Mental models of a social-ecological system facilitate social learning among a diverse management team

Abstract

Managing social-ecological systems increasingly requires collaboration among diverse teams with a wide range of worldviews and perspectives. Increased attention to the social and cultural factors that shape environmental outcomes is needed for these collaborative teams to function effectively. Mental models are cognitive representations of the external world which guide an individual’s thinking, decision-making, and behavior. They are critical elements of collaborative environmental management because they shape our understanding of social-ecological systems, our perceptions of environmental problems, and our preferences for certain management actions. In this paper, we describe an iterative process of constructing and revising mental models at both individual and small group levels over the course of a year in a community-based conservation area in the Ethiopian highlands. We compared mental models of the conservation area from four groups involved in management to identify commonalities and differences in the way people conceptualize the area. While we found high variability in mental models both within and across groups, most participants perceived social, economic, and political variables to be the key drivers of change in this system. Economic variables were also identified as key sensitivities, along with biotic and livelihood variables. However, groups differed considerably in how they thought about relationships between these variables, particularly political and economic variables. We used interviews with participants to assess how they learned throughout the mental modeling process, finding evidence of changes to stakeholder relationships, system understanding, and the time horizons used in planning. Women farmers differed from other groups at multiple stages in our process, both in the structure of the models they produced and in the social learning they experienced. Our study was strengthened by the iterative process that allowed individuals and small groups to reflect on their own understanding and share it with others, resulting in increased communication, mutual respect, and understanding among members of the management team. These findings point to the complementarity of both individual and group-level mental modeling for nuanced system understanding, and emphasize the need for diverse perspectives in collaborative environmental management in order for holistic understanding of both problems and solutions to emerge.