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- Liski, Anja Helena, et al.
(author)
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Governance and stakeholder perspectives of managed re-alignment: adapting to sea level rise in the Inner Forth estuary, Scotland
- 2019
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In: Regional Environmental Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1436-378X .- 1436-3798. ; 19:8, s. 2231-2243
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- With climate change, coastal areas are faced with unprecedented sea level rise and flooding, raising questions as to how societies will choose to adapt. One option is to strengthen existing sea walls to maintain current land uses; however, scientists, policy-makers and conservationists increasingly see the benefits of managed realignment, which is a nature-based coastal adaptation that involves the conversion of reclaimed farmland back to wetlands, allowing periodic local flooding in designated areas to reduce the risk of flooding downstream. We interviewed 16 local organisations, landowners and farmers and held workshops with 109 citizens living the Inner Forth estuary in eastern Scotland, to examine how managed realignment is supported by stakeholder attitudes and their engagement. Most of the farmers we interviewed prefer strengthened sea walls, to maintain their livelihoods and agricultural heritage. Citizens and local organisations were mainly supportive of managed realignment, because it provided wildlife and flood regulation benefits. However, we identified several barriers that could present obstacles to implementing managed realignment, for example, uncertainty whether it would support their principles of economic and rational decision-making. Our findings suggest that the local capacity to cope with rising sea levels is limited by lack of engagement with all relevant stakeholder groups, the limited scope of existing stakeholder partnerships and poor short-term funding prospects of landscape partnerships that would facilitate collaboration and discussion. We suggest that including citizens, landowners, farmers and industries would strengthen existing stakeholder deliberation and collaboration, and support the Inner Forth’s transition towards a more sustainable future shoreline.
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| 3. |
- Schoonover, Heather A., et al.
(author)
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Creating space, aligning motivations, and building trust: a practical framework for stakeholder engagement based on experience in 12 ecosystem services case studies
- 2019
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In: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 24:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Ecosystem services inherently involve people, whose values help define the benefits of nature's services. It is thus important for researchers to involve stakeholders in ecosystem services research. However, a simple and practicable framework to guide such engagement, and in particular to help researchers anticipate and consider key issues and challenges, has not been well explored. Here, we use experience from the 12 case studies in the European Operational Potential of Ecosystem Research Applications (OPERAs) project to propose a stakeholder engagement framework comprising three key elements: creating space, aligning motivations, and building trust. We argue that involving stakeholders in research demands thoughtful reflection from the researchers about what kind of space they want to create, including if and how they want to bring different interests together, how much space they want to allow for critical discussion, and whether there is a role for particular stakeholders to serve as conduits between others. In addition, understanding their own motivations—including values, knowledge, goals, and desired benefits—will help researchers decide when and how to involve stakeholders, identify areas of common ground and potential disagreement, frame the project appropriately, set expectations, and ensure each party is able to see benefits of engaging with each other. Finally, building relationships with stakeholders can be difficult but considering the roles of existing relationships, time, approach, reputation, and belonging can help build mutual trust. Although the three key elements and the paths between them can play out differently depending on the particular research project, we suggest that a research design that considers how to create the space in which researchers and stakeholders will meet, align motivations between researchers and stakeholders, and build mutual trust will help foster productive researcher–stakeholder relationships.
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