Suchergebnisse

This article examines threat perception as a potential dimension of inter-group conflict over salmon fisheries in Canada's Fraser River watershed. Environmental changes and the entry of new user groups are putting pressure on both the resource and regulators, as well as threatening to exacerbate conflicts, notably between First Nation (indigenous) fishers and non-indigenous recreational anglers. While resource conflicts are often superficially conceptualized as cases of competing interests, we build on recent studies suggesting that conflicts are associated with deeper cognitive and perceptual differences among user groups. We report findings from 422 riverbank interviews with First Nation fishers and recreational anglers focusing on perceptions of threat to the fisheries. Responses reveal both substantial agreement and disagreement in threat perceptions between the two groups. These patterns provide a potential roadmap for consensus building, and suggest possible avenues for policy-makers to defuse the "blame game" that often dominates this type of conflict.

Abstract The knowledge-action gap in conservation science and practice occurs when research outputs do not result in actions to protect or restore biodiversity. Among the diverse and complex reasons for this gap, three barriers are fundamental: knowledge is often unavailable to practitioners and challenging to interpret or difficult to use or both. Problems of availability, interpretability, and useability are solvable with open science practices. We considered the benefits and challenges of three open science practices for use by conservation scientists and practitioners. First, open access publishing makes the scientific literature available to all. Second, open materials (detailed methods, data, code, and software) increase the transparency and use of research findings. Third, open education resources allow conservation scientists and practitioners to acquire the skills needed to use research outputs. The long-term adoption of open science practices would help researchers and practitioners achieve conservation goals more quickly and efficiently and reduce inequities in information sharing. However, short-term costs for individual researchers (insufficient institutional incentives to engage in open science and knowledge mobilization) remain a challenge. We caution against a passive approach to sharing that simply involves making information available. We advocate a proactive stance toward transparency, communication, collaboration, and capacity building that involves seeking out and engaging with potential users to maximize the environmental and societal impact of conservation science. ; This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 838237.

Practitioners and policymakers working in environmental arenas make decisions that can have large impacts on ecosystems. Basing such decisions on high‐quality evidence about the effectiveness of different interventions can often maximize the success of policy and management. Accordingly, it is vital to understand how environmental professionals working at the science‐policy interface view and use different types of evidence, including evidence syntheses that collate and summarize available knowledge on a specific topic to save time for decision‐makers. We interviewed 84 senior environmental professionals in Canada working at the science‐policy interface to explore their confidence in, and use of, evidence syntheses within their organizations. Interviewees value evidence syntheses because they increase confidence in decision‐making, particularly for high‐profile or risky decisions. Despite this enthusiasm, the apparent lack of available syntheses for many environmental issues means that use can be limited and tends to be opportunistic. Our research suggests that if relevant, high quality evidence syntheses exist, they are likely to be used and embraced in decision‐making spheres. Therefore, efforts to increase capacity for conducting evidence syntheses within government agencies and/or funding such activities by external bodies have the potential to enable evidence‐based decision‐making. ; Additional co-authors: Karen E. Smokorowski, Steven M. Alexander, Steven J. Cooke

Integrating knowledge from across the natural and social sciences is necessary to effectively address societal tradeoffs between human use of biological diversity and its preservation. Collaborative processes can change the ways decision makers think about scientific evidence, enhance levels of mutual trust and credibility, and advance the conservation policy discourse. Canada has responsibility for a large fraction of some major ecosystems, such as boreal forests, Arctic tundra, wetlands, and temperate and Arctic oceans. Stressors to biological diversity within these ecosystems arise from activities of the country's resource-based economy, as well as external drivers of environmental change. Effective management is complicated by incongruence between ecological and political boundaries and conflicting perspectives on social and economic goals. Many knowledge gaps about stressors and their management might be reduced through targeted, timely research. We identify 40 questions that, if addressed or answered, would advance research that has a high probability of supporting development of effective policies and management strategies for species, ecosystems, and ecological processes in Canada. A total of 396 candidate questions drawn from natural and social science disciplines were contributed by individuals with diverse organizational affiliations. These were collaboratively winnowed to 40 by our team of collaborators. The questions emphasize understanding ecosystems, the effects and mitigation of climate change, coordinating governance and management efforts across multiple jurisdictions, and examining relations between conservation policy and the social and economic well-being of Aboriginal peoples. The questions we identified provide potential links between evidence from the conservation sciences and formulation of policies for conservation and resource management. Our collaborative process of communication and engagement between scientists and decision makers for generating and prioritizing research questions ...