Structure of Stockmen Collaboration Networks Under Two Contrasting Touristic Regimes in the Spanish Central Pyrenees

Abstract

Ecosystem management is a difficult task because it must conciliate the ecological, economic, and social dimensions of socioecological systems. In those systems, the action of any single component can have an effect on the others and result in a critical impact on the organization of the entire system. This study examined the collaboration networks among stockmen within two traditionally agropastoral regions in the Spanish Central Pyrenees, which in the past 30 yr included touristic activities: one under the influence of a national park and centered on ecotourism and the other in a region where there are ski resorts and local stockmen have turned to snow tourism. Our hypotheses were that economic regime affects the structure of the networks, and the type of collaboration (e.g., for economic reasons) influences the collaborations among stockmen. We built stockmen collaboration networks by connecting breeders within the same pastoral partnerships and calculated the importance of collaborations (links density), the occurrence of collaborative subgroups (network modularity), and the existence of collaborations between stockmen in different regions (Krackhardt Ratio). In addition, we identified the distribution of links among types of pastoral partnerships. The network under the influence of the National Park presented higher link density and modularity than did the network influenced by ski resorts, where the presence of nonlocal stockmen is higher. Furthermore, economic partnerships played a major role connecting stockmen. In the study area, differences in the collaboration networks between the two regions suggest that changes in the economic trend in the past 30 yr has influenced the collaborative structure of the stockmen. We discuss possible reasons behind these differences and propose some recommendations that could help to strengthen the collaborative bounds between stockmen in the area.