeer-herding culture. Wolverine Gulo gulo monitoring and management in Sweden is currently focused on alpine reindeer husbandry areas where wolverine abundance and associated depredation conflicts have been highest. However, this focus ignores a potential southwards population expansion because current monitoring relies on snow-based tracking methods that are not applicable outside northern alpine areas. Thus, in this study we: (1) used available monitoring data from 1996 to 2014 in Sweden to assess wolverine distribution trends in relation to national management goals, and (2) evaluate the current monitoring protocol against the use of camera stations as an alternative, snow-independent, method for detecting wolverine presence at the southern periphery of its distribution. We show that the wolverine population in Sweden has expanded considerably into the boreal forest landscape, and colonized areas without reindeer husbandry and persistent spring snow cover. The latter indicates a less strict relationship between wolverine distribution and snow cover than previously hypothesized. Current management continues to use a monitoring protocol that is only adapted to high-conflict alpine areas, and is not adapting to changing conditions in the population range, which creates a problematic scale mismatch. Consequently, national management decisions are currently based on incomplete population information, as roughly a third of wolverine's range is not included in official population estimates, which could have detrimental consequences for conflict mitigation and conservation efforts. This illustrates that an important key to successful carnivore conservation is flexible management that considers the entire range of conditions at the appropriate regional and temporal scales under which carnivores, environment and people interact.

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“…), how they perceive each other and how trust can be maintained or rebuilt as appropriate (Young et al . ). Finally, the evidence underpinning a conflict needs to be agreed.…”

Section: Practical Implications For Policy and Practicementioning

confidence: 97%

A conflict management tool for conservation agencies

Young

Thompson

Moore

et al. 2016

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Summary1. Growing pressure on natural resources is leading to more conservation conflicts. Governments and their statutory agencies devote increasing financial and human resources to this subject, but tend to adopt reactive, ad hoc approaches to management. 2. We combined theory and empirical data about five conservation conflicts in a transdisciplinary collaboration to co-develop a novel decision-making tool. 3. This tool uses a systematic stepwise approach with six distinct decision stages: (i) establishing whether there is a conflict or an impact; (ii) understanding the context of the conflict, including the stakeholders affected; (iii) developing shared understanding of the conflict and goals; (iv) building a consensus on how to reach the goals; (v) implementing measures; and (vi) monitoring the outcomes. 4. Policy implications. We argue this new tool has wide applicability and democratic legitimacy and offers an exciting and practical approach to improve the management of conservation conflicts.

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The role of trust in the resolution of conservation conflicts

Cited by 205 publications

References 40 publications

Value diversity and conservation conflict: Lessons from the management of red grouse and hen harriers in England

Value diversity and conservation conflict: Lessons from the management of red grouse and hen harriers in England

Mismatch between goals and the scale of actions constrains adaptive carnivore management: the case of the wolverine in Sweden

A conflict management tool for conservation agencies

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