Stakeholder perceptions of mangrove ecosystem services across scales of conservation focus

Abstract

Conservation faces a chronic shortage of resources, including time, funding, mental capacity, and human capital. Efforts to make the expenditure of these resources more efficient should, therefore, support more equitable and effective conservation prioritization. To achieve this, it is necessary to ensure the integration of the knowledge and perceptions of local stakeholders into larger scale conservation decisions. We used fuzzy cognitive mental modeling to assess the perceptions of mangroves and the prioritization of ecosystem services across 3 groups of stakeholders: representatives from 3 coastal Fijian villages, the national office of an international nongovernmental organization (NGO), and the US office of that same NGO. We found different topologies and valuations among the resultant mental models, with the US NGO office having the most terms. However, when comparing models from local villages with the US NGO office, scale-dependent perceptions shifted, including the relative devaluation of locally important cultural valuations of mangroves. Despite these variations in perceptions, however, 3 key components of the mental models—women's livelihoods, men's livelihoods, and fisheries supplementation—all appeared as consistently important in multiple models, suggesting areas around which potential collaboration among stakeholders could be forged. By focusing on system-wide, rather than stakeholder-specific, optimal solutions within the system, new opportunities for collaboration may emerge. In doing so, these system-wide solutions may increase efficiency and collaboration. Moreover, we found that boundary-spanning organizations, such as the national-level conservation organizations, played a role in facilitating information transfer and mediating conservation goals in a culturally appropriate fashion. Finally, although the specific example used here is mangrove conservation, our methodologies and findings are broadly applicable across a variety of conservation scenarios.