Addressing power dynamics and promoting engagement in collective action

These three decision-making tools were crucial to address power dynamics and promote stakeholders' participation and engagement in collective action in the National Park:

  • An analytical tool to characterize types of governance arrangements in the protected area. Formal and informal governance arrangements were classified in terms of stakeholders’ responsibility (shared vs. concentrated) and influence (equal vs. unequal) into four types: prescriptive, informative, consultative, and cooperative. By applying this tool in the National Park we identified challenges for more socially inclusive conservation while enhancing existing participatory mechanisms and delineating new ones;
  • Theatre-based facilitation techniques to address power dynamics between stakeholders. By using them in a virtual workshop, participants deliberated on their roles and power relations around conservation governance and how these may be reconciled to improve collaboration;
  • A context-specific boundary object to facilitate collective action for conservation governance. Using this graphical tool in a workshop, participants assessed their level of willingness to put several strategies into practice. The tool visualized the results graphically as a proxy of the potential willingness to move from theory to practice.
  • The analytical tool to characterize governance arrangements requires data collection about the existing decision-making mechanisms behind each arrangement identified, the stakeholders engaged and how they are engaged;
  • The art-based approaches and context-specific boundary object require a process based on co-learning and knowledge co-production approaches through which stakeholders deliberate on power dynamics, conservation challenges and define collaborative strategies to address them.
  • Analyzing both formal and informal-based governance arrangements serves as a means to understand how participation in conservation decision-making is actually shaped within protected areas governance and how to improve stakeholder engagement given the context;
  • It is important to consider informal governance mechanisms to understand potential trade-offs because they can lead to both positive and negative outcomes for conservation;
  • Stakeholders’ responsibility and influence are key analytical axes to delineate participatory mechanisms in order to identify opportunities for more socially inclusive conservation;
  • Art-based methods are useful to incorporate power relations aspects into conservation debates;
  • Elucidating unequal relations for conservation governance offers opportunities to clarify stakeholders’ roles and their responsibilities and facilitate a better understanding of how these may be reconciled to improve collaboration;
  • The assessment of stakeholders’ willingness to be involved in putting the strategies into practice is a crucial factor to guide collective action.
Elucidating visions and future scenarios for park management

These three tools help to identify visions and elaborate future scenarios, in a participatory way, for protected areas management:

  • Participatory mapping (PGIS), a tool to visualize information in a particular geographical context focusing on a certain issue of interest. This tool was used in surveys to elicit the residents’ visions based on perceptions of landscape values and local knowledge;
  • Streamline, an open-source narrative synthesis tool that integrates graphics in the form of canvases and tiles, facilitating interviews and discussion groups in a creative and stimulating way. Streamline was used with stakeholders’ expressing their values and preferences for management actions, and sharing their knowledge of changes in the landscape;
  • Participatory scenario planning exercise, a deliberative process that was facilitated about plausible and desired futures through a two-day online workshop (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) with stakeholders. Based on the current socio-ecological conditions and the factors driving change, participants weighed up what could happen in the coming 20 years, discussed implications for biodiversity conservation and the quality of life of those who currently enjoy the ecosystem services it provides, whilst identifying the strategies to address them.
  • Inviting and giving voice to stakeholder groups that are often poorly included in social spaces to publicly debate about conservation;
  • Creating a collaborative process built upon dissent-based approaches to promote a transparent and horizontal work-space;
  • Building workgroups with a balanced representation between stakeholder groups, regions of the residence and gender, helps so that not only majoritarian voices are heard.
  • Local facilitators and collaborators were essential to approach a big sample of local residents in the surveys and the workshop;   
  • Online processes require significant efforts and human resources to handle multiple platforms and technical issues simultaneously. Specific expert facilitation skills are required;
  • Scenario planning methodologies should more strongly consider different potential disturbances and how drivers of change in the near and far future can be affected by wildcard events such as a pandemic.
Gathering local knowledge and values

To facilitate place-based processes that foster inclusive conservation it is necessary to collect local/traditional knowledge, views, and values from multiple stakeholders. Some methods to gather such information were used in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park:

  • Oral histories and historical datasets review to reconstruct how past visions and drivers of environmental impact have changed over the last 50 years and inform current and future conservation goals;
  • Interviews with local stakeholders on 1) how participation works in the protected area and potential barriers/opportunities for more social engagement, and 2) their visions for park management, the values and knowledge that underpin the visions, and their perceptions of landscape changes and the underlying drivers;
  • Face-to-face surveys with residents, including participatory mapping tools (i.e. Maptionnaire) about landscape values and ecological knowledge. Online surveys with local stakeholders to identify changes in their visions, values and perceptions of the landscape after the COVID-19 pandemic; and
  • Deliberative processes embedded in a participatory scenario planning exercise that used cognitive and emotional maps to collect collective knowledge of the protected area while capturing intertwined affective relationships.
  • Created an atmosphere of shared understanding, respect and trust with participants to facilitate collaboration along the process;
  • Clarified the project's goals and practical outcomes to manage expectations and stimulate participation; and
  • Co-designed with participants an outreach plan to better disseminate the generated outcomes while making participants realise about the impact of their engagement and fostering learning from others' experience.
  • Planning activities with stakeholders carefully to avoid overwhelming them with requests;
  • Developing activities according to the timetable, schedule and disruptive events situations (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic) that work better for most participants;
  • Using quantitative research approaches to gather context-based knowledge may result in biased information. A mixed-method approach based on quantitative and qualitative data can help avoid bias and get a more in-depth knowledge of the context;
  • Online methods work well and their implementation saves time and money when compared with face-to-face events, but are less effective in achieving good personal interactions;
  • Synthesizing and sharing the knowledge is appreciated by the stakeholders. For example, the knowledge gathered from individual stakeholders about landscape changes in the National Park was shared with the stakeholder group at a workshop with the opportunity for short discussions. Stakeholders indicated that they had learned and understood other peoples’ points of views on landscape changes and drivers of change.
GIS-Based Monitoring

The systematic monitoring of planted trees that is conducted by HAF and the gathering and registering of data of trees planted, including GPS locations, height, diameter, survival rates, and social benefits. The integrated tree monitoring system, called AKVO, was developed by Ecosia, a German organization which plants trees using revenue generated from their search engine. Trained in the use of this application, the monitoring team disperses throughout the regions, visiting the farmers and monitoring the trees that were planted during the previous planting season. Stored in a shared database, the information collected by the team in collaboration with local nursery caretakers will enhance informed decision-making at all levels of governance and across sectors by filling gaps in knowledge and precedence regarding practical application of resource management. 

GIS-based monitoring is enabled primarily through community partnerships. Local residents are able to support the monitoring staff and the massive effort that goes into to the monitoring and data collection process. Without an extensive network across the country, it would not be possible to implement this system. 

As a result of its monitoring actvities, HAF has developed an extensive database on tree survival, growth, and product yield from its fruit tree nurseries across several life zones that, combined with published studies, can develop trends in agriculture products and carbon sequestration by life zone as a function of climate conditions. Additional field work such as analyses of soil samples, measuring growth and precipitation, and doing so in all biozones, is vital in order to develop a database that covers all Morocco toward national impact. In addition, the procedures for analyses and guidelines for determinations in relation to planting, water consumption, impacts on food security, and measured advantages from renewable energy must be specialized.

Evaluating the contribution of stone tidal weirs in safeguarding biocultural diversity

Without doubt, stone tidal weirs contribute to marine biodiversity.  In comparison with intertidal zoneswithout stone tidal weir, those with stone tidal weirs have host diverse marine species.

Once stone tidal weirs are abandoned, the less fish is caught.  As the attention of local people shifts to destructive modern fishery,  all aspects connected to cultural diversity would also be disappeared.  In order to maintain coastal communities sustainable, they must not lose their biocultural diversity; stone tidal weirs could be served as an icon of such diversity as well. The UNESCO UNITWIN university network researches and studies how stone tidal weirs in safeguarding biocultural diversity.

The underwater cultural heritage of stone tidal weirs seems to have been an artificial womb for marine species and it is It one of the oldest fish catching methods for human beings.  Qualitative and quantitative data analysis are necessary to research the role of stone tidal weirds as marine ecosystems. As for the latter, both archaeological and historical research is the most helpful. 

When stone tidal weirs are studied, interdisciplinary collaboration between social science and natural science is really necessary.  In the US, archaeology and anthropology are included in social science.  Oceanographers or marine biologists provide natural scientific data upon biodiversity, while social scientists combine natural scientific data with social scientific one and use them for design and planning purposes.

Analyzing the vulnerability of stone tidal weirs against the global climate change such as sea level rise, coastal erosion, or destructive storms

Stone tidal weirs are the most vulnerable against global climate change.  Recent field surveys and participant-observations of them prove that many stone tidal weirs have been abandoned or simply left broken, owing mainly to ocean environmental change.  If sea levels rise more than 1 meter, all stone tidal weirs on the earth do not function as fishing gear.   Once they are destroyed by storms or high waves, some coastal communities cannot afford to repair them, leaving simply them abandoned.  All over the world, indeed, the underwater cultural heritage of stone tidal weirs is in danger of closing down, as cultural heritage as well as traditional fishing gear.  For the purpose of understanding their vulnerability properly, the assessment of long-termed tidal range changes around stone tidal weirs, the measuring of coastal erosions faced by them, and the impact monitor of typhoons or high waves which destroy stone tidal weirs have been conducted, occasionally by help of remote sensing data.

The university networks allows to raise awareness on the issue and provide research-based evidence.

Many national governments do not recognize stone tidal weirs as underwater cultural heritage or even as fishing gear, mainly because in their mind gears are modern fishing boats or nets owned by professional fishers. Stone tidal weirs are often owned by people living in coastal communities, not by fishermen, against whom especially global climate change would cause havoc. 

Unless local or national governments recognize stone tidal weirs as cultural heritage, there is no way they could become interested in their vulnerability against the global climate change.  It really is essential that multiple stakeholders, including policy makers, social scientists such as anthropologists, natural scientists such as oceanographers, environmentalists, NGO or NPO partners, or local people, work together on this matter. 

Documenting the traditional ecological knowledge on fishing, ritual, or other communal activities connected to stone tidal weirs

The underwater cultural heritage of stone tidal weirs was originally born as a local fishing mechanism. The processes are based on a rich local traditional ecological knowledge, which brought on by members of local coastal communities. Traditionally, local communities used stone tidal weirs twice a month during the spring tide; a custom that has been preventing overfishing by locals. At high tide they sometimes functioned as fishponds. 

The traditional ecological knowledge, for instance, on non-fishing periods, as well as that on fishery-related ritual activities such as beach opening ceremonies, is widely observed at coastal communities but it is rapidly disappearing before being recorded properly by anthropologists or archaeologists. As stone tidal weirs are easily broken by typhoons or high waves, frequent community-led repairing works based on traditional knowledge are absolutely needed. In case stone tidal weirs are abandoned, however, both communal spirit and traditional ecological knowledge would extinct.  

The traditional ecological knowledge, which each coastal community owns, is not only the key for the conservation of stone tidal weirs but also for their wellbeing. Seafood from stone tidal weirs is sustainable and healthier than imported canned or processed food.

Through formal and informal partnerships between universities and coastal communities, educating younger generations with such knowledge is one of the important success factors in preserving traditional ecological knowledge.

 

Stone tidal weirs provide prosperity and sustainability for coastal communities, and documentation efforts support building local capacity and social capital for the long term.

Gathering data on them and their related traditional ecological knowledge is done both in the field and in archieves and libraries. As for the latter, such knowledge might have existed only in written archivel documentsas many communities have lost their traditions because of modernization and globalisation.

Sustainable conservation and management approaches for large sites

The nature of Herculaneum’s burial 2000 years ago meant that open-air excavation in the early 20th c. revealed an extraordinary level of preservation of the Roman town but had to be accompanied by the stabilization of these multistorey ruins, and the reinstatement of roads and drainage systems. The site today requires conservation of the archaeological fabric but also of these aging restoration interventions, and at an urban scale.

However, efforts at Herculaneum in the late 20th c. approached the site as a series of individual elements. This was partly due to limited access to interdisciplinary expertise and steady funding sources – sporadic capital funding for one-off localised projects predominated.

With the turn of the millennium, a new approach was taken that mapped conservation issues and interdependencies between them across the entire site, and acted on them. Initial efforts focused on resolving situations in areas at risk of collapse or with vulnerable decorative features. Over time the focus shifted to long-term strategies for reducing the causes of decay and developing site-wide maintenance cycles sustainable by the public authority alone so that the site would not revert back. With these now entirely sustained by the public partner the overarching objective has been achieved.

Developments in Italian legal frameworks in 2004 allowed the private partner to contract conservation works directly and ‘donate’ concrete results, instead of financial support only. This allowed the partnership to constitute genuine operational enhancement of the existing management system.

Further legal reforms for cultural heritage in the period 2014-2016 then enhanced the public partners’ flexibility and responsiveness to the site’s needs.

  • Interdisciplinary analysis and decision-making for large heritage sites can be enhanced through the use of user-led data management tools. Integrating interdisciplinary IT tools in conservation planning, implementation and monitoring was crucial to greater effectiveness in the use of limited resources; human, financial and intellectual.
  • The long timeframes available for the partnership and the year-round presence of an interdisciplinary team allowed the development of a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the site’s needs, and extensive testing of long-term strategies to address them, before handing over maintenance regimes to the public heritage authority.
  • Extensive and problematic 20th c. restoration interventions are a challenge faced by a lot of built heritage where more knowledge sharing is desirable.
  • The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the financial vulnerability of the institutional model in the absence of ticketing income and uncertainties regarding the capacity of the public partner to sustain the improvements to site conservation and maintenance in the long term.
Stewardship Planning Process

A Local Stewardship Council (LSC) is the main representative of a World Surfing Reserve and is in charge of implementing the Local Stewardship Plan. The LSC works together with Save The Waves Coalition to Protect, Steward, and Defend their surf ecosystem.

 

LSC members work on the ground and with the local community to carry out activities that result in the long-term conservation of the reserve as well as celebrate and honor the tradition of surfing and ocean recreation.  The Stewardship Planning Process brings together the LSC and important community members to map out the the critical threats to the region and come up with long term goals and objectives for permanent protection.  

 

The Stewardship Planning Process generally follows the outline in "Measures of Success" that includes building a Conceptual Model, developing a management plan that identifies goals, objectives, actions and timelines based on the threats to address.

Enabling Factors include:

 

  • A well developed Local Stewardship Council
  • Support from the local government or municipality
  • Maps of the region and coastline
  • A well developed inventory of threats to the environment
  • A comfortable physical meeting space

Our lessons learned from this project include:

 

  • Relationship building between the stakeholders is key
Surfonomics

“Surfonomics” aims to document surfing’s economic contributions to local and regional economies. Through Surfonomics research, we determine the economic value of a wave and surfing to local communities to help decision makers make better choices to protect their coastal resources and waves.

 

Using a beach survey of surfers in San Miguel, Ensenada, we were able to quantify that an average tourist spends approximately $111 US dollars a day. As the average surfer spends 10 days per year in the area, it is calculated that a visiting surfer spends $1,151 US dollars a year in Ensenada. 

 

These figures show that surfing helps drive the local economy of Ensenada and that decision-makers must take into account the importance of the surf zone in terms of coastal management.

  • Volunteers to carry out the survey instrument
  • Partnerships with academic institutions 
  • A broad coalition of stakeholders is needed to carry out a rigorous academic study like Surfonomics. Relationships and trust must be built with local hotels and rental agencies, business owners, tourism agencies, surf shops and businesses, and most importantly, the surf community itself.  All of these stakeholders must share information and participate in the study in order to get an accurate picture of the economy of surf tourism in a given area.

Key lessons include:

 

  • Understanding the economic contribution of surfing is key to getting stakeholders to agree on conservation initiatives.
  • Running a surfonomics study can help practitioners understand the attitudes and perspectives of visitors to the area.
  • Surfers spend a significant amount of time and money traveling and bring big economic contributions to local communities.