Abstract
Natural resource management is a dynamic and adaptive science that responds to changes in the social, economic, and ecological factors pertaining to the managed resource(s). It requires and involves interactions and mediations at different spatial scales and of different knowledge pools and stakes. Participatory approaches can facilitate these interactions and mediations if structured so that collaboration can exist, conflicts are resolved, and knowledge exchange is enhanced. In this chapter, I discuss the application of a spatially explicit participatory GIS (PGIS) to bring together communities of managers, ecologists, and government and NGO representatives in two high-conflict areas of Scotland to discuss conflicts and develop a common knowledge and understanding of red deer and their management. I will first discuss the approach taken during a project that consisted of map-based interviews, secondary data collection, analysis, modeling, and two workshops that engaged stakeholders. Next I will discuss the results of the analysis and illustrate how comanagement and adaptation are currently taking place in deer management in Scotland. This discussion will contain an overview of the reaction of the participants to the PGIS approach. In the end, I will outline some critical consideration for discussion of the role participation can and should have in informing and addressing natural resource management.
This research is part of the United Kingdom Research Councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) program’s project “Collaborative Frameworks in Land Management” (Project: RES 227-025-0014). RELU is funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the Natural Environment Research Council, withadditional funding from the Scottish Government’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. Funding for this project was also provided by the Forestry Commission, United Kingdom. I would like to thank the above for their financial support for this research and other team members who worked with me in this project: Justin Irvine, Steve Yearley, Helen Armstrong, Jim McLeod, and Amy Turner. I also extend my sincere gratitude to the members of the Deer Management Groups and other stakeholders involved with the project who made our work possible.
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Fiorini, S. (2013). Change in Natural Resource Management: An Experiment with “Participatory GIS”. In: Brondízio, E., Moran, E. (eds) Human-Environment Interactions. Human-Environment Interactions, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4780-7_5
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