Understanding and Influencing
Behaviors in Conservation
and Natural Resources Management
Bruce A. Byers
African Biodiversity Series, No. 4
Biodiversity Support Program
A USAID-funded consortium of the World Wildlife Fund,
The Nature Conservancy, and the World Resources Institute
Table of Contents
Background
Why Emphasize Behavior?
Why Do Social Assessment and Research?
Why Emphasize Participation?
Values, Conservation, and SustainabilityII. The Process of Understanding and Influencing Behavior
Background
Models of the Process
A Synthetic Model
A Hierarchy of Means and Ends
Stages of the ProcessIII. Understanding Behaviors: Assessment and Research
Background
Assessing the Situation
Identifying Critical Behaviors
"Good" and "Bad" Behaviors?
Why Focus on Critical Behaviors?
Focusing on Specific Behaviors
Emphasizing the Positive
Behavioral Flexibility
Understanding the Key Factors That Influence Behaviors
Potentially Important Factors
Perceived Benefits and Barriers
Causal Webs or Wiring DiagramsIV. Methods and Tools for Social Assessment and Research
Background
Methods and Tools
Literature Review
Surveys and Questionnaires
Direct Behavioral Observation
Interviews
Focus Groups
Community Meetings
Maps and Transects
Calendars
Matrices and Contrastive Analysis
Matrices of Historical Trends
Venn Diagrams
Wealth Ranking
Prioritizing Techniques
Decision Trees and Flow Diagrams
Methodologies
Rapid Rural Appraisal
Participatory Rural Appraisal
Participatory Research
Participatory PlanningV. Toward A Synthesis of Process and Methods for Understanding Conservation Behaviors
Background
Tools for Assessing the Situation
Who and What?
Where?
When?
Trends?
Tools for Identifying Critical Behaviors
Focus on Specific Behaviors
Prioritize Based on the Impact of Behaviors on Sustainability
Understand the Feasibility of Influencing Relevant Behaviors
Tools for Understanding the Key Factors That Influence Behaviors
Potentially Important Factors
Perceived Benefits and Barriers
Causal Webs or Wiring DiagramsVI. Promoting Sustainable Behaviors: Planning and Implementation
Background
Influencing Values, Knowledge, and Social Norms
The Limits of "Information-Only" Environmental Education
Modern Environmental Education and Communication
Environmental Social Marketing
Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Approaches
Influencing Sociocultural Factors
Options and Alternatives
Skills
Influencing Economic Factors
Influencing Laws and Policies
Resolving DisputesVII. Evaluating and Improving the Process of Understanding and Influencing Behavior
Background
Using Evaluation Throughout the Process
Evaluation and Participation
Evaluation and Hypothesis-TestingTables
1. Values and Uses of Biodiversity and Natural Resources
2. Major Actors or Stakeholders in the Ranomafana National Park Area, Madagascar
Figures
1. The Behavioral Interface between Ecological and Social Systems
2. Cyclical Model of the Process of Understanding and Influencing Behavior
3. Hierarchical Model of the Process of Understanding and Influencing Behavior
5. Steps of the Assessment and Research Stage of a Process for Understanding Conservation Behaviors
6. Behavioral Flexibility for Coping with Social and Ecological Crises in a Senegalese Village
7. Diagram of Social System Components and Their Environmental Linkages
8. Resources Map from a Household in Nepal
9. Matrices of Historical Trends in Natural Resources and Land Use
10. Natural Resources Management Activities by Gender, Okambuga, Namibia
11. Matrix of User Groups and Natural Resource Uses, Koundou Watershed, Fouta Djallon, Guinea
12. Resources Map from Zambrana, Dominican Republic, Showing Control, Responsibility, and Labor by Gender
13. Transect from Kiboum, Cameroon, Showing Natural Resources and Land Uses
14. A Seasonal Calendar from Mbusyani, Kenya
15. Historical Trends in Natural Resources and Land Use from Okambuga Village, Namibia
16. Historical Matrix of Resources and Land Use from Ndam Mor Fademba, Senegal
17. Uses and Importance of Trees in Omuthiya Village, Namibia
18. Pairwise Ranking Matrix of Behavioral Threats to Sustainability in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar
19. Resource Management Decision Matrix from Ndam Mor Fademba, Senegal
20. Decision Tree for Identifying Factors That Influence Behaviors and Selecting Strategies to Affect Those Factors
22. Venn Diagram Showing Village Social Institutions and Their Relationship to Institutions at Larger Scales from Ndam Mor Fademba, Senegal
23. Matrix of Natural Resources Conflicts form Senegal
Boxes
1. Conservation and Development in Madagascar: A Generalized Vignette
2. Conserving Seabirds in Quebec
3. Conserving the Golden Lion Tamarin in Brazil
4. World Bank Social Assessments
5. Understanding Behaviors: Examples form the Health Sector
6. Benefits and Barriers in Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE Program
7. Examples of Survey Questions
8. Tanzania National Parks/African Wildlife Foundation Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Survey
9. Observing and Understanding Ngoni Hunting
10. Community Extension and Outreach in the Tanzania National Parks
12. Participatory Park Planning in Tanzania
14. The USAID Environmental Education and Communication (GreenCOM) Project
I . Introduction
“To adopt the ethic for living sustainably, people must re-examine their values and alter their behavior.” IUCN, Caring for the Earth, 1991
Background
This chapter will set the stage for the chapters that follow by introducing some key themes. First, we explain why we have chosen to emphasize behavior - the decisions, practices, and actions of people, both as individuals and in groups. We then discuss why social assessment and research is necessary to understand the social context of behaviors and to overcome the biases and test the assumptions of conservation practitioners. Next, we consider participation and explain why it is essential for understanding and influencing conservation behavior. Finally, we discuss the values that underlie and motivate conservation and natural resources management. For reasons explained in the sec-tion on values, we view “conservation” and “sustainable natural resources management” as the same thing; those terms will be used interchangeably throughout this report.
Why Emaphasize Behavior?
People interact with their environment through their behavior. We will use the word “behavior” in this report to refer to the decisions, practices, and actions of people, both as individuals and in groups. The behavior of individuals and social groups forms the interface between ecological systems and social systems; behavior mediates the interaction between these two types of systems (Fig. 1). The constellations of behaviors we call natural resources management, conservation, integrated conservation and development, and human ecology occur at this interface between ecosystems and social systems.
This behavioral interface is “where the rubber meets the road” - an analogy that is perhaps more apt for developed countries than developing ones. Behavior is where the axe meetsthe tree; the hoe meets the soil; a tree is planted; a wild plant is gathered for traditional medicine; industrial chemicals are dumped into a stream; goats are grazed on desert grasses; a sacred grove is protected from commercial loggers. All such behaviors can be thought of as adaptations or responses to the social and ecological environment. Because they are the interface between social systems and ecosystems, behaviors can provide “windows” into those systems.
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Figure 1. The Behavioral Interface between Ecological and Social Systems
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Many behaviors affect natural resources. Individuals at all levels - from subsistence farmers to park wardens, project managers, and presidents - make decisions and engage in practices that affect natural resources. At Lake Nakuru, Kenya, some people grow living thorn fences to prevent wildlife from damaging gardens. At the Bwindi/Impenetrable Forest, Uganda, some people refrain from cutting trees in the forest preserve. In Ghana, some communities maintain sacred groves. On Mafia Island, Tanzania, some fishermen harvest fish and shellfish at unsustainable rates. In Kasungu National Park, Malawi, some local people harvest nontimber forest products such as edible caterpillars and honey. In Gabon, some commercial hunters supplying the “bushmeat” trade are killing wild animals at unsustainable rates. In Nigeria, some farmers have increased the length of fallow periods. In Madagascar, some communities maintain traditional taboos against killing lemurs. And in Zambia, some people plant millet and sorghum instead of maize to reduce crop damage from wildlife. Similar examples occur throughout Africa. Growing irrigated crops, grazing livestock, clearing forests for cultivation, making charcoal for sale, deferring to traditional leaders in land-use decisions, guiding wildlife tourists, maintaining ancestral graves, and avoiding certain areas because of taboos, all affect natural resources in a complex mix of positive and negative ways.
Some behaviors deplete natural resources or degrade the environment. These behaviors create economic or social problems, or constraints, for one or more groups of people alive today or for future generations. Other behaviors use natural resources sustainably, without degrading or depleting them. Promoting sustainable natural resources management requires efforts to maintain certain behaviors and change others.
We make a fundamental assumption in this report: that the decisions, actions, and practices made at all levels (local, national, and international) are made by people acting in ways that they perceive to be in their own best interest, given their background, values, and situation. Outsiders - actors from national or international levels - should assume that local people who use and manage resources directly are making what they perceive to be the best choices they can, given their options. The assumption should be, unless there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary, that local management practices are often sustainable and ecologically wise, and if they are not it may be because the choices available to local people are constrained by factors outside their control.
Why Do Social Assessment And Research?
People involved in promoting conservation and sustainable natural resources management are increasingly recognizing the pivotal role of human and social factors in their work. Until quite recently most of these people were preoccupied with ecological concerns. Many were trained in ecology, wildlife biology, forestry, agriculture, or fisheries. The recognition that natural resources management involves managing people’s behavior toward natural resources, at least in part, has sometimes given rise to considerable confusion and apprehension among those practitioners.
Why do social assessment and research? One reason is to learn about, understand, and conceptualize the social system - the context in which conservation behaviors happen. To promote ecologically sustainable behaviors and discourage unsustainable ones, conservationists must first understand what is really going on. Understanding the social context of behavior is necessary to overcome biases and test assumptions. It is needed to design activities that are socially, as well as ecologically, sustainable. In this report we will use the word “assessment” to mean all aspects of the research, investigation, analysis, or appraisal stage of the process that is needed to develop an understanding of the social and ecological context of environmental behaviors as well as of the factors that motivate and determine those behaviors.
Social assessment provides the methods and tools for working with people and understanding the context of their decisions, practices, and actions. It may help conservation practitioners move beyond their biases and assumptions to figure out why people do what they do vis-a-vis the environment and how specific behaviors fit into their broader livelihood strategies. Natural resource managers would not think of taking steps to influence and manage plant and animal populations without doing some research to understand the ecosystem first. Such research is needed to test hypotheses that underlie management actions and to allow prediction of the results of those actions. Actions taken to influence people’s behavior likewise must be grounded in an understanding of the social and ecological context in which they occur. Developing that understanding requires social assessment.
Human behavior is extremely complex. Behaviors that affect the sustainability of natural resources may involve many actors and actions, and take place over long time periods. So many social factors are usually involved that it is hard for either communities or outsiders to know how to begin to solve problems and work toward sustainability. Given this complexity, it is often difficult to know exactly which behaviors should be targeted for maintenance or change, and what to do to affect those behaviors. Too often activities are designed based on untested assumptions about the social situation and people’s behavioral motivations. This lack of understanding of what is really going on is a sure recipe for failure. Social assessment is needed before beginning activities, projects, or programs; it is also needed for monitoring progress toward objectives and evaluating results.
Some scholars and practitioners express the view that only trained social scientists can, or should, do the social assessment needed to plan, implement, and evaluate conservation activities. But many practitioners and communities lack the resources to hire trained social scientists to provide the social information they need. No one disputes the fact that conservationists and natural resource managers need to be familiar with the basic concepts and methods of ecology to do their job, and it is seldom argued that they have to be professional ecologists.
Nonprofessionals trained in some basic ecological methods have been very effective in the conservation field. "Parataxonomists" are one example. We believe that, in a parallel way, conservation practioners and natural resources managers need a basic level of social literacy, and they can benefit from learning some basic methods and tools of social assessment. They could also benefit, of course, from advice from trained social scientists, especially at critical points in the process. in a parallel way, parataxonomists must depend on help from professional taxonomists to back them up in identifying species that they cannot, with their limited training, identify by themselves.
Finally, a caution and a note of humility. Social and ecological systems are both exceedingly complex, and not even the best social and ecological research - whether carried out by professionals or practitioners - can provide sufficient knowledge to fully understand and predict the dynamics of either system or their interaction. We must always be ready to question previously held assumptions and test new hypotheses about how to foster sustainable environmental behaviors.
Why Emphasize Participation?
"Properly mandated, empowered and informed, communities can contribute to decisions that affect them and play an indispensible part in creating a securely-based sustainable society." IUCN, Caring for the Earth 1991
Sustainable natural resources management requires integrating the values and interests of a range of actors and stakeholders from all levels - local, national, and international. In this report we will use the term "stakeholders" to refer to individuals or groups with an interest in the use and management of the natural resources base in a particular place, area, or region (Brown and Wyckoff-Baird, 1992; IIED, 1994). Integrating the values and interests of the diverse actors and stakeholders requires participation from all levels. Poor, rural people often have the most direct interest in the local natural resources base, however, and they are often the most politically and economically marginalized of any stakeholder group, so their active participation is especially important. Local people often have:
- rights to local natural resources
- indigenous, local knowledge about how to manage local natural resources sustainably
- the power to implement and sustain natural resources management activities over the long term
In rural Africa people depend heavily on natural resources for their livelihoods. For those people, sustainable use of natural resources and human well-being are inextricably linked. Local residents often have a tremendous wealth of indigenous knowledge about the natural resources in their environment and about how to manage them sustainably (Biodiversity Support Program, 1993; Davis, 1993a, 1993b; Davis and Ebbe, 1994; Oldfield and Alcorn, 1991; Freudenberger & Gueye, 1990). But rural people also may be poor, sometimes to the point of mere subsistence, and may have few options for coping with the challenges of making a living. Through loss of access to resources they otherwise could use, they often pay most of the costs of conservation. Meanwhile, the majority of benefits from using natural resources, in the form of revenue from logging, wildlife tourism, or hunting, often go to distant urban elites. For conservation to succeed and natural resource use to be sustainable, local people must benefit somehow.
“Participation” is not a simple, unitary concept, but rather a continuum from “passive” to “active.” Activities and programs that have been called participatory span a wide range, from local people giving information to outsiders to help them design projects - a very passive form of participation, if it deserves to be called that - to more and more active forms such as co-management of externally-initiated projects or community-initiated “self-mobilization” (Brown and Wyckoff-Baird, 1992; IIED, 1994).
To some people, discussions about understand-ing and influencing behavior sound sinister. The assumption seems to be that it is the behavior of local people that is to be manipulated by outsiders, in a top-down, nonparticipatory fash-ion, to serve the interests of distant elites. Per-haps it is a common assumption because it has happened so often in the past. Nathaniel Chumo, of the Government of Kenya’s National Envi-ronment Secretariat, for example, wondered whether an approach that emphasized behav-ior was designed “to serve the interests of local communities, or to serve the interests of project managers and rich-country conservationists.”
The process and methods described in this re-port should be useful to practitioners seeking to foster conservation and sustainable natural resources management by helping them initiate a participatory problem-solving process that can clarify the values and interests of all stakehold-ers. It should serve the interests of all stake-holders in solving conservation problems, not solely the interests of one or another stakeholder group. The importance of trust and rapport to the success of such a process cannot be empha-sized enough. Long-term commitment; pa-tience; and honest, open communication are all key ingredients in building trust and rapport.
Values, Conservation, And Sustainabilty
“Values are revealed in behavior.” Miller, Shinn, and Bentley, 1994
Humans have always depended on biological resources to provide them with life’s necessities and amenities: food, fuel, shelter, medicine, recreation, spiritual instruction, solace, and aesthetic pleasure. People make decisions about how to use the natural resources in their environment in the context of their values. Each community and culture has its own array of values.
Values “are elusive, abstract descriptions of what we think is important” (Miller, Shinn, and Bentley, 1994). People’s actions and choices give reality to these abstract constructs. “Our choices reflect what our values are and what order of importance we give them... We reveal our true values in the choices we make and the actions we take” (Miller, Shinn, and Bentley, 1994).
The range of potential values and uses of biodiversity and natural resources can be depicted as shown in Table 1. The distinction is often made between the use or instrumental value of nonhuman species and ecosystems and their intrinsic value - value independent of any use value they may have to people (Fox, 1990). This dichotomy is certainly the major ethical watershed in thinking about the value of non-human species and ecosystems.
Table 1. Values and Uses of Biodiversity and Natural ResourcesInstrumental or Use Value - Nonhuman species and ecosystems have value because of their usefulness to humans.
Intrinsic Value - Nonhuman species and ecosystems have value independent of any value to humans |
Within the category of use value, a dichotomy exists between the values of use now and the values of future use. The value of future use is sometimes called “option value,” as in “keeping options open” for the present generation at some future time, as well as for future generations (McNeely, et al., 1990). Keeping open for the future the same options for using natural resources that we have had is only fair, it has been argued. This has been called the principle of fairness to future generations. Option value applies to all uses of natural resources that we may value now, both direct and indirect material uses as well as nonmaterial ones. Scientific and technological uncertainty makes impossible or greatly complicates the valuation of future use in most cases. Unless we can predict the future with certainty, we can only guess what biodiversity resources we may need to meet future needs.
Use values, whether present or future, can be of two basic kinds: material uses and values and nonmaterial uses and values. Material uses of biotic resources include direct uses, such as for food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. These direct material uses can meet basic needs and supply amenities that go beyond subsistence needs. Material uses can also be indirect, providing such ecosystem or life-support services as the cycling of water, atmospheric gases, and essential nutrients; the control of pests and pathogens; and the degradation of wastes and pollution. Scientific uncertainty makes impossible or greatly complicates the valuation of indirect material uses; for example, we do not know, in many cases, what species may contribute to pest and pathogen control.
The nonmaterial values of biodiversity and natural resources derive from their many religious, spiritual, aesthetic, scientific, educational, recreational, and cultural uses (Fox, 1990). Given the diversity and importance of these nonmaterial uses, it is surprising that many people, including some conservationists and natural resources managers, sometimes hardly think of them as uses at all. Some of these non-material uses may fill human needs and may not be merely amenities; humans may require or need exposure to wild nature for psychological health, for example. “Existence” value is best thought of as a kind of nonmaterial psychological or emotional use; people “find satisfaction in knowing that the oceans hold whales, the Himalayas have snow leopards, and the Serengeti has antelope” (McNeely, et al., 1990). These nonmaterial values and uses play important roles in many African societies (Omari, 1990).
Many kinds of uses, whether material or non-material, can be economic, in that people are willing to pay for them, or they can otherwise provide direct monetary and economic benefits.
Table 1 shows clearly that a simplistic dichotomy between use and conservation (or preservation, for that matter) of natural resources is a misconception. Even strict nature preserves, closed to all or most human entry, can produce many diverse benefits and values and be used in the true sense of the word. We may preserve wild, natural habitats to protect their indirect material uses, such as the ecosystem services they provide in the form of clean water from watersheds, for example. Or we may preserve them for their nonmaterial uses and values of many kinds, such as aesthetic, scientific, educational, or recreational.
According to the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN, 1980), conservation is “The management of human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest sustainable benefit to present generations while maintaining its potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations. Thus, conservation is positive, embracing preservation, maintenance, sustainable utilization, restoration, and enhancement of the natural environment.” Conservation is use, of many kinds, but sustainable use; the same is true for preservation. This is the reason we use the terms “conservation” and “sustainable natural resources management” interchangeably in this report.
The critical distinction is thus not between “use” and “nonuse,” but between sustainable and unsustainable uses of diverse kinds - whether direct material, indirect material, or nonmaterial. Unsustainable uses can be recognized because they cause ecological changes that occur faster than natural background rates of change or replenishment - in other words, they cause depletion or degradation of the resource being used. This report is fundamentally grounded in the view that the sustainability of the natural resource base is a value that should be supported.
If forced to choose among the values and uses shown in Table 1, some priorities are obvious. People have to eat, and if they must choose between starving and killing the last member of an endangered species for food, it is likely that they will choose to eat. In making choices, people generally - but not absolutely by any means - give priority to basic, direct material needs; then to direct material wants and amenities; then perhaps they consider some indirect material values, if they understand them; then nonmaterial values; then future use values. Finally, perhaps, they consider the intrinsic value of nonhuman species and ecosystems. Thus, Table 1 is organized in a rough hierarchy, with basic subsistence values and uses at the top, and intrinsic value at the bottom. An old man in Zimbabwe expressed something important about this relativity of values when he said: “When we are hungry, elephants are food. When we are full, elephants are beautiful” (Ricciuti, 1993).
Considerations related to time also influence people’s choices within this hierarchy. Immediate needs, like eating today, take precedence over future needs, like eating next year. People often discount the future, and if faced with a choice between getting something now or later, they will often choose to get it now. When resources are scarce, conservation may be a low priority for people who depend on them. People may even act in ways that they know or suspect will harm the resource base and make life harder for them in the long term. If people are to use natural resources sustainably - to conserve them so they can continue to meet the needs and wants of the future - they must have realistic choices. They must not, for example, be faced with a choice between feeding their children or degrading the environment.
In contrast to valuing present over future use, however, many traditional societies place a high value on minimizing risks, and in some cases this motivates sustainable practices. Such risk-averse cultures make decisions less on the basis of short-term material values than do more consumption-oriented societies; in some sense they discount the future less than more materialistic, “developed” societies (Mace, 1993; Mwangi and Perrings, 1993). Ruth Mace (1993) shows, for example, that among a pastoral group in northern Kenya, people “forego short-term gain in favour of long-term household survival.”
Landscapes and seascapes are mosaics of different human uses. Some areas can be managed for multiple uses, but some uses are mutually exclusive. Fishing may be incompatible with scientific research on fish populations in a certain lake, for example. Or logging in a forest may be incompatible with maintaining its function as a watershed.
Societies and communities are not homogeneous. They are made up of people with diverse values and different interests in using natural resources. This community heterogeneity presents challenges for natural resource management and conservation. The fact that some values and uses are mutually exclusive leads - naturally - to natural resources management controversies and conflicts. Behaviors that benefit some people in the community may hurt other people, the community as a whole, or future generations.
The ethical dilemmas of conservation are often complicated. People alive today (including local, national, and international actors), future generations of humans, and nonhuman species all have an interest or a stake in conservation and natural resources management. Given sometimes mutually exclusive options and high levels of scientific uncertainty, the ethical questions are not simple and cannot be simplified. Successful conservation requires integrating the values and interests of a range of human stakeholders and actors - not to mention the nonhuman stakeholders. These people vary widely in political and economic power, options, and level of interest in a place and its resources. Human stakeholders in African conservation range, for example, from rural Africans whose crops are routinely damaged by elephants to urban Europeans and North Americans who are entertained and inspired by elephants, which most of them experience only indirectly on television or in zoos. The fact that there are multiple interests and stakeholders in conservation and that they range from local people to distant outsiders cannot be ignored; it is a fact that must be dealt with.
Conservation practitioners - people who work to foster and promote sustainable natural resources management - must recognize that they themselves are, or represent, one group of stakeholders and actors. They are not neutral third parties, and they should be clear about the values they hold and bring to their work. In many cases, practitioners working for international conservation organizations based in developed countries emphasize values different from those of the local people. They often emphasize non-material uses such as scientific, educational, recreational, and existence uses, or even intrinsic value, rather than the direct material values and uses that are often the priorities of local residents. Such differences can easily become a source of misunderstanding and even conflict unless clearly articulated.
Management of human uses of the environment in a way that simultaneously meets the needs and aspirations of people alive today, that safe-guards options for future generations of humans, and that protects nonhuman species from extinction and ecosystems from destruction is an ideal to work toward. Given the diversity of competing values and uses and the high level of scientific uncertainty about biodiversity and the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that maintain it, balancing all of these values and uses is probably an impossible dream. In some cases it may be necessary to constrain the needs and aspirations of people alive now - at local, national, or international levels - to safe-guard the rights and options of future generations or to prevent the extinction of nonhuman species. For nonhuman species, “extinction is forever.” When a species becomes extinct not only is its intrinsic value lost, but all of its fu-ture uses and option values are lost too.
II. The Process of Understanding and Influencing Behavior
“A sustainable planet is not possible without patterns of conserving behavior. Never before have so many behaviors needed to change in so short a time.” De Young, 1993
Background
We learned several things during our desk research, interviews, and field work that, taken together, lead us to conclude that a conceptual model of the process of understanding and influencing behavior could help people trying to foster sustainable natural resources management in the field. We found that activities undertaken to foster conservation:
- often have broad, vague goals and need focusing strategies to help identify clear goals and objectives
- are often based on minimal social assessment and therefore often begin with minimal, partial, or biased social information
- are not often based on participatory research, or participatory planning their planners and implementers, either about what behaviors are ecologically sustainable or what social factors motivate those behaviors
- are not often evaluated for effectiveness
A hypothetical illustration of some of the prob-lems often encountered in the field is given in Box 1.
We also learned that although there are many methods and tools for gathering social information, these are not sufficient by themselves. Information-gathering methods alone do not provide a conceptual framework for setting goals and objectives, designing and implementing activities, and evaluating the effectiveness of those activities.
Conceptual models can help organize and guide the initial assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation of activities that aim to foster conservation and sustainable natural resources management. In this chapter we will examine some models of the process of understanding and influencing behavior that have been developed and used in conservation and natural resources management, agricultural extension, and health promotion. We will then present our own version of a process model that incorporates elements from several other models.
Understanding and influencing natural resources management behaviors may not often, in practice, be a smooth linear progression as suggested by stepwise models. But thinking of the process as a series of steps can help practitioners and the communities in which they work to “conceptualize a complex process that is not necessarily linear in nature” (Dietz and Nagagata, 1995). Any model should be used in a flexible and iterative way. There is no single right way to carry out the process of understanding and influencing environmental behaviors.
Box 1. Conservation and Development in Madagascar: A Generalized VignetteIn the area around a large nature reserve, an area exceptionally rich in species and diverse habitats, an international conservation organization developed an integrated conservation and development project (ICDP). Project managers in this hypothetical ICDP wanted people from poor villages in the buffer zone of a nature reserve to stop grazing cattle in the reserve, cutting trees for charcoal production, and practicing slash-and-burn cultivation of cassava in the area’s forests. They assumed that economic motivations were primary, and therefore tried to develop alternative sources of food and income as substitutes for what they believed to be unsustainable practices. Project activities focused on increasing irrigated rice production in the buffer zone and improving roads to make transportation to local markets easier. An environmental education campaign was also carried out. These interventions had some success, but also a number of puzzling and disturbing failures. The environmental education campaign was clearly successful; everyone, even young children, could explain the value of forests in watershed protection and irrigation. Because of better water management, rice production had increased. And using the improved road, the villagers were transporting more rice than ever before to local markets. But the evaluation also showed a number of failures. Even more cattle than before were grazing in the reserve’s forests. Forests in the buffer zone, and even inside the reserve, continued to be cleared for maize and cassava cultivation and cut for charcoal-making. What went wrong? It turned out that the villagers mostly eat maize and cassava and that rice is primarily a cash crop. As a result, increased rice production did not mean more food to eat but more income. That money was spent mostly by wealthier villagers to buy more cattle, which then grazed in the reserve’s forests. The increased number of cattle did not translate into better diets. The village usually reserved cattle for sacrificing at funerals, when they kill large numbers to honor the dead and use their horns to decorate tombs. In addition to buying more cattle for funerary sacrifices, the income from the increased rice production also allowed the village’s wealthier farmers to hire poorer farmers, or outsiders from the lowlands, to clear and burn fields on the edge of and even within the reserve. The project’s designers had assumed that economic rationality was the primary basis for decision making about natural resources, but they failed to understand how complex even economic values can be. They mistakenly assumed that increasing rice production and income from rice sales in local markets would substitute for benefits from environmentally destructive practices such as charcoal making and slash-and-burn cultivation of cassava in the reserve. They also ignored or minimized some very deep sociocultural values that act as powerful determinants of behavior in this case. Finally, they did not adequately consider the implications of the socioeconomic diversity of the community with which they worked. Fortunately, this is not a true story. It is hypothetical but true-to-life, a composite drawn largely from the real experiences of several integrated conservation and development projects in Madagascar. The vignette illustrates the problems that can arise if project activities are designed and implemented based on untested assumptions, without adequate social assessment and research to understand the factors that motivate behaviors. Source: Adapted from Grimm and Byers, 1994. |
Practitioners will need to adapt the model to fit each unique situation.
Models Of The Process
Models of the process used to plan, implement, and evaluate activities for influencing conservation behaviors have been developed by a number of practitioners (Dietz and Nagagata, 1995; Jacobson, 1991; Pomerantz and Blanchard, 1992; Wood and Wood, 1990). These models have many elements in common: most include an initial assessment, research, or problem-definition stage; a design or planning stage; an implementation stage; and monitoring and evaluation components. Some practitioners call this process the project cycle. One such model, shown in Figure 2, was developed by Gerri Pomerantz and Kathleen Blanchard based on an exhaustive literature search for examples of the use of environmental education to achieve wildlife management objectives. From six case studies of conservation education programs whose success could be demonstrated by evaluation, Pomerantz and Blanchard identified some common “working features of effective communication and education programs.” These features were then incorporated into the stepwise “conceptual framework for wildlife education” shown in the figure (Pomerantz, 1992; Pomerantz and Blanchard, 1992).
Figure 2. Cyclical Model of the Process of Understanding and Influencing Behavior |
Box 2 describes a process - like that shown in Figure 2 - that was used successfully to influence behaviors affecting seabird conservation in Quebec, Canada.
Box 2. Conserving Seabirds in QuebecThe Quebec Marine Bird Conservation Project is an example of a successful process for understanding and influencing behavior to promote conservation goals (Blanchard, 1987; Blanchard and Monroe, 1990). The project was started by the Quebec-Labrador Foundation in 1978, with the support of the Canadian Wildlife Service, to respond to dramatic declines among nesting seabirds on the North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence between 1955 and 1978. A central goal of the project was explicitly behavioral: to reduce the illegal harvest of seabirds and their eggs by people from local communities. Some of the project’s other objectives, such as to “encourage the development of a conservation ethic,” and “teach practical seabird biology,” were not described in explicitly behavioral terms. Initial social assessment and research provided background for planning project activities that were “sensitive to the culture and conditions of the coast.” Several social research methods, especially an oral survey administered during individual interviews with 140 heads-of-households, provided this background information. The survey revealed several kinds of factors underlying the harvesting of seabirds and their eggs. It revealed a lack of knowledge of laws protecting seabirds. It also showed that social norms were a barrier to changing the behavior: harvesting seabirds and their eggs was considered acceptable by most residents, and most residents had little respect for laws protecting birds. Eating seabirds and their eggs was a cultural tradition: before the 1960s, when imported food became more widely available on the Quebec North Shore, a direct economic benefit - the use of birds for food in the “semi-subsistence” economy of the area - motivated the practice. Today cultural and recreational factors, rather than economic needs, largely motivate the behavior. A variety of activities designed to influence the factors that motivate seabird and egg harvesting were carried out. Most of those activities aimed to change awareness, knowledge, values, attitudes, and social norms through education, communication, and outreach - a logical strategy, given the kinds of factors found to motivate the behavior during the assessment and research stage of the process. Project activities tended to be highly participatory and very much oriented toward building trust and support in the local communities (Blanchard, 1987; Blanchard and Monroe, 1990). The Marine Bird Conservation Project incorporated an evaluation dimension that provides an excellent demonstration of the effectiveness of the project. A follow-up survey of heads-of-households was conducted in 1988, six years after the initial survey in 1981-82. The 1988 survey showed several “significant changes in local knowledge of wildlife law, attitudes toward hunting and regulations, and level of harvest of birds and eggs” (Blanchard and Monroe,1990). Although it is only an indirect measure of behavior, the mean response to the question “What percent of families in your village harvest seabirds and eggs?” dropped significantly from about 76 percent in 1981 to 48 percent in 1988, for example. Recent seabird censuses show that population declines have been halted and populations of some species have started to increase in the area. |
Box 3 describes the work of the Golden Lion Tamarin Project in Brazil, which also followed a model like that shown in Figure 2.
Box 3. Conserving the Golden Lion Tamarin in BrazilThe Golden Lion Tamarin Project, which aims to conserve this Brazilian monkey and its habitat, is another example of a successful process for understanding and influencing conservation behavior (Dietz and Nagagata, 1995; Nagagata, 1994). Goals of the project were to slow or stop the destruction of the lowland Atlantic Forest habitat of the golden lion tamarin and to stop the hunting of tamarins and their capture for the pet trade. The assessment and research stage of this project consisted of informal interviews with local community leaders and use of a questionnaire-based survey of knowledge and opinion. This research provided information about some of the relevant determinants of behavior. Lack of knowledge of the monkey and its habitat requirements was clearly a barrier to stopping the destruction of the forests in which the golden lion tamarin lives, and to convincing private landowners to register their remaining forest as permanent conservation reserves. For example, 41 percent of adults surveyed could not recognize a golden lion tamarin from photographs. Most did not even know that a local forest reserve existed and most did not attribute the decline in local wildlife populations to habitat destruction (Dietz and Nagagata, 1995). Social norms and economic factors also seem to influence behaviors that affect the monkey and its habitat (Archie, Mann, and Smith, 1993). Project activities were mainly of an educational nature, designed to influence awareness and knowledge, attitudes, and values. As in the Quebec Marine Bird Conservation example (Box 2), an educational strategy makes sense in this case, given that assessment and research showed that lack of awareness and knowledge were important factors influencing relevant behaviors. As in the Quebec example, the project worked patiently to develop a constructive relationship with local community leaders and to involve the community in the planning and implementation of activities. Evaluation has demonstrated the project’s effectiveness (Dietz and Nagagata, 1995; Nagagata, 1994). The results of a follow-up survey in 1986 were compared with the results of the initial survey in 1984; the comparison indicated significant changes in knowledge and attitudes of local Brazilian adults and students. Since no other activities or media events occurred in the area, “... these changes can be attributed to two years of this project’s activities” (Dietz and Nagagata, 1995). |
Another useful conceptual model was developed in 1976 by Claude Bennett of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension Service (Bennett, 1976) (Fig. 3). Bennett’s model is based on a hierarchy, or “chain of events in extension programs,” that links inputs of resources with “social, economic, and environmental conditions (SEEC)” - the outcomes of activities, projects, and programs. Behavior - called “practices” in Figure 3 - plays a central role in this linkage. The model provides an integrated way of looking at program planning, implementation, and evaluation: “A strength of the hierarchy is that it helps integrate extension program development with process and impact evaluation... programmers use the same concepts in program development and evaluation. That is, the model’s concepts guide need and opportunity assessments as well as program design as programs are developed.... And, these same concepts guide process and impact evaluations of program performance” (Bennett and Rockwell, 1995). Bennett’s model has been adapted for use in environmental education (Steelquist, 1993), and it continues to be refined for use in agricultural extension (Bennett and Rockwell, 1995).
Figure 3. Hierarchical Model of the Process of Understanding and Influencing Behavior (Rockwell and Bennett, 2000) |
The USAID Africa Bureau uses a conceptual model - the “Natural Resources Management Analytical Framework” - in the design, implementation, and evaluation of activities, projects, and programs in Africa. As in the hierarchical model developed by Bennett (Bennett and Rockwell, 1995; Bennett, 1976; Steelquist, 1993), behavior occupies a central position in this USAID framework (USAID 1992, 1993a; Weber, 1992).
Models of behavior-centered program planning have also been developed by education, communication, and social marketing practitioners working in other development sectors (USAID, 1993b; Graeff, Elder, and Booth, 1993; Smith and Middlestadt, 1993; Fishbein and Middlestadt, 1987, 1989). They have been used to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs to prevent HIV infection (Smith, et al., 1993), to influence child survival practices (Graeff, Elder, and Booth, 1993; Seidel, 1993), to promote the use of oral rehydration therapy and increase immunization rates (USAID, 1993b), and to promote better agricultural practices (Mata, 1992).
A Synthetic Model
The process model illustrated in Figure 4 is adapted from the models just discussed and explicitly emphasizes the role of behavior in conservation and natural resources management. The model combines the stages of the process of understanding and influencing behaviors (sometimes called the project cycle) like those shown in Figure 2 (Pomerantz and Blanchard, 1992) with a six-level conceptual hierarchy, adapted from that shown in Figure 3 (Bennett and Rockwell, 1995).
The levels of the hierarchy shown in Figure 4 represent a chain of cause and effect, with lower levels somehow influencing or causing changes at higher levels. The levels also represent a chain of means and ends. At the bottom of the hierarchy, resources and activities are means that can be used to achieve certain ends - the behaviors and social and environmental conditions at the upper levels of the hierarchy. These ends are the goals or desired outcomes of the process, and they reflect the values of the stakeholders involved, especially those contributing resources to the process. The hierarchy is thus a conceptual tool for thinking about and link-ing inputs and goals - means and ends - in a programmatic sense.
This process model should not be interpreted in a rigid, linear, or simplistic way. It is only a tool to help conservation practitioners and communities conceptualize their situation and discover or invent solutions for themselves. As Bennett and Rockwell (1995) say: “Like all models, the hierarchy oversimplifies reality. Simplification is necessary to provide a user-friendly model for viewing programming. The actual sequence of events in programming does not always proceed in accordance with the model.”
Conceptual models like that shown in Figure 4 can guide and integrate the process of understanding and influencing behaviors in conservation. Such a process can be used in the design of new activities, projects, and programs. It can also be adapted and used to enhance or improve ongoing activities. For example, the assessment and planning stages of programs already under way can be evaluated retrospectively, and any problems found can be corrected to improve implementation. The implementation process itself can be evaluated and improved, and outcomes or impacts evaluated.
Figure 4. Synthetic Model That Combines and Ends with a Process for Assessing, Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating Activities |
A Hierarchy of Means and Ends
Although the model presented in Figure 4 is synthetic, combining the stages of a process or project cycle with a causal means-ends hierarchy, it is the hierarchy that provides the logical framework for any activity, project, or program. This hierarchy will therefore be discussed first, and in the next section the stages of the process of linking means and ends in a programmatic sense will be presented. The six levels of the means-ends hierarchy shown in Figure 4 are discussed briefly below:
Social and Ecological Conditions
This level is concerned with the social and ecological situation in a particular place vis-a-vis sustainability. Is the situation socially and ecologically sustainable? Do human decisions, practices, and actions successfully integrate conservation and development in this situation - that is, are resources used in such a way that they support the well-being of people now without being degraded or depleted, so that future generations will have the same options for supporting their well-being? What are the environmental problems? What are the opportunities?
It should be reiterated here that this report is fundamentally grounded in the view that the sustainability of the natural resource base is a value that should be supported. With this perspective, achieving social and environmental sustainability is the goal of conservation and natural resources management.
Behaviors
This level is concerned with the behavioral interface between social and ecological systems - with the decisions, practices, and actions of both individuals and organizations that mediate between the ecosystem and society (see Fig. 1). What are people doing here that affects social and environmental sustainability? What are they doing that is ecologically sound and sustainable? What are they doing that is leading to depletion or degradation of biodiversity and other natural resources? Which behaviors are the biggest threat or problem? Which have the most potential to provide for human well-being sustainably?
Factors
This level is concerned with the social and ecological factors that determine, motivate, or influence the behaviors at the next level of the hierarchy. What do the actors themselves perceive as the benefits of, or barriers to, their behaviors. Are these factors internal and psychological or external, structural, and systemic? Are they conscious or unconscious? How important, relatively, are various determinants of behaviors, such as knowledge, values, social norms, sociocultural factors, options, skills, economics, laws or policies?
Actors
This level is concerned with the people who can control or influence the factors at the next level. These actors are those who will be the participants in, and audience for, activities that aim to foster conservation and sustainable natural resources management. These are people who have the power to change or maintain the mix of benefits and barriers that motivate given behaviors - who can influence the factors that influence the behaviors that influence the ecological and social conditions. They may or may not be the ones actually doing the behaviors that affect environmental and social sustainability. For example, actors at this level could be legislators in the national parliament who have the power to pass laws giving local communities the right to own and manage wildlife or forests in their area, or they could be local people chopping the trees or hunting animals. It all depends on the situation.
Activities
This level is concerned with what programs and projects do with and for the actors in order to influence factors at the next higher level. Do they pay these actors? Fine them or put them in jail? Teach them new skills? Give them new information? Build a road, a clinic, a dam, or a school? These activities can be thought of as transactions or exchanges between one group of stakeholders (represented by the project or program) and the actors (who can influence the factors that influence the behaviors that influence the conditions). People behave in ways that they perceive will be in their best interest. Thinking of activities aimed at influencing people’s behavior as a transaction or exchange is a way of respecting those people while still trying to influence what they do. Transactions or exchanges aim at mutually beneficial, win-win solutions, in which all of the stakeholders get something they want. Although this ideal is not always attained, it often is possible, especially if creative thought is given to possible transactions.
Resources
This level is concerned with the inputs required to make activities happen. Resources - often money, but also such things as staff time, information, and other indirect inputs - are the fundamental means used by one group of stakeholders to promote ends that they value. In the cases with which we are concerned, a group or groups of stakeholders who value ecological and social sustainability, conservation, and sustainable natural resources management provide the resources and inputs for activities.
Stages of the Process
As depicted in Figure 4, the process of linking means and ends in a practical, programmatic sense can be described as the stages of a project cycle - assessment and research, planning, implementation, and evaluation and improvement. Each of these stages is discussed briefly below. A more detailed discussion of each stage is presented in later chapters.
Assessment and Research: Toward Understanding Behaviors
The assessment stage begins by assessing the social and ecological conditions in a place - the top level of the conceptual hierarchy. This is the level of ultimate interest and concern to conservationists and natural resources managers. Working downward in the hierarchy, the assessment stage develops an understanding of the causal links between social and ecological conditions and the behaviors that affect them. It then moves down to the next causal level, developing an understanding of the factors that influence those behaviors.
Planning: Designing Activities to Influence Behaviors
Only after adequate assessment has been done to understand the social and ecological situation, the behaviors that affect the situation, and the factors that influence those behaviors can conservation practitioners plan appropriate and feasible activities. Planning involves thinking through the causal links between the lower levels of the hierarchy. The factors that influence critical behaviors and the actors that can affect those factors, activities that can elicit desired reactions from those actors, and inputs of resources needed to carry out those activities must all be considered.
Implementation: Promoting Sustainable Behaviors
Actually expending resources to carry out activities with actors is the implementation stage of the process. Resources are often money, but they can also be staff time, information, and other indirect inputs. These resources support activities that involve or affect people. The participants in, or audiences for, these activities are actors - and probably stakeholders - in the natural resources management situation of concern.
Evaluating and Improving
Evaluation should take place at all stages of the process of understanding and influencing natural resources management behaviors, and all levels of the conceptual hierarchy (Bennett, 1976; Bennett and Rockwell, 1995; Steelquist, 1993). It is an integral part of the whole process of understanding and influencing conservation behaviors (Jacobson, 1991; Rugh, 1992). The assessment stage of the process can and should be evaluated, and evaluation information used to modify and improve it. Likewise, the planning and implementation stages can and should be evaluated and improved.
Evaluating the impact or outcome of a program involves a before and after comparison of conditions at the higher levels of the ends-means hierarchy - in other words, social and environmental conditions, the behaviors that affect those conditions, and factors that affect those behaviors. Information about initial conditions at those levels was gathered during the assessment stage; evaluation involves another round of information gathering at the end for comparison. Such an evaluation of program out-comes or impacts can be used to improve the design of future activities.
As discussed in the Background section of this chapter, we have found that quite often the earliest stages of the process of understanding and influencing conservation behaviors are the weakest. Too often conservation projects have started implementing activities without careful attention to assessment and research, only to run into problems later. Without adequate assessment, activities are not likely to be as effective as they could be.
In this report we focus on the assessment and research stage of the process because this appears to us to be an unfilled niche that our analysis can help to fill. The next chapter, Chapter III, will discuss some steps of the assessment process in more detail. Chapter IV reviews some methods and tools of social research that can be used for assessment and research. Chapter V begins to pair information-gathering methods with the steps of the assessment process; examples illustrate how specific methods can be used to obtain specific kinds of information.
Because the focus of this analysis is the assessment stage of the process of understanding and influencing conservation behaviors, this report will not give as much detail about the planning, implementation, and evaluation stages of the process. Chapter VI gives some examples that illustrate how an understanding of behaviors provided by assessment and research can inform the design and implementation of a wide variety of activities - ranging from education and skills training to policy reform and economic enterprise development - aimed at influencing those behaviors. Chapter VII presents more information about evaluating and improving the process.