Building block 1: Gender-differentiated vulnerability assessment
Building block 2: Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation via Sustainable Livelihoods and Green Infrastructure
Building block 3: Project Learning Activities
Strengthening the science-policy interface for socially inclusive governance
Workshop with decision-makers to analyze the applicability and usability of research tools and other outcomes within the protected area
UOC team
The elaboration of a plan for creating understanding and collaboration between researchers and decision-makers was a necessary tool to promote that scientific knowledge can have impacts on the policy domain. This plan entailed the following actions:
Face-to-face or online meetings to formally introduce the research project to the protected area decision-makers and managers while using media (e.g., radio and press), and developing seminars to inform local residents and other stakeholders about the project;
Invitation to decision-makers and managers to be involved in the project activities (e.g. local knowledge alliance, film and meetings);
Tailoring the research activities to the decision-makers agenda to facilitate their participation;
Organization of regular meetings, webinars and newsletters in local languages to inform about the project advances and findings;
Development of workshops with decision-makers to analyze the applicability and usability of resulting tools and other research outcomes within the protected area;
Dissemination of research reports in local language before academic article publications to validate the results;
Writing posts in the national park’s blog and other related websites to disseminate research findings within the protected area channels.
Conducted key-informant interviews with staff from the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park to identify the interests and needs of decision-makers and align our research activities;
Involved key staff from the National Park with the capacity to promote institutional changes and decisions to facilitate that our scientific insights might reach impacts on the management setting;
Organized a workshop with decision-makers to evaluate research tools in terms of applicability in the management cycle in order to facilitate their use by them.
An early exploration of the management and decision-making setting is relevant to plan for and develop solution-oriented research that can be implemented within the management cycle;
Periodical meetings between researchers and decision-makers help scientists gain awareness of the variety of directions in which their research can impact the policy domain, and decision-makers gain access to the best available evidence to make decisions. This is crucial to align research to the decision-makers' needs and facilitate the use of science in the management setting;
Producing scientific outcomes that are translatable into real outcomes in the management can motivate decision-makers to participate in the research;
Writing policy reports to introduce scientific insights into the native language facilitates the use of scientific information by decision-makers;
Planning the research activities so that overwhelming decision-makers with multiple requests is avoided.
Addressing power dynamics and promoting engagement in collective action
The analytical tool to guide participation assessment of governance arrangements in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park (adapted from López-Rodríguez et al. 2020)
María D. López Rodríguez
The “barometer of power”, one of the theatre-based facilitation techniques to address power dynamics between stakeholders used in a virtual workshop in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park
Maria Heras
Screenshot of the context-specific boundary object to call for collective action used in an online workshop in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park
María D. López Rodríguez
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
Screenshot of the preliminary results from PGIS analysis conducted in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park (Spatial data obtained with Mapptionaire)
Miguel Ángel Cebrián Piqueras
Streamline illustrations used to facilitate interviews and discussions groups in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park
Veronica Lo
Online workshop for participatory scenario planning in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park
UOC team
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.
Interview with the co-director of the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park.
Veronica Lo
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.
Elucidating visions and future scenarios for park management
Addressing power dynamics and promoting engagement in collective action
Strengthening the science-policy interface for socially inclusive governance
Stakeholder and community engagement
A broad range of government agencies, non-government organisations and community groups were engaged with during the phase-out program. As past land managers hadn’t engaged with the farming community regarding management of the licensed areas, much time was spent ‘around the kitchen table’ drinking tea with license holders and listening to their stories and history of the land. It soon became clear that they had a love of the River Red Gum Forest and the special plants and animals that lived there. It was common for farmers to reminisce about their encounters with Wedge Tailed Eagles, Platypus or the big Murray Cod living by their water pump.
A dedicated Grazing Officer was assigned to Warby-Ovens National Park, supported by a small team that operated across the River Red Gum parks
A broad range of community groups, Traditional Owners and non-government organisations supported the removal of grazing for ecological reasons and wanted increased public access to the river frontage.
Development of relationships with graziers through acknowledging their connection to the land was essential to gain their acceptance of the park’s creation.
Farmers didn’t always have access to on-line information or ability to respond to emails. Face-to-face communication and delivery of information proved invaluable.
