Framing Conservation on Private Lands: Conserving Oak in Oregon's Willamette Valley

Abstract

Conserving threatened habitats on private lands requires policies that advance the interests of landowners and natural resource professionals alike. Through qualitative analysis of individual and focus-group interviews, we compared how family forest owners and natural resource professionals frame conservation of threatened habitat: the oak woodlands and savanna in Oregon. Applying constructionism to the analysis and design of specific policies, we explored policy options to facilitate cooperation and avert conflict between these stakeholders. Informants displayed three primary frames in discussions of oak conservation: the human–nature relationship, the rights and obligations of property ownership, and the role of policy in social change. Their motivations to conserve oak and preferences for conservation policy stemmed from their differing uses of these frames. Conservation easements, habitat mitigation banking, and voluntary grass-roots initiatives were three types of policy that seemed to accommodate the frames of both owners and natural resource professionals.