Matrices of Historical Trends

Longer-term historical trends in resource use and the quality of the environment can be summarized in matrix form, as shown in the two examples in Figure 9 below, and in Figures 15 and 16 in Chapter V. Historical trends matrices often show that local people recognize long-term trends in their environment and in their interaction with it. They usually have hypotheses about the causes of such trends, even if they do not fully understand the causes. Trends matrices are a good example of an information-gathering tool that is also in part an analytical tool; they automatically organize environmental information in a way that helps people think about cause and effect, and identify problems and opportunities. Creating trends matrices using participatory techniques can be an effective way to assess people’s awareness and knowledge of an environmental trend. This assessment is important because the assumption that people lack knowledge and awareness is often used to argue for environmental education activities.

Figure 8. Resources Map from a Household in Nepal

Source: Thomas-Slayter, Esser, and Shields, 1993, p. 25

Figure 9. Matrices of Historical Trends in Natural Resources and Land Use

a. From Tsupaneng, Natal, South Africa

Source: Participants, 1993, p. 36

b. From Ardanarypura Village, India

Source: Mascarenhas, 1992, p. 13

Venn Diagrams

Venn diagrams are a kind of conceptual “map” that represents the relationships between social groups, organizations, and institutions, drawn using circles and other shapes of varying sizes (see Fig. 22). Venn diagrams have their origin in mathematics, where they are used to show the overlap in membership between two or more mathematical groups or sets. Like maps and transects, calendars, and matrices, Venn diagrams can be created using participatory methods - in group or community meetings, for example with very simple materials. Drawing in the sand or making paper and marker drawings are two examples. Venn diagrams “can be used to show which individuals and groups have an influence on decision making, as well as the relations between village institutions and outside forces, such as government services or development agencies” (Freudenberger, 1994). Venn diagrams developed separately by subgroups within the community, such as by men and women or doers and nondoers of a given behavior, can often provide very useful information for understanding behavioral motivations and developing hypotheses about how to influence behavior.

Wealth Ranking

Wealth ranking is a simple method of gathering information about perceptions of socioeconomic status at the village or community level (Freudenberger and Freudenberger, 1993; Freudenberger and Gueye, 1990; Thomas-Slayter, Esser, and Shields, 1993). Key informants are asked to sort cards with the names of each household in the community into piles representing wealth or well-being categories. Comparing the results of the rankings obtained from a number of key informants can give a fairly accurate picture of the socioeconomic situation at the local level.

Prioritization Techniques

A number of techniques can be used as part of a participatory process to rank, prioritize, or quantify importance. A pairwise ranking tech-nique using a matrix format to compare a number of threats to sustainability was used in the Ranomafana National Park area of Madagascar, for example (Fig. 18).

Decision Trees and Flow Diagrams

Decision trees and flow diagrams are tools for systematically asking questions or gathering information. Typically, a question is asked, and depending on the answer to that question - often “yes” or “no” - the tree of questions forks or branches to a pair of questions. Each of these likewise can be answered “yes” or “no,” leading to further branches of the tree (see Fig. 20, Chap. V).

Methodologies

The methods and tools reviewed above, in various combinations, have been developed for, or combined into, what could be called “methodologies.” Methodologies are approaches to social assessment, each of which uses a suite of diverse information-gathering and analytical tools. Some of these methodologies also involve the planning, implementation, and evaluation of activities, projects, and programs. Several of these methodologies are reviewed below.

Rapid Rural Appraisal

Rapid rural appraisal, or RRA, was developed to fill the gap between highly structured, quantitative methods of social research and the informal, rapid, intuitive assessments of rural situations that are sometimes used by development agencies. “RRA recognizes that a certain amount of rigor is essential in order to have confidence in the results of a field study and to persuade other people of their validity. But, it also believes that intuition and a certain informality and flexibility are essential to obtaining quality information from the field. Thus RRA offers methodological guidelines intended to improve the quality of information gathered, but it also insists that there can be no ‘cook-book’ guide to its use. Such a crutch would dangerously inhibit the flexibility and creativity which are pillars of the method” (Freudenberger and Gueye, 1990). RRA was developed in part to obtain accurate information at low cost in terms of time and money.

In practice, RRA makes use of interdisciplinary teams that use a range of methods, including a number of those discussed above. Semistructured interviews “may be the only tool used in every RRA” (Freudenberg and Gueye, 1990). RRA typically avoids formal surveys and questionnaires, substituting more qualitative and flexible techniques such as semistructured interviews.

In RRA Notes to Accompany Introductory Training Module, Karen S. Freudenberger and Bara Gueye present a list of key RRA concepts, including the following:

“Triangulation” is an essential methodological concept in RRA. “...looking at something from only one perspective introduces serious biases into the analysis. If you can introduce two, three, or even four different points of view into your analysis, you will begin to get a more complete and more accurate picture of the situation you are trying to understand” (Freudenberger and Gueye, 1990). The composition of the RRA team can be triangulated by selecting members of different disciplinary backgrounds, both men and women, and both insiders and outsiders - people who know the local situation well from experience, as well as people who do not and so can bring a fresh perspective. Using a diversity of methods can help overcome the biases inherent in any single method. Encompassing all the social diversity present in the situation - learning from both men and women, young and old, well off and poor, for example - is also an important kind of triangulation.

“Optimal ignorance” is another key concept of RRA, according to Freudenberger and Gueye. This is the argument they give for choosing to remain ignorant of some factors that could be studied: “Because the team is trying to get as much useful information as it can in a short time, it is essential that it focus on what is most important - and leave the rest aside. The funny, almost backward phrase, ‘optimal ignorance’ is a reminder that we can’t learn and don’t need to know everything in a brief field study. The team must be willing to remain ignorant in some areas, in order to spend time on other things which are more important” (Freudenberger and Gueye, 1990).

A report on a rapid rural appraisal carried out in Senegal provides a number of examples of how this method can be used to identify and focus on important natural resource management behaviors (Freudenberger and Freudenberger, 1993). The RRA identified many practices farmers used to conserve and regenerate natural resources, including fallowing, crop rotation, spreading manure on fields, rotating cattle among fields at night to fertilize the fields, cutting firewood in a certain way from certain tree species to encourage resprouting, and carefully protecting certain tree species when fields are plowed. This RRA exercise also developed a list of behaviors used to secure rights of possession to both trees and land.

An excellent source for examples of the use of methods and tools of rapid rural appraisal is Tree and Land Tenure: Rapid Appraisal Tools (Freudenberger, 1994).

Participatory Rural Appraisal

Participatory rural appraisal, or PRA, and rapid rural appraisal are closely related methodologies. According to Robert Chambers, “RRAs began as a better way for outsiders to learn. In answering the question ‘Whose knowledge counts?’ they sought to enable outsiders to learn from rural people and to make use of indigenous technical knowledge to assist outsiders’ analysis. Its mode, however, is mainly extractive. Outsiders go to rural areas and obtain data from the local people, bring it away, and process it.... The knowledge of rural people counted but for the outsiders’ use. They were the ones that could carry out the analysis and provide the solution. Recognizing the weakness of leaving this responsibility to the outsiders, PRAs evolved. Outsiders still go to rural areas, but more and more as learners, conveners, catalysts, and facilitators” (Chambers, 1992).

Both PRA and RRA use some combination of the methods and tools reviewed in this chapter. Many of the examples presented in the figures in this chapter and in Chapter V come from either PRA or RRA exercises.

The goal of PRA is to “help rural communities define problems, prioritise project activities, and adopt village-based resource management plans” (National Environment Secretariat, et al., 1990). In practice, PRA is a semistructured process conducted in the field, usually involving a number of steps. First, a PRA team visits the site and holds planning meetings, initially with local leaders, then with other local stakeholders. Such teams are typically multidisciplinary, composed of technical specialists from external institutions such as donors, NGOs, and project implementing agencies. The team gathers information, including simple spatial data, such as sketch maps prepared with local peoples’ help, and time-related data, such as seasonal calendars and trend lines. Household interviews are usually carried out, and a local institutional analysis is done. Visual tools such as maps, trends matrices, and calendars help the team organize information and present it to the community at meetings. The team uses a variety of techniques to help the community define problems, prioritize those problems and the opportunities for solving them, evaluate local capacities for solving them, and prepare a systematic action plan for the community to adopt and implement.

The use of participatory rural appraisal is becoming more widespread, and many excellent sources of information about this evolving methodology are available (Chambers, 1992; Mascarenhas, 1992; National Environment Secretariat, et al., 1990; Program for International Development and National Environment Secretariat, 1989). “While PRA has grown from a research focus ... it has developed beyond that and is used in planning, implementation, moni-toring and evaluation of work with communities. PRA can be used at all stages of the project cycle...” (Participants, 1993). Box 11 presents

examples from Madagascar that suggest the need to adapt PRA techniques for use in integrated conservation and development projects. Like rapid rural appraisal, PRA is meant to be a relatively rapid method of assessment. While this speed has advantages, an appraisal that is too quick and superficial may fail to understand the complexities of a community’s behaviors. No matter what the methodology, a day or week of research can never produce all the information that a month, year, or decade yields. A danger is that people may take the results of rapid appraisals more seriously than they should. Another issue is that building trust and rapport and developing active community participation take time. MYRADA, an NGO working in South India, has reached the conclusion that " 'rapid' cannot be 'participatory' " (Mascarenhas, 1992).

Box 11. Adapting Participatory Rural Appraisal for Integrated Conservation and Development Projects in Madagascar

Participatory rural appraisal has been used widely during the planning phase of a number of the large integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) being carried out in Madagascar with funding from USAID. PRA originated as a tool for rural development and has not yet been fully adapted for use in integrating conservation and development. It has a predisposition to identify what local people perceive their economic development needs to be without necessarily linking those needs to conservation values and activities.

This seemed to be a problem with the PRA assessments done in the Mantadia-Andasibe complex of protected areas. The residents of the village of Andasibe, for example, listed their priorities as constructing a pharmacy, building a grain storage facility, and acquiring agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and seeds. Such priorities would probably be shared by most other rural villages in Madagascar, even those far from any protected area. PRAs in villages in the Mantadia-Andasibe area elicited no mention of activities that linked development to conservation, such as increasing nature tourism, doing pharmacological prospecting, or protecting forests as watersheds. This is surprising, because the village of Andasibe, for example, is in the prime location to realize benefits from increased visitation to the Andasibe Reserve, where the indri, Madagascar’s largest lemur species, can be easily observed. Other villages in the area likewise could benefit economically from increasing nature tourism in the area.

When a donor-funded project asks local people about development needs and problems, their expectations that the project will address those needs and solve those problems are often unavoidably raised. But the purpose of integrated conservation and development projects is not only to foster development - they have an equally strong conservation goal. In some cases there may be conflicts between conservation needs and what local people perceive their development needs to be. Conducting a PRA that focuses only on local development needs may raise expectations and is likely to exacerbate potential conflicts between conservation and development, not to resolve them.

When PRA or other methods are used to understand and address the human dimensions of conservation, conservationists should work with communities to identify sustainable natural resource management practices and linkages between development and conservation, not just to identify development needs and priorities. PRA training activities carried out for CARE in the Masoala and Montagne d’Ambre areas demonstrate an awareness of this need to adapt PRA for use in integrating conservation and development. Those PRA exercises may provide a model for others wishing to use PRA to promote sus-tainable natural resource management and conservation.

Source: Grimm and Byers, 1994; “Synthesis of PRA Findings in Mantadia Forest Complex,” unpublished report prepared for VITA, 1993; “Participatory Rural Appraisal Consultancy Report Presented to CARE Madagascar, 1992. (Both reports obtained from USAID/Madagascar.)

Participatory Research

Participatory research has many affinities with the RRA and PRA methodologies described above. Not only are many of the same information-gathering methods and tools used in these approaches, but they have similar philosophical orientations as well. For example, participatory research emphasizes local people’s participation in, and ownership of, the research process and results as do both RRA and PRA. Rapid rural appraisal “encourages researchers to view their informants not just as objects of study, but as participants in the research process. They should be included as fully as possible not only in the collection of information, but also in its analysis, and certainly in providing feedback on the conclusions. RRA is research with people, not on people” (Freudenberg and Gueye, 1990). Research, writes Anne Whyte (1977), is something that should be “equally shared between researchers and researched.”

“Participatory action research” (PAR), one “school” of participatory research, is “a process of research, education, and action conducted by a community of relatively powerless people in collaboration with specialized researchers. Its goal is to generate new understandings that guide the community in its struggle for survival, opportunity, and empowerment” (Palmer, 1994). Participatory action research is distinguished from conventional social science research in four ways (Fals-Borda and Rahman, 1991; Palmer, 1994; Park, Brydon-Miller, Hall, and Jackson, 1993):

Rapid rural appraisal and participatory rural appraisal have evolved in the direction of participatory action research in the work of an NGO called MYRADA in South India. “What was required was a method which did not stop just at the ‘appraisal’ but which went beyond it into a shared analysis and understanding of rural situations. This, in turn, should lead to development activities that are creative, productive, and sustainable over a period of time” (Mascarenhas, 1992). MYRADA calls its ad-aptation of RRA and PRA “participatory learning methods.”

Participatory Planning

Participatory planning and decision-making methods involve a diverse group of stakeholders from the very beginning of the planning process. Participatory planning is sometimes called “open decision making.” An open sharing of information is required, with the group generating and evaluating alternatives and trying to reach a consensus about a solution (Shands, Sample, and Le Master, 1990). Guidelines for participatory problem solving include the following:

The main advantage of this process is that it “gives all participants full access to information and the opportunity to participate in dialogue about and resolution of issues” (Sirmon, Shands, and Liggett, 1993). In the United States, decision makers are required by laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to share decision making with the public. Jeff Sirmon and his co-authors suggest the relevance of this kind of process: “Controversy and conflict over resource decisions appear to be intensifying. To counter this, we need to find new ways to get people to talk to one another about what they really want from the forests, and find effective ways to engage them in civil dialogue and mutual education about their needs and values” (Sirmon, Shands, and Liggett, 1993). In confronting difficult policy issues, people must struggle with “their orientation, values, and potential tradeoffs.... Only the group - the relevant community of interests - can do this work” (Sirmon, Shands, and Liggett, 1993).

By trying to build consensus about solutions to specific problems, participatory planning highlights true differences of interest or goals. The process recognizes that disputes are inevitable and potentially useful. Meanwhile, it helps to avoid the kind of negative attitudes that top-down management styles sometimes create. It often improves the quality of decisions and solutions by increasing the quality and quantity of information that goes into them. Finally, it can increase all parties’ commitment to solutions, since all parties played significant roles in crafting those solutions.

Some approaches to environmental education merge into participatory decision-making and problem-solving processes. Because these processes require key actors and interested parties to share information and communicate, they naturally include an educational dimension (Bardwell, Monroe, and Tudor, 1994; UNESCO-UNEP, 1985).

Participatory planning does have some drawbacks. One major disadvantage is that reach-ing a decision can take much longer, and reaching consensus may not even be possible. If poorly designed, participatory planning processes can do more harm than good. Public hearings or debates can polarize communities. The result can be bargaining between rigid positions instead of an exploration of mutual interests and mutually beneficial solutions.

Another problem is that most methods used in participatory planning were developed for literate audiences. Administrators use flip charts or other written records to maintain a “group memory” and to help organize and communicate ideas rapidly, for instance. Methods that allow illiterate audiences to participate are more difficult and less well developed.

An interesting example of one such method is the GRAAP Technique, developed by the Groupe de Recherche et d’Appui á l’Autopromotion Paysanne, a French private volunteer organization based in Bobo-Diolasso, Burkina Faso (GRAAP, 1988). This group “has developed an extension education method called the GRAAP Technique, which uses visual images to teach illiterate people and to promote self-help efforts in rural communities. Foresters in several West African countries have used the GRAAP Technique to help rural populations become increasingly aware of the utility of trees and the consequences of desertification on their lives and to promote forestry programs by involving rural people in planning and decisionmaking processes” (Force, Sawadogo, and Dagamaissa, n.d.). A study by Abdoulaye Dagamaissa found that three-quarters of staff members of the Malian Forestry Service have been trained in this technique, many use it, and almost all “believe the technique motivates vil-lagers to undertake forestry actions” (Dagamaissa, 1990).

Box 12 illustrates how participatory planning methods have been used by Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) staff in the development of a comprehensive management plan for Lake Manyara National Park.

Box 12. Participatory Park Planning in Tanzania

Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park faces threats from an expanding population, demand for land, water diversion for irrigation, and reduced river flow to the park. Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) decided that the park needed a long-range, comprehensive general management plan to address these threats. As a first step in developing the management plan, TANAPA’s Planning Unit and Community Conservation Service launched a participatory planning process that encouraged the input of local communities.

First, TANAPA assigned a community conservation warden to initiate contacts and establish dialogue with district leaders. Then TANAPA used its Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Survey to survey local people about the park, park staff, wildlife, natural resources, hunting, tourism, community development, and other issues.

Next, TANAPA held workshops with community leaders to discuss the survey results and establish constructive dialogue with the community. Participants included village officers, traditional leaders, women, merchants and businessmen, fishermen, and Maasai pastoralists. Participants generated lists of problems and issues, discussed and prioritized them, and proposed solutions to the most pressing problems. The TANAPA Planning Unit then summarized the results of the survey and workshop, and drafted a management plan.

Community conservation staff continue to participate in the planning unit’s core workshops, taking proposals from the draft management plan back to the original workshop groups for local leaders’ reactions and comments. Because the community was able to share its views from the very beginning, the final management plan is expected to meet the needs of local communities more effectively.

Source: Patrick Bergin, Tanzania Community Conservation Project, P.O. Box 1300, Arusha, Tanzania; Bart Young, Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), P.O. Box 3134, Arusha, Tanzania.

Box 13. Comparing Doers and Nondoers to Understand Perceived Benefits and Barriers: An Example from the Health Sector

An example in which doers and nondoers were compared to understand perceived benefits and barriers to condom use comes from a study on "Understanding Women's Prevention Behavior," carried out as part of the USAID-funded AIDSCOM Project. Katherine Carovano and Susan Middlestadt compared Tanzanian women who said that they always use condoms (doers) with those who don't (nondoers). Doers and nondoers differed significantly in their knowledge of the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV infection. They also differed significantly on four measures of "perceived self-efficacy" - their perceived ability or skill in doing a specific behavior, in this case getting their partner to use a condom. Perceived self-efficacy was evaluated by whether the women said they "know how to" actually use condoms, discuss using condoms with their partner, force their partner to use condoms, and refuse to have sex if their partner doesn't use a condom (Carovano and Middlestadt, 1993). These differences show that both knowledge and skill factors are acting as barriers to behavior change in this case. This understanding leads quickly to ideas about interventions that could lower those knowledge and skill barriers and thereby influence behavior.

Figure 21: Quantitative Matrix of Costs and Benefits of Income-Generating Activities in Godavellagudda Village, India

Source: Mascarenhas, 1992, p. 16

VI. Promoting Sustainable Behaviors: Planning and Implementation

Background

This report has focused primarily on the assessment and research stage of the process of understanding and influencing conservation behaviors because we found that too often conservation projects have started implementing activities without careful attention to assessment. Only when at least some assessment and research has been done can conservation practitioners plan appropriate and feasible actions. Planning involves matching available resources (money, people, time, etc.) with activities and actors to influence the factors that motivate critical behaviors (see Fig. 4). Using resources to carry out activities with actors is the implementation stage of the process.

Although planning and implementation are not the main focus of this report, this chapter will give some examples to suggest how an understanding of the context and motivations of behaviors provided by assessment can be used to design and implement activities aimed at in-fluencing those behaviors. Different kinds of activities are needed depending on which factors are key determinants of critical behaviors. A decision tree technique, like that shown in Figure 20, can be used to select strategies for affecting the key factors that influence critical behaviors, as identified in the assessment stage of the process.

A number of general types of activities, each of which is most appropriate for influencing one or several of the factors that motivate behavior, will be discussed below:

Dispute resolution is also discussed in this chapter. When stakeholders differ widely in their values, interests, and views about what should be done, resolving disputes may be the most appropriate and feasible thing to do, at least as a first step. In those situations it may make more sense for conservation practitioners to support a process of resolving natural resources disputes, rather than an educational campaign or new enterprise development scheme.

A framework or typology of activities for influencing behavior, based on research in behav-ioral science in the past two decades, is described by Dwyer, et al. (1993). They argue that such a typology is needed because the research they reviewed suffers from “lack of a clear organizational framework for studying the applicability of behavior-science techniques to the complex domain of environmentally relevant behavior.” Their typology differs somewhat from that used here. It categorizes activities according to whether they change “antecedent conditions” that affect behaviors, such as information, goals, and commitment, or “consequence conditions” such as rewards and penalties. They also conclude that while many activities appear to influence behaviors for short periods, much more research is needed on how to make behavior change more permanent. Behavioral psychologists have found, for example, that while it is often possible to achieve short-term behavior change with the use of incentives such as monetary rewards or disincentives such as fines, such behavior change isn’t very durable. It often disappears if the incentives or disincentives are removed (De Young, 1993). Examples of the use of a behavioral science framework to guide interventions in the health sector are described by Fishbein and Middlestadt (1987, 1989) and Fishbein, Middlestadt, and Hitchcock (1991).

To influence behaviors, practitioners and communities must design activities that somehow lower the barriers to sustainable decisions, practices, and actions or that raise the benefits of sustainable behaviors or that do both. As mentioned in Chapter II, it may be useful to think of activities for promoting sustainable behaviors as a kind of exchange or transaction. The inputs and activities of one group of stakeholders, the promoters of sustainable natural resources management and conservation, are exchanged with other stakeholders - natural resource users, policy makers, or other environmental actors - for behavior maintenance or change. Natural resources managers and conservationists could be thought of as producers of certain values and benefits that are exchanged for something from other stakeholders. This concept of behavioral exchange is well devel-oped in the field of social marketing. As stated, one of the fundamental assumptions of our study is that people behave in ways they perceive to be in their own best interest. Thinking of activities aimed at influencing people’s behavior as transactions or exchanges is a way of respecting them while still trying to influence what they do.

In the planning and implementation stages of the process, it is useful to remember that tak-ing a positive view and emphasizing opportu-nities rather than problems is an underexploited approach to conservation and natural resources management. Practitioners should look for sus-tainable behaviors to maintain, promote, and enhance, not just unsustainable practices to change.

It is also important to remember that complex mixtures of factors, rather than one single factor, often act as benefits and barriers to motivate a given behavior. Moreover, since communities are not homogeneous, different actors perceive different mixtures of benefits and barriers for the same behavior. The problems of multiple factors and of complex mixtures of benefits and barriers usually means that no single strategy or activity will be sufficient. Practitioners and communities seeking to promote environmentally sustainable behaviors may, therefore, have to plan and implement activities to affect several kinds of factors that influence behavior. Recognizing the need to influence several factors based on adequate assessment is very different, however, from taking a “shotgun” approach to changing conservation behavior, in which a spectrum of activities ranging from environmental education to economic incentives and legal and policy reforms are automatically planned.

Influencing Values, Knowledge, And Social Norms

“The ultimate aim of education is shaping human behavior.” Hungerford and Volk, 1990

Environmental and conservation education is often viewed as one of the main ways to influence people’s behavior toward the environment and thereby solve natural resource management problems. Most integrated conservation and development projects have an education component. Many of the practitioners this report seeks to serve are using environmental education and communication strategies, broadly defined, in their efforts to foster sustainable practices.

The Limits of “InformationOnly”

Environ-mental Education In some people’s view, the primary role of environmental education is to convey information and improve knowledge. Such an information-only view of environmental and conservation education has not been sufficient, in many cases, to create good natural resources management practices because it is based on the assumption that knowledge is the key factor determing behavior. Those with this view assume that programs to teach people about the problems caused by deforestation would lead them to stop cutting trees and start planting them. Giving people new information, however, does not necessarily change their behavior. In the complex and often difficult situations in the real world, especially in poorer regions, this strategy often did not work. People sometimes were aware of the problem and knew they should not cut trees, but they needed more land for growing food crops and fuel for cooking their food, and had no alternatives. So they cleared forests despite their knowledge, because other motivating factors were overriding.

Most environmental educators have recognized the inadequacy of the simplistic assumption that giving people more information will automatically influence their behavior. Throughout the world, however, it is still easy to find examples of environmental and conservation education programs based on such an assumption.

Modern Environmental Education and Communication

Modern environmental education recognizes that environmental behaviors are influenced not only by knowledge, but also by values, options, skills, and many other motivating factors (Hungerford and Volk, 1990; Wood and Wood, 1990). Modern environmental education attempts, therefore, to communicate more than just knowledge. It is “a process that enables people to acquire knowledge, skills, and positive environmental experiences in order to analyze issues, assess benefits and risks, make informed decisions, and take responsible actions to achieve and sustain environmental quality” (North American Association for Environmen-tal Education, 1993). Another way to describe the goal of environmental education is “to motivate people to implement solutions to environmental problems” (Wood and Wood, 1990). Modern environmental education is concerned with communicating environmental values and ethics, not just knowledge and information (Caduto, 1985). A recent article in the UNESCO-UNEP Environmental Education Newsletter, titled “A Universal Environmental Ethic: The Ultimate Goal of Environmental Education,” illustrates this important trend (UNESCO, 1991).

Harold Hungerford and Trudi Volk (1990) synthesized recent research on environmental behavior and found that the research suggests three main kinds of factors contribute to behavior change:

Entry-level factors appear to be prerequisites for making sound environmental choices. Environmental sensitivity, described by Hungerford and Volk as “an empathetic perspective toward the environment” - in other words, perhaps, a strong general sense of environmental values - is a somewhat troublesome factor for many traditional educators because this sensitivity does not seem much affected by formal environmental education. Instead, developing environmental sensitivity seems to require contact with, and positive experiences in, natural environments over long periods of time, according to Hungerford and Volk. They note that knowledge of ecology, while apparently a prerequisite for sound environmental decisions, “does not, in itself, produce [sound] environmental behavior.”

Ownership factors are related to personal relevance, understanding of, and identification with, environmental issues. Economic benefits or costs can make certain environmental issues very relevant to individuals, but so can other kinds of less tangible environmental values.

Empowerment factors are crucial in influencing environmental behavior, and one of the best predictors of behavior is “perceived skill in using environmental action strategies.” Such skills are fairly easy to teach, but they are “often neglected in educational practice” (Hungerford and Volk, 1990). A person’s belief that he or she will experience success in carrying out a certain action is related to empowerment. Of course, such a belief is reinforced by the actual experience of success.

Finally, Hungerford and Volk recognize that what they call “situational factors” - the many other factors that can potentially act as behavioral benefits and barriers - interact with the entry-level, ownership, and empowerment factors to determine environmental behaviors.

Hungerford and Volk critiqued current environmental education methods in light of those research findings. They found that most environmental education focuses almost exclusively at the knowledge and awareness level, which tends to be ineffective in changing behavior. Too few environmental education programs, either formal or nonformal, “incorporate serious attempts to develop ownership and empowerment in learners” (Hungerford and Volk, 1990). Kathleen Blanchard and Martha Monroe (1990) make a similar point: “Most education programs only provide information in an attempt to change attitudes without regard for social norms, group leaders, communication channels, intrinsic motivations, etc. Actually, most education programs try to reach such a diverse audience that these elements are rarely identified, known, or manipulable.”

As part of this study we developed a database of USAID-funded projects in Africa with environmental education and communication components, and reviewed their project documents (Biodiversity Support Program, 1994b). We concluded that very few USAID-funded environmental education and communication activities, at least as reflected in project documentation, are making full use of modern concepts of environmental education, communication, and social marketing. They are therefore not likely to be as effective as they could be. A USAID initiative that responds to the need to modernize and diversify its environmental education and communication activities is the Environmental Education and Communication (GreenCOM) Project, described briefly in Box 14.

Box 14. The USAID Environmental Education and Communication (GreenCOM) Project

The USAID-funded GreenCOM project will adapt and apply “a common basic approach in ... education and communication” that “has evolved over the past twenty years and has been found to be useful in applications across sectors” (USAID, 1993c). This behavior-centered approach has been developed most extensively by the Academy for Educational Development, under contract to USAID, in health and child survival (Graeff, Elder, and Booth, 1993; Seidel, 1993; Smith, et al., 1993) and agriculture (Mata, 1992; USAID, 1993b). GreenCOM plans to work with USAID and its development partners to “integrate a range of proven environmental education, communication, and social marketing methods into existing programs to help managers understand and influence the patterns of thinking that lead to positive individual and community behavior.” It aims to promote “critical problem solving and long-range resource planning” through environmental education of both formal and nonformal kinds, and “more rapid, targeted behavior change through communication and social marketing” (Academy for Educational Development, 1994).

If assessment shows that a lack of knowledge is a barrier to the adoption of a new behavior or maintenance of an existing one, providing information is a logical strategy for influencing behavior. In the example of seabird conservation in Quebec discussed in Box 2, initial social assessment showed that a lack of knowledge about laws protecting seabirds was a barrier to reducing the harvest of birds, although economic benefits and social norms also influenced the behavior (Blanchard, 1987; Blanchard and Monroe, 1990). In the case of the golden lion tamarin in Brazil (Box 3), social research likewise showed that lack of knowledge was a barrier to behavior change. As in Quebec, however, economics and social norms were also important factors (Archie, Mann, and Smith, 1993; Dietz and Nagagata, 1995). In both cases, educational activities designed to provide information were logical.

Even if lack of knowledge is identified as a key factor that influences a critical behavior, providing information in a form appropriate for a given audience can be a complex task, requiring further social assessment to be done effectively. Questions about what messages and communication channels to use, for example, must still be answered (Graeff, Elder, and Booth, 1993; Wood and Wood, 1990). An excellent example of an environmental education and communication approach that helped solve a wildlife management problem in a complex cross-cultural setting comes from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska (Ady, 1994; Blanchard, 1987). In this case, an Interagency Information and Education Task Force played a major role in implementing the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Goose Management Plan, which restricted the harvest of several species of geese whose populations were declining. Fifteen diverse case studies of the use of education and communication approaches in international wildlife conservation are described in Conserving Wildlife: International Education and Communication Approaches (Jacobson, 1995).

Environmental Social Marketing

Environmental educators have learned a lot from the fields of behavioral psychology and social marketing in recent years (Monroe and De Young, 1993). This is especially true of educators interested in the growing field of nonformal environmental education, which typically occurs outside of schools and targets diverse audiences that include adults.

Social marketing can be defined as “the analysis, planning, implementation and control of programs designed to create, build, and maintain beneficial exchange relationships for the purpose of achieving ... the adoption of a social idea, service, or practice” (Archie, Mann, and Smith, 1993). In environmental social marketing the “product” might be tree planting, water conservation, use of terracing to reduce soil erosion, or having fewer children.

Environmental education activities sometimes target a broad audience, such as all primary school students. In contrast, social marketing programs tend to target the specific groups practicing specific behaviors. Broad audiences can be broken into smaller subgroups, or “segmented,” according to a variety of characteristics, including demographics, behavior, or geography (Kotler and Roberto, 1989). Identifying specific audiences and doing thorough audience research makes possible a careful tailoring of messages that directly address the values, beliefs, and needs of the target audience. Audience segmentation and research have been neglected in many environmental education and communication campaigns.

Social marketing makes extensive use of the concept of behavioral “exchange.” Social marketers believe that people will change their behavior when someone offers a benefit they want in exchange for the behavioral change. If social marketing can show that the costs of changing a behavior are less than the benefits, people are more likely to change. Although a social marketing campaign may try to change people’s knowledge, social marketers recognize that transferring knowledge is often not enough of an exchange to change a behavior (Archie, Mann, and Smith, 1993).

Environmental education and communication and environmental social marketing are complementary, not competitive, processes. “Tools that are commonly associated with social marketing may enhance the ability of environmental educators to target their efforts and set realistic goals for themselves, even if the social marketing framework is not adopted intact” (Archie, Mann, and Smith, 1993).

Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Approaches

Lori Mann suggests that some environmental issues are acute issues, such as the imminent extinction of a species or extremely rapid local deforestation. These are immediate and specific problems in a particular place that demand quick attention and action. Mann suggests that the targeted strategies of social marketing may be most appropriate to address those issues. Other issues, such as the loss of tropical rainforests or the destruction of coral reefs, “may imply a longer time frame, a broader range of behaviors to affect, or a less specific population focus.” These, she suggests, “may be more appropriately addressed with environmental education techniques and materials aimed at certain issues, but not designed for specific populations.” In any case, she argues, practitioners should “choose strategies appropriate to different types of issues.” Mann also suggests that it might be possible to “work with large learner populations to give them generalizable skills to apply throughout life with all environmental issues” (Archie, Mann, and Smith, 1993).

Considering a specific case may illustrate some of the complexity of short-term versus long-term approaches. In some African countries extracurricular wildlife clubs for school children have existed since the colonial period. These clubs, it has been argued, change the way children feel about wildlife, and some of these children may make decisions affecting their country’s wildlife decades later when they become adults. In some cases, long-term educational approaches like wildlife clubs may set the stage for sustainable natural resources management later; in other cases, by the time the children grow up to be decision makers, wildlife may be gone.

The synthesis of research on environmental education by Hungerford and Volk (1990) sug-gests that both long-term and short-term processes have a role to play in fostering environmentally sustainable practices. Long-term activities that develop environmental values and sensitivity are needed, as is education to develop environmental knowledge. But such activities alone are not sufficient. The research strongly suggests that environmental education programs need to reach beyond knowledge and do a much better job of influencing ownership and empowerment factors on shorter time scales. There seem to be some successful methods for doing so.

Most natural resource and conservation issues have both short-term and long-term dimensions. Focusing on only one of those dimensions may not be sufficient. An environmental education and communication program that offers a balance between long-term and short-term approaches to influencing behavior may ultimately be the most effective. Traditional environmental education has not always been successful partly because it has often emphasized influencing behavior in the long term rather than short term. Developments in environmental education that bring in lessons from psychology and social marketing about influencing behavior in the short term can be viewed as attempts to balance long-term approaches with short-term ones.

Influencing Sociocultural Factors

Assessment may show that sociocultural factors such as traditions, customs, beliefs, and taboos are keys to influencing critical behaviors. Sociocultural factors are perhaps most closely related to values and social norms, factors that were discussed earlier. Just as for values and social norms, education, communication, and social marketing approaches seem the most appropriate for influencing sociocultural factors. Planning and implementing activities to influence sociocultural factors abound with ethical complications and dilemmas, however.

In some cases, sociocultural factors motivate sustainable decisions, practices, and actions. Omari (1990) describes a general “reverence for natural resources” in many African societies. “The reverence of Africans towards nature and natural places was a religious attitude and practice which, while it developed around the religious thought and history of a particular social group, indirectly served other social functions in the whole community. In the case of shrines and initiation rite centres, taboos developed around the destruction of trees, shrubs, and the sacred places themselves. The forests, certain kinds of trees, animals, and sources of water were preserved in the name of religion.” In Madagascar, taboos and beliefs in some tribal groups are important motivations for protecting lemurs. In Ghana and throughout much of Africa, people conserve certain forest areas because they view them as “sacred groves” (Dorm-Adzobu, 1991). Box 6 gives an example from Zimbabwe in which the identification of a place as sacred influenced a natural resources management decision. In these cases, where sociocultural factors motivate sustainable uses of natural resources, conservation practitioners and communities would want to plan and implement activities to maintain the traditions, cus-toms, and beliefs of the cultural group.

Some actors and stakeholders outside of that cultural group may hold values - of progress, development, or modernization, for example - that put them in conflict with efforts to maintain the traditional cultures. International human rights law, however, generally supports the ethical right to maintain one’s culture.

Sociocultural traditions, customs, and beliefs do not always lead to ecologically sustainable behaviors, however. They may once have motivated sustainable practices in the context in which they developed, but given the rapid changes that have occurred in both the social and ecological contexts of many cultures, that may no longer be true. One possible example mentioned earlier (see Box 1) comes from Madagascar, where conservation practitioners working in some areas would like to change the traditional practice of maintaining large cattle herds for funerary sacrifices. Those cattle do not contribute much to the quality of every-day diets, they argue, but have a large negative impact on the environment.

As has been mentioned several times, we make a fundamental assumption in this report that actors at all levels are behaving in ways they perceive to be in their own best interest, given their social background, their values, and their situation - so the burden of proof lies on those who would seek to change traditional beliefs,

customs, or practices. Cases in which it appears that changing sociocultural factors would enhance sustainability require especially careful assessment and research. And, even if that assessment convincingly demonstrates that sociocultural factors motivate unsustainable behaviors, there are still ethical dilemmas. One consideration has to do with the human right to culture. Another has to do with the systemic nature of culture. Changing a sociocultural factor to influence one critical environmental behavior may lead to other social, economic, or political changes that have even more serious impacts on natural resource sustainability than the target behavior did. Without a perfect understanding of the dynamics of the social system - an impossibility - such sociocultural tinkering can be counterproductive. This is the so-called “precautionary principle” as applied to social systems.

Despite the ethical complexities, practitioners and communities working toward sustainable natural resources management - as actors and stakeholders themselves - will undoubtedly be faced with situations in which they will seek to influence sociocultural factors, just as they will seek to influence values, social norms, laws, policies, and economics, and other factors that motivate behaviors toward the environment.

Influencing Options And Skills

In many cases it may not be values, lack of knowledge, or social norms that lead to unsustainable behaviors. Assessment and re-search may instead identify lack of options and alternatives or lack of skills as barriers to maintaining or adopting sustainable behaviors. In such cases, providing viable options through extension programs or technical assistance, or imparting skills through training, are logical activities for influencing behaviors.

Options and Alternatives

In the hand-washing example discussed in Box 5, assessment suggested that the costs of hand washing to mothers acted as a barrier to increasing the frequency of the behavior. Hand washing required a lot of water, which took time and effort to carry home. Reducing this barrier seemed likely to increase the practice of hand washing, so health promoters introduced a simple hand-washing device originally developed in Africa that dramatically reduces the amount of water needed for hand washing, and thus the amount of time women must spend carrying water home. In this case, a technological alternative was a way to reduce the costs of hand washing and promote behavior change.

Another example comes from the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia, whose work is described in Box 15. Although knowledge, values, and social norms influenced farmers’ behavior toward cheetahs, options and skills also seemed to be important. During the assessment stage of the process used by the Cheetah Conservation Fund, farmers suggested that changing livestock management practices could help reduce livestock-killing by cheetahs. They needed some new options and skills to reduce conflicts between cheetahs and livestock. Consequently, the Cheetah Conservation Fund has worked to teach farmers new livestock management techniques, such as bringing cattle closer to farm buildings for calving. They have also introduced the use of stock-guarding dogs to protect herds from cheetahs.

Box 15. Cheetah Conservation in Namibia

The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) is a nongovernmental organization focused on cheetah conservation. Cheetahs are an endangered species, and Namibia has the largest number of cheetahs in the world - approximately 2,500 individuals, estimated to be about one-fifth of the total world population. Cheetahs eat small game such as springbok, the young of some larger antelope species, warthogs, hares and rabbits, and game birds. Ironically, the best cheetah habitat in Namibia is in the heart of the livestock farming country on the plateau north of Windhoek and south of Etosha National Park. Land here is mostly privately owned by white farmers. In other parts of Africa the main threat to cheetahs is habitat destruction or lack of prey, but in this area the main threat is from farmers shooting or trapping them as livestock pests or because they reduce the amount of game on their land.

From a base on a farm in the area, CCF co-directors Daniel Kraus and Laurie Marker-Kraus are engaged in research and educational activities to help protect cheetahs. “The Cheetah Conservation Fund has concentrated its efforts in working with Namibia’s farmers. Our motto is ‘We Can Live Together,’ and this means preserving the livelihood of the farmers while also securing habitat for the cheetah. The Fund’s approach can be described as multifaceted and involves research, livestock management, and conservation education, with the active participation of the livestock farming community” (Cheetah Conservation Fund Newsletter, Vol. 3, p.1, August 1994). Their current radio-tracking research is designed to learn more about cheetah movements and territories. This information, shared with farmers, is invaluable in developing ways to help the farmers co-exist with cheetahs.

The work of the Cheetah Conservation Fund has both long-term and short-term goals. The short-term objective of its program is explicitly behavioral: to get Namibian farmers to stop shooting or trapping cheetahs. Social assessment and research, mainly involving semistructured individual interviews with farmers, provided an understanding of why they now kill or trap cheetahs on their land. This information was used to develop appropriate activities. Farmers themselves suggested three main ways to help reduce cheetah-livestock conflicts: (1) changing livestock management practices in ways that reduce conflicts, (2) managing wild game to provide an adequate wild prey base for cheetahs on farmlands, and (3) increasing awareness and knowledge about cheetahs and how to live with them. The Cheetah Conservation Fund is working to give farmers the options, skills, and knowledge to solve their livestock and game management problems without killing cheetahs. Farmers have started to adopt new livestock management practices that reduce problems, such as bringing cows closer to the farmhouse and checking them more often during calving season, keeping a herder with small stock, and using livestock-guarding dogs or donkeys to protect stock from cheetahs.

Protecting cheetah habitat and populations in the long term is another objective, addressed through more traditional conservation education activities for school children. Through school visits and the distribution of informational materials such as bookmarks, coloring books, and activity sheets, CCF staff give children basic knowledge about the ecology of cheetahs and their conservation status. Much of that information probably reaches their parents, the farmers, as well.

Source: Daniel Kraus and Laurie Marker-Kraus, Cheetah Conservation Fund, P.O. Box 247, Windhoek 9000, Namibia.

Kerr and Sanghi (1992) examine the interaction between technological options and indigenous knowledge and practices. They discuss the factors that motivate indigenous soil and water conservation practices in India and argue that outsiders who desire to promote technological innovations must keep such local logic in mind and incorporate it into the design of the technological options being promoted, or the alternative practices are likely to be rejected by local people.

Skills

In the example of condom use by Tanzanian women and their partners (see Box 13), doers and nondoers differed significantly on several skill-related measures (Carovano and Middlestadt, 1993). In the Honduran immunization example (Box 5), the health workers’ skills deficit in interpersonal communication resulted in intangible barriers to getting mothers to bring children to the immunization clinic for repeat visits. In both cases, skills training was a logical way to try to influence behavior.

Influencing Economic Factors

When assessment shows that economic factors are key determinants of decisions, actions, and practices, influencing those behaviors requires activities that change the underlying economic benefits and barriers. Such activities could include development of new enterprises, new markets, economic policy reform, or changes in economic incentives or disincentives. Ferraro and Kramer (1995) argue that conservation and sustainable natural resources management can be promoted by developing more sustainable enterprises that compete for labor or capital with unsustainable practices or that return a higher value from sustainable uses of resources than from unsustainable ones.

Integrated conservation and development projects, or ICDPs, are one attempt to link economic development and sustainable natural resources management (Brown and Wyckoff-Baird, 1992; Wells, Brandon, and Hannah, 1992). Some ways of linking sustainable natural resources management and conservation with direct material economic benefits are clear. Harvesting sustainable amounts of wildlife, fish, or forest products from an area is one example. Irrigated agriculture made possible by stable flows of water from a protected watershed is another. Income generated from ecotourism and pharmacological prospecting by international drug companies are economic benefits local people can derive from natural ecosystems.

An example of efforts to integrate conservation with economic development is given in Box 16. It describes the work of the Biodiversity Conservation Network, which with support from the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership and USAID, is exploring the role of community-based economic enterprise development in biodiversity conservation in the Asia-Pacific Region.

Box 16. The Biodiversity Conservation Network: An Enterprise-Oriented Approach to Community-Based Conservation in the Asia/Pacific Region

The Biodiversity Conservation Network (BCN) was established in 1992 to support site-specific efforts to conserve biodiversity in Asia and the Pacific region using approaches that are both enterprise-oriented and community-based, and to evaluate the effectiveness of such approaches. Underlying the work of the Biodiversity Conservation Network is a “core hypothesis”: “if a community is receiving sufficient benefits from an enterprise that depends on biodiversity, it will act to counter internal and external threats to that biodiversity.”

The Biodiversity Conservation Network is administered by the Biodiversity Support Program and funded by the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership, led by USAID. BCN provides grants for projects that encourage the development of enterprises that are dependent on sustained conservation of local biodiversity. Ecotourism, both terrestrial and marine, is one of the main types of enterprises being developed with BCN’s assistance. Ecotourism development projects are taking place in India, Indonesia, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea. The other main type of enterprise being developed involves the harvest and sale of nontimber forest products; many of the ecotourism projects in the countries listed above also have nontimber forest products components.

One of the central goals of the BCN program is to evaluate a variety of enterprise-based approaches to conservation, because although “many projects promoting economic activities in areas of high biodiversity claimed to be sustainable, no one really knows what the long-term biological, social, or economic impacts of these projects were on the biodiversity of an area and the local and indigenous people living and working there.” A substantial fraction of the money awarded to BCN grantees will be used for collecting information on biological, social, and economic indicators in order to understand the effects of enterprise development on these systems and to test the core hypothesis mentioned above.

Source: Biodiversity Support Program. 1994a.

When economic needs or aspirations are moti-vating unsustainable resource use, alternative practices that sustainably meet those economic needs are the obvious solution. This is often easier said than done, however. Many schemes to develop substitutes for overexploited resources, to generate income from other natural resources, or to compensate for loss of resource access have had problems (IIED, 1994). Providing employment for wages is often not a compelling substitute for access to natural resources in rural communities. Alternative prac-tices must serve “a purpose in a community’s livelihood which is similar to the activity forgone. The common practice of comparing different income sources only in terms of their monetary equivalents is often misleading, yet all too common. Compensation must reflect, first and foremost, what communities feel they are forgoing, rather than some measure determined by external technicians” (IIED, 1994). The unexpected results of the activities imple-mented in the hypothetical ICDP in Madagascar illustrate this kind of problem (Box 1). The project’s designers had mistakenly assumed that increasing rice production and income from rice sales in local markets would substitute for environmentally destructive practices such as charcoal making and slash-and-burn cultivation of cassava in the reserve. Adequate assessment is needed to understand the economic factors that motivate behaviors before activities that will influence those behaviors in the desired direction can be planned (Ferraro and Kramer, 1995).

In planning activities to influence behavior through changes in economic factors, it is essential to keep in mind that traditional livelihood practices may be motivated more by the desire to reduce long-term risk than for short-term economic gain. This desire has important implications for what kinds of new economic arrangements will be sustainable in a given situation (Mace, 1993; Mwangi and Perrings, 1993).

Developing economic alternatives can influence behavior “provided that the linkage between receipt of the benefit and the desired conservation behavior is clear” (Brown and Wyckoff-Baird, 1992). Often, however, conservation promoters working with a community will identify the development needs and priorities of the community - such as schools, clinics, roads, or access to markets - but not clearly link those priorities with conservation needs and priorities (see Box 11). If a conservation project funded by a foreign donor promises to build a school, a clinic, or a road for a rural village in exchange for protecting a natural forest or local wildlife, there may be no clear link in the minds of local people between conservation and the development benefit. They are likely to think of the money for the school, clinic, or road as coming from the donor, not from the conservation activity - as a bribe for conservation, rather than development through conservation. The problem is that conservation motivated by bribes from international donors is not likely to be sustainable.

Unequal distribution of direct material (economic) costs and benefits within heterogeneous communities can lead to unsustainable behaviors, and it is critical to keep this problem in mind when planning and implementing activities to influence economic factors. “A major cause of nonsustainable development is that benefits to particular individuals or groups from overexploitation may be great, whereas losses are shared broadly by society as a whole. Therefore, a cost-benefit calculation by the profiting individuals usually favors nonsustainable use because those profiting do not bear the true costs. Achieving sustainable development in such cases requires some combination of regulations to govern use of resources and altered economic incentives that internalize total societal costs so that the exploiter must pay for the costs inflicted on the public” (Orians, 1990). Most commonly it is resource access and tenure issues that underlie this problem. Mwangi and Perrings (1993) present evidence that this kind of problem contributed to the failure of livestock development schemes in Botswana and Kenya.

Omari (1990) laments the loss of traditional values that in many African societies led to a “reverence for natural resources” and hence to their conservation. He attributes much of the unsustainable use or exploitation of natural resources now found in Africa to changes in social and economic values and practices: “African societies are now undergoing great changes due to the impact of Western value systems, especially as they are embodied in Western economic systems. A money economy has not only altered social relations among people, but it has also affected people’s attitudes towards nature and natural resources. Many of the economic activities which seem to threaten the African ecology are done in the name of development. The mismanagement of the environment and the imbalance in the ecological system brought about by modern economic and value systems have led to ‘environmental bankruptcy’ in Africa” (Omari, 1990).

Again, it is important to remember that many of the benefits and values people derive from natural resources are not direct material benefits in the traditional economic sense. Unanticipated problems can develop when practitioners assume, without adequate social assessment, that such economic motivations are always most important. Such an assumption can lead practitioners to ignore or minimize the many other factors that affect behavior.

Influencing Laws And Policies

When assessment shows that laws or policies are key factors influencing critical behaviors, practitioners and their community partners will need to plan and implement activities to influence those laws and policies. Practitioners used to working at the local level sometimes treat laws and policies as external or structural factors; they may even consider them beyond their control. And yet, these factors can sometimes be powerful motivators of behavior.

Laws and policies sometimes provide incentives for sustainable - or disincentives for unsustainable - behaviors. However, laws and policies sometimes motivate unsustainable practices, such as when legal title for a piece of land can be obtained automatically by cutting down primary forest and converting the land to pasture or crops.

Laws and policies related to resource access and tenure are especially likely to be key factors influencing behavior toward those resources. As mentioned in Box 6, the CAMPFIRE program in Zimbabwe has as its foundation a national policy change that granted the authority for some district-level governments to manage and receive benefits from the wildlife in their districts (Metcalfe, 1994). Examples in which resource tenure laws or policies seem to motivate unsustainable practices were discussed in Chapter III. In Namibia, for example, wildlife law and policy until recently provided an incentive for individuals on communal lands to kill roan antelope for meat; and in Mali, the national forestry code may work to discourage tree planting by individual farmers.

It is important to remember that decisions, practices, and actions at all levels of political and economic organization - local, national, regional, and international - are important for sustainable natural resources management and conservation. Focusing only on local-level behaviors would leave out key stakeholders and actors, in particular key “institutional actors” (Murphree, 1994).

Robert Chambers (1992) believes that senior government officials who make decisions and formulate policy often lack recent direct knowledge of the people and situations that their decisions affect, and argues that their participation in rapid rural appraisal (RRA) or partici-patory rural appraisal (PRA) exercises would improve their decisions. “Information users should be information seekers.... RRA is best carried out by the people who will make use of the information ... scientists, administrators, program officers, policymakers should go to the field to see and learn for themselves,” write Freudenberger and Gueye (1990). Johansson and Hoben (1992) describe a case in which senior government officials in Tanzania were the team members in an RRA exercise, the goal of which was to give them better information for the formulation of land policy.

Paula Palmer, a participatory action research practitioner, pointed out that “to achieve sustainable livelihoods for the local population” requires work not only with them, but “at the level of national and international policy and trade. It is important for practitioners and local people participating in these forms of social analysis to keep in mind the influences that originate beyond the boundaries of the land area in question and to include them in the analysis. Otherwise the process may be based on a false assumption that local actors alone can bring about desired changes. Sometimes they can, but more often policy changes are also required.”

Working for legal and policy change requires political organization and action, such as grassroots organization, lobbying, and litigation. Of course, this is not easy, and sometimes not safe, in many countries today. Perhaps that is one reason some conservationists and communities have chosen not to try to influence the legal and policy factors that motivate natural resources management behaviors. It is also important to remember that working to maintain laws and policies that motivate sustainable behaviors is just as important as working to change those that motivate unsustainable behaviors.

Resolving Disputes

Conflicts about how natural resources should be used and conserved are inevitable for a number of reasons. There are usually many stakeholders with interests in the natural resources of any given place; stakeholders can range from the local to national and international levels; and they can differ widely in economic and political power and options. Even local commu-nities are not homogeneous. Conflicts arise because of differences in the values and interests of diverse actors and stakeholders.

Because conflicts are inevitable, processes for dealing with them as constructively as possible are needed. Societies, both traditional and modern, have methods for managing conflicts, of course. But rapid social and environmental change has increasingly stressed those methods, leading to destructive responses to conflicts. In response to this trend, scholars and practitioners have given increased attention to understanding and constructively managing conflict, establishing a field called “dispute resolution” - or sometimes “alternative dispute resolution,” to distinguish it from more tradi-tional and sometimes adversarial, destructive ways of resolving disputes.

The field of dispute resolution recognizes the inevitability of conflict, and some dispute-resolution practitioners view conflict as natural, necessary, and creative - as an opportunity rather than a problem. Some professionals in this field distinguish between a conflict and a dispute. “Conflict” is used by them to refer to a fundamental difference in values and interests among actors and stakeholders; “disputes” are episodes of disagreement and controversy that erupt repeatedly over specific issues from a base of conflict (Burgess and Burgess, 1994; Burton and Dukes, 1990). They emphasize that it is constructive conflict management or dispute resolution that they work toward, not necessarily the resolution of the underlying conflicts themselves.

To manage conflicts and resolve disputes, an understanding of the factors that cause them is required. Many of the methods and tools for assessment that we have already discussed provide information that can give an understanding of the roots of natural resources conflicts. For example, conflicts over who makes decisions about resource use can often occur, so some understanding of resource conflicts can be gained from information in level of decision matrices such as that shown in Figure 19. Matrices that focus specifically on actual or potential conflicts also can be developed. The conflict matrix shown in Figure 23 was produced by a group of men during a rapid rural assessment in Senegal (Freudenberger, 1994). According to Karen Freudenberger, “The matrix helped them to see the importance of problems between people starting gardens/orchards and goat owners. It was discovered that due to ... the conflicts that had arisen, goat owners (who were disproportionately women) had gotten rid of all of their animals.”

Figure 23. Matrix of Natural Resources Conflicts from Senegal

Source: Freudenberger, 1994, p. 49

Practitioners and communities not only need methods and tools for understanding the causes of natural resources conflicts; they also need guidance about what to do to manage such conflicts as constructively as possible. Dispute resolution involves many of the things we have already discussed, such as good communication, the involvement and participation of all stakeholders, and the importance of building trust and rapport among all stakeholders. The field of dispute resolution has developed its own special methods and tools, however, and some of these could be useful to people involved in conservation and natural resources management.

Some widely accepted basic principles of dispute resolution are set out in the book Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury (1991):

There is a relatively rich literature reflecting the experience of a decade or more of efforts to apply basic principles of conflict management to environmental and natural resources disputes in developed countries (Bingham, 1986; Crow-foot and Wondolleck, 1990; Wondolleck, 1988). John Hough (1988) reviewed this literature and applied some of the key principles to conflicts between national parks and surrounding human communities in developing countries. He identified eight key obstacles to the effective management of park-people conflicts in developing countries:

Natural resource managers in developing regions, including Africa, are showing increasing interest in adapting and using dispute resolution methods from developed regions (Pendzich, 1993). The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London, for example, is working to adapt PRA techniques to environmental conflict situations, according to Charles Lane of IIED.

One potential weakness of the basic dispute resolution principles described above, including those adapted for natural resources disputes, is that they have been developed in a modern, Western cultural context. Different cultures view conflict in different ways and have their own disputing styles and indigenous methods for managing conflict. In many cultures conflicts may not be openly discussed, for example. There is a substantial body of literature on how cross-cultural issues influence conflict management, especially how they influence international negotiations (Bendahmane and McDonald, 1984; Fisher, 1980). Adapting the lessons from this literature to conservation and natural resources management conflicts would be very useful.