Engagement In Resource Management Research Articles

The importance of being taught: improving public engagement in resource management through learning by doing

The importance of being taught: improving public engagement in resource management through learning by doing

Using a participatory impact assessment framework to evaluate a community‐led mangrove and fisheries conservation approach in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract Community‐based conservation has been identified as a solution to biodiversity loss, climate change and the reduction of rural poverty. The heterogeneity in social and economic inequalities often acts as a barrier to community engagement in resource management and further inhibits the distributional equity of social and ecological outcomes. This study presents a participatory impact assessment (PIA) framework that evaluated the outcomes of a cross‐sector community‐led conservation initiative. Community members involved in the programme identified activities and outcomes for the conservation cooperative (CC), ranking the influence of the former on the latter as well as their daily life through multiple focus group discussions (FGDs). Participants were asked to rank the impact of activities on outcomes and the scale of the outcome which was totalled to identify the most impactful programme activities and outcomes during the project period. Community members reported improved income, health, education and the creation of a locally led natural resource management system. Members also reported improved crab harvest rates and reduced mangrove deforestation. Environmental outcomes identified by community members through the PIA were verified through a secondary spatial analysis and mud crab independent fisheries monitoring. The results support the hypothesis that environmental non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) need to consider a multi‐dimensional view of human well‐being, and that cross‐sector integrated interventions may be effective at improving multiple outcomes. Future steps should focus on spatial replication of the CC programme which will provide further insights by testing for differences in outcomes between villages, how those are impacted by pre‐existing social and ecological systems and comparing outcomes between control sites that did not receive interventions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Citizen-Science and Participatory Research as a Means to Improve Stakeholder Engagement in Resource Management: A Case Study of Vietnamese American Fishers on the US Gulf Coast.

This study examines the engagement of Vietnamese American commercial fisheries stakeholders in the US Gulf Coast with state and federal agencies and the role that citizen science and participatory research may play in improving this engagement. Using a mixed methods study including surveys, interviews, and focus groups, findings highlight language, lack of trust, and outreach misfit as key barriers to engaging Vietnamese American stakeholders as demanded for collaborative resource management or co-management. However, findings also demonstrate the potential role for citizen science and participatory research that collaboratively engages stakeholders in research to overcome some of these barriers to engaging diverse fishing stakeholders.

Revealing complex social-ecological interactions through participatory modeling to support ecosystem-based management in Hawai‘i

The Hawaiian Islands are home to a complex and dynamic marine ecosystem that serves as a backbone to the state's economy and society's well-being. The marine ecosystem currently faces numerous threats that undermine ecosystem integrity and compromise socially valuable ecosystem services. The socio-economic and ecological complexity of the region invokes a clear need for ecosystem-based management (EBM) strategies. To support EBM development, participatory methods were used to gather expert and place-based knowledge from resource managers, scientists, and community members. Methods elicited local values, fostered diverse relationships, and increased community engagement in resource management. Using information collected, Conceptual ecosystemmodels were developed guided by the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework that identify and quantify the strength of socio-economic and ecological interactions. The resulting models illustrate the complexity of system dynamics, highlighting connectivity between pressures and the ecosystem, with direct implications for ecosystem services. Importantly, many identified pressures occur at the local scale, presenting an opportunity for local resource management to directly affect ecosystem status. This study also found that many of the strongly impacted ecosystem services were cultural ecosystem services, which are critical to human well-being but lack integration into resource management. These models support an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment of the region by informing ecosystem-based strategies, facilitating the selection of ecosystem monitoring indicators, and emphasizing human dimensions.

Patient-level information and costing systems (PLICSs): a mixed-methods study of current practice and future potential for the NHS health economy

BackgroundTraditionally, the cost object in health care has been either a service line (e.g. orthopaedics) or a clinical intervention (e.g. hip replacement). In the mid-2000s, the Department of Health recommended that in the future the patient should be the cost object, to enable a better analysis of cost drivers in health care, resulting in patient-level information and costing systems (PLICSs). Monitor (the economic regulator for health care) proposes that PLICS data will now form the basis for mandatory prices for health-care services across all care settings.ObjectiveOur main aim was to investigate the use of PLICSs.MethodsWe surveyed all English foundation trusts and NHS trusts, and undertook four case studies of foundation trusts. Three trusts were generalist and one was specialist. We also surveyed commissioning support units to explore the potential for PLICSs in commissioning.FindingsThe most significant use of PLICSs was cost improvement within the trusts. There was only modest utilisation of PLICSs to allocate resources across services and settings. We found that trusts had separate reporting systems for costs and clinical outcomes, engendering little use for PLICSs to link cost with quality. Although there was significant potential for PLICSs in commissioning, 74% of survey respondents at trusts considered their PLICS data to be commercially sensitive and only 5% shared the data with commissioners. The use of PLICSs in community services was, generally, embryonic because of the absence of units of health care for which payment can be made, service definitions and robust data collection systems. The lack of PLICS data for community services, allied with the commercial sensitivity issue, resulted in little PLICS presence in collaborative cross-organisational initiatives, whether between trusts or across acute and community services. PLICS data relate to activities along the patient pathway. Such costs make sense to clinicians. We found that PLICSs had created greater clinical engagement in resource management despite the fact that the trust finance function had actively communicated PLICSs as a new costing tool and often required its use in, for example, business cases for clinical investment. Operational financial management at the trusts was undertaken through service line reporting (SLR) and traditional directorate budgets. PLICSs were considered more of a strategic tool.ConclusionsBoth PLICSs and SLR identify and interrogate service line profitability. Although trusts currently cross-subsidise to support loss-making areas under the tariff, they are actively considering disinvesting in unprofitable service lines. Financial pressure within the NHS, along with its current competitive, business-oriented ethos, induces trusts to act in their own interests rather than those of the whole health economy. However, many policy commentators suggest that care integration is needed to improve patient care and reduce costs. Although the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Great Britain.Health and Social Care Act 2012. London: The Stationery Office; 2012) requires both competition and the collaboration needed to achieve care integration, the two are not always compatible. We conclude that competitive forces are dominant in driving the current uses of PLICSs. Future research should interrogate the use of PLICSs inNew Care Models – Vanguard Sites(NHS England.New Care Models – Vanguard Sites. NHS England; 2015) and initiatives to deliver the ‘Five Year Forward View’ (Monitor and NHS England.Reforming the Payment System for NHS Services: Supporting the Five Year Forward View. London: Monitor; 2015).FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme.

Transformative practices: Imagining and enacting relationships in the context of resource development, the Argyle case

AbstractFailure to recognise or acknowledge and respond to local cultural manifestations of Indigenous peoples' attempts to maintain or reassert themselves in spaces of intercultural engagement in resource management denies the power of their own cultural foundations and principles. This paper reviews experience of informal negotiations at the Argyle Diamond Mine in Western Australia. It argues that giving careful consideration to specific cultural practices and processes associated with place and the social relations these practices engender facilitates development of transforming practices that change outcomes.

‘Eco-civic’ optimisation: A nested framework for planning and managing landscapes

An important institution for regional resource governance is civic engagement in local affairs, including resource use issues. Local civic engagement has traditionally been structured around local government and, more recently, to catchment-based decision-making bodies. If citizens are to participate in regional resource management in ways that are meaningful to them, it is important that both the landscape units being discussed and the jurisdictional boundaries are meaningful. We have been examining how boundaries for resource management regions might be identified. Three considerations are believed to be important if regional resource management is to be meaningful to the citizens involved. Firstly, that the regional boundaries maximise the areal proportion of the region that residents consider to be part of their ‘community’, which should lead to greater commitment to civic engagement in resource management. Secondly, that the character of the landscape units within the region possess a high degree of homogeneity, reflecting greater coincidence of interest among the inhabitants of the region. The third consideration is a hierarchical multi-scaling capacity to deal with externalities of resource use. The approach was tested through identification of a series of nested ‘eco-civic’ resource management regions for north-eastern New South Wales in Australia. The results delineate resource governance regions that nest at local to regional scales for integrated natural resource management. Such ‘eco-civic’ regions demonstrate a better spatial representation of social and ecological characteristics than existing regional frameworks.

The Historicity of Institutional Trust and the Alienation of Maori Land for Catchment Control at Mangatu, New Zealand

Abstract Environmental problems require collective responses, but resource managers conventionally lack the managerial legitimacy to inspire collective action. Recent perspectives in planning theory have entreated for collaboration with the institutions of civic society as a basis for inspiring legitimacy in environmental management. This article maintains that there is considerable merit in these institutional perspectives, but the historical impediments to institutional engagement and trust require detailed analysis if those perspectives are to be successful. There is an inherent historicity to all relationships of trust, and this may be acute in the case of collaboration with indigenous peoples who have experienced colonial dislocation. In New Zealand, the rapidity of land loss, the lack of historical opportunities for engagement in resource management, and past attempts to assimilate institutions and values may influence the present stance of Maori, who are the indigenous population, on environmental management. An historical assessment of a state afforestation project at Mangatu on the east coast of New Zealand demonstrates that Maori have seldom been trusted as environmental guardians. Their preferred forms of environmental governance have been subject to cultural disdain, yielding a legacy of institutional mistrust which will not easily be alleviated.