Lake States natural resource managers’ perspectives on forest land parcelization and its implications for public land management

Field-based public natural resource managers in the Lake States (MI, MN, WI) were surveyed for their perspectives on various aspects of private forest land parcelization. This includes their perceptions of recent changes in parcelization activity, drivers and impacts, mitigation strategies, and ability to influence parcelization. Their perspectives on the implications private forest land parcelization has on public land management were also sought. Across the Lake States, most public natural resource managers have witnessed an increasing frequency of forest land parcelization. They consider development potential and proximity to population centers to be the most influential driver of parcelization, with decreased timber supply and loss of recreational access on private land the most likely outcomes. The study documented important perceived linkages between private forest land parcelization and public land management, such as increased conflicts on public land, decreased access to public land, and increased demand for and cost of managing public land.     

Do regional natural resource management leaders reflect the attitudes of the landholders?

In the South Australian Murray Darling Basin Natural Resource Management (NRM) region, our case study site, decision-making and implementation of state NRM policy rests with a relatively small number of NRM leaders, advisors and support staff. In this paper we explore whether these community NRM leaders reflect the values and attitudes of landholders in the wider region. Our interest in the potential for shared values derives from NRM and the wider literature of the importance of shared values for driving institutional trust and NRM outcomes. A set of scales was used to measure key values and attitudes which shape participation in NRM programs. Data were collected from community NRM leaders and landholders from across the region. Through statistical testing, this study demonstrates that the values of the community NRM leaders differ to those of landholders on four out of the six values and attitudes examined. Landholders are more economically motivated, have a stronger sense of tradition, are more capital constrained and have a different set of environmental attitudes than community NRM leaders. Alternatives for building trust, given significant differences in shared values, are discussed.     

Using scenario-based influence mapping to examine farmers’ biosecurity behaviour

Understanding of farmers’ influences relating to biosecurity is surprisingly weak, beyond general remarks that farmers tend to trust their private vet. Previous studies have explored influences in relation to single issue events. There is a need for better methodologies to fully appreciate how farmers’ biosecurity practices are shaped. Using bovine Tuberculosis as a case study, this paper uses stakeholder mapping methods applied across different scenarios. The aim is to identify how farmers’ responses to animal disease policy are shaped by their relationships with different actors. Interviews were conducted with 50 farmers in three areas in England. Farmers were presented with four scenarios to control bovine Tuberculosis: 1) a badger cull, 2) an oral badger vaccine, 3) a cattle vaccine and 4) a range of control measures. The results show that as things get more uncertain, government institutions become more influential. Government institutions and government vets are also important in situations where farmers do not consider themselves ‘experts’ i.e. vaccination as opposed to culling. The influence of other farmers was not universal; it differed between scenarios. These data show the value of scenario-based stakeholder mapping as a methodology that can enable biosecurity researchers to: more accurately and systematically determine stakeholder influence and understand how these influences change and evolve; understand the role of farmer biosecurity practices, the self-concept and ‘good farming’; and identify broader logics of biosecurity that influence and potentially frustrate animal disease policy goals.     

Doing more harm than good? Community based natural resource management and the neglect of local institutions in policy development

Approaches to natural resource management emphasise the importance of involving local people and institutions in order to build capacity, limit costs, and achieve environmental sustainability. Governments worldwide, often encouraged by international donors, have formulated devolution policies and legal instruments that provide an enabling environment for devolved natural resource management. However, implementation of these policies reveals serious challenges. This article explores the effects of limited involvement of local people and institutions in policy development and implementation. An in-depth study of the Forest Policy of Malawi and Village Forest Areas in the Lilongwe district provides an example of externally driven policy development which seeks to promote local management of natural resources. The article argues that policy which has weak ownership by national government and does not adequately consider the complexity of local institutions, together with the effects of previous initiatives on them, can create a cumulative legacy through which destructive resource use practices and social conflict may be reinforced. In short, poorly developed and implemented community based natural resource management policies can do considerably more harm than good. Approaches are needed that enable the policy development process to embed an in-depth understanding of local institutions whilst incorporating flexibility to account for their location-specific nature. This demands further research on policy design to enable rigorous identification of positive and negative institutions and ex-ante exploration of the likely effects of different policy interventions.     

Bringing local socioeconomic context to the analysis of forest owners’ management

Regional and local differences in public perceptions and attitudes towards forestry have often been explained by socio-demography, farming structure, living standard, and other socioeconomic attributes of different geographic locations. These attributes have been used much less to explain regional differences in private forest owners’ objectives and practices. We explore the connection between local patterns of non-industrial private owners’ management practices and the socioeconomic characteristics of the local context. Discriminant linear canonical analysis of data for 2406 owners in 26 rural areas in Portugal allows us to discuss the relevance of the socioeconomic features of local context, such as forest sector economy, agrarian structures, and broader socio-demographic dynamics, to understand the owners’ management practices. Our findings reveal the importance of the features considered, especially socio-demography and agrarian structures. However that importance differs according to the type of forest practice under consideration, i.e., harvesting or bush clearing. This study provides a better understanding of the factors that shape the management practices of forest owners and contributes to improve the design of forest policy to be more adjusted to regional context.     

Estimation of Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Geographic Indications Bananas Using Conjoint Analysis

This study uses conjoint analysis to analyze consumers’ preferences for geographic indications (GI) bananas by examining the effects of production methods (inorganic, organic, certified organic, and natural), quality attributes (taste, perishability, medicinal, and nutritional), and price premiums (prices of GI bananas relative to prices of other bananas). Consumers were surveyed for demographic, economic, and taste and preference characteristics. The results show that consumers prefer GI bananas for their medicinal properties, natural production method, and lower price premium.     

Using Q-methodology to identify rural women’s viewpoint on succession of family farms

In the world, the majority of farms are family-based. However, migration of young people from rural to urban areas, and a lack of farm successors negatively impact on the continuity of family farming. The pattern of migration is unbalanced in terms of gender: women are more likely to leave rural areas than men, which has negative consequences for rural development. The objective of this study was to identify rural women’s viewpoint about the elements that would facilitate them to eventually take over the family farm. Q-methodology was used to identify rural women’s viewpoints. Data were collected individually from 28 women, face-to-face with each woman, using a transportable board game to enable friendlier dynamics. Our findings showed five women’s viewpoints: rural attractiveness, family support, recognition, working and living conditions, and financial autonomy. The identification of these different viewpoints could provide insights that can be used to design public and private interventions aimed to favor female heirs to take over the family farm.     

Exploring the ‘layeredness’ of recurring natural resource conflicts: The role of Loita Maasai leadership in the Naimina Enkiyio Forest conflicts in Kenya

This article examines two successive conflicts over the same forest in Kenya, which, when analysed separately, have led to interpretations that do not hold when the conflicts are studied in relation to each other. Inspired by political ecology, it employs a processual view of natural resource conflict, which recognizes that such conflicts may be ‘layered’ and composed of various struggles − or layers − at once, and that some of these struggles may not be discernible at first sight or when resource conflicts are studied in isolation. The conflicts presented in this article occurred between 1993 and 2005 and revolved around the Naimina Enkiyio Forest in south Kenya. They were initially triggered when a local authority, Narok County Council, and later the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), intended to implement plans and projects that would affect the way the forest was being used by the Loita Maasai. Rather than viewing the conflicts as being between a local community and powerful outsiders, I argue that they are best seen as different crystallizations of coalitions between local and outside actors running along a longstanding cleavage in the Loita’s leadership. This article examines how opposing Loita leadership groups forged outside alliances and mobilized support and resistance in Loita and elsewhere. In doing so, it will demonstrate that a particular layer was overlooked or minimized in the various interpretations that have been posited for the separate conflicts, namely a longstanding struggle within the leadership of the Loita Maasai. In fact, this struggle has proved to be crucial for providing a valid and consistent explanation that holds for the two conflicts when they are considered together.     

Cost of best management practices to combat agricultural runoff and comparison with the local populations’ willingness to pay: Case of the Austreberthe watershed (Normandy,France)

Land Use and Cover Changes (LUCCs) significantly increase the frequency of mudflows in the silty areas of north-western Europe and particularly in the NUTS 3 Seine-Maritime region (France). Predicting the effects of a range of possible LUCCs helps local authorities choose policies that can help to mitigate the risks to which local populations are exposed. In this article we build scenarios for changes in farming systems, with a 2015 horizon and with 2007 as the initial situation. These scenarios are assessed through combined biophysical and economic approaches. Two scenarios for the disappearance of dairy farming are chosen. One scenario has no public-action program (StopMilk), while the other one has a program based on the funding of best management practices (StopMilk-E). These scenarios are assessed at the small watershed scale (7 km²) in terms of both changes in farming systems and effects on runoff (use of the STREAM model). Finally, the economic evaluation of additional costs of StopMilk-E is extrapolated at the level of the Austreberthe watershed syndicate (214 km²), using the French Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) with a spatially referenced database of cropping plans. StopMilk leads to a significant increase in runoff whereas the local public-action program proposed under StopMilk-E reduces runoff to below the 2007 level. The Austreberthe watershed residents’ willingness to pay for a 15-year program is around €395,000/year, which is not sufficient to balance the cost of the modified farming practices (€640,000/year over the first 3 years). Funding of the practices would require either subsidies from a higher level (Europe), borrowing by the community, and/or a more selective approach in the type and the location of farming practices to be funded. The method used for calculating costs at the watershed syndicate level shows the huge potential of new databases like LPIS (available in France since 2006) for the assessment of environmental issues.