Adaptive social impact management for conservation and environmental management

Abstract

Concerns about the social consequences of conservation have spurred increased attention the monitoring and evaluation of the social impacts of conservation projects. This has resulted in a growing body of research that demonstrates how conservation can produce both positive and negative social, economic, cultural, health, and governance consequences for local communities. Yet, the results of social monitoring efforts are seldom applied to adaptively manage conservation projects. Greater attention is needed to incorporating the results of social impact assessments in long-term conservation management to minimize negative social consequences and maximize social benefits. We bring together insights from social impact assessment, adaptive management, social learning, knowledge coproduction, cross-scale governance, and environmental planning to propose a definition and framework for adaptive social impact management (ASIM). We define ASIM as the cyclical process of monitoring and adaptively managing social impacts over the life-span of an initiative through the 4 stages of profiling, learning, planning, and implementing. We outline 14 steps associated with the 4 stages of the ASIM cycle and provide guidance and potential methods for social-indicator development, predictive assessments of social impacts, monitoring and evaluation, communication of results, and identification and prioritization of management responses. Successful ASIM will be aided by engaging with best practices - including local engagement and collaboration in the process, transparent communication of results to stakeholders, collective deliberation on and choice of interventions, documentation of shared learning at the site level, and the scaling up of insights to inform higher-level conservation policies-to increase accountability, trust, and perceived legitimacy among stakeholders. The ASIM process is broadly applicable to conservation, environmental management, and development initiatives at various scales and in different contexts.

Local support for conservation is associated with perceptions of good governance, social impacts, and ecological effectiveness

“…While local people's perceptions of ecological conditions may or may not always be accurate depending on their level of expertise and local knowledge (Christie, 2005;Yasué, Kaufman, & Vincent, 2010), they will formulate opinions nonetheless of the extent to which conservation improves habitats, enhances ecosystem functioning, augments productivity, and increases the biomass and size of individual species (Cinner et al, 2014;Leleu et al, 2012;Rönnbäck, Crona, & Ingwall, 2007). Local people can also experience the social impacts of conservation initiatives, including on economic, social, cultural, health, physical, or political empowerment domains of human well-being (Biedenweg, Stiles, & Wellman, 2016;Breslow et al 2016;Jones, McGinlay, & Dimitrakopoulos, 2017;Kaplan-Hallam & Bennett 2017;Leisher, Samberg, Van Buekering, & Sanjayan, 2013). Governance refers to the policies, institutions, and processes that shape who makes decisions and how decisions are made in conservation planning and management (Bennett & Satterfield 2018;Lockwood, 2010).…”

Just Transformations to Sustainability

“…This is an ethical question that will need to be addressed in every case. Implementing ongoing programs to monitor the social impacts of environmental and sustainability initiatives, can also help to facilitate adaptive management of sustainability policies and practices for distributive justice [138]. Finally, throughout discussions of distribution, recognitional and procedural justice considerations would suggest that representatives of all rights-and stake-holder groups need to be included in selecting the indicators for valued components, in choosing the assumptions that go into allocation models and in deliberating on the management decisions that are ultimately taken.…”

Operationalizing vulnerability for social–ecological integration in conservation and natural resource management

“…The spatial representation of the vulnerability profiles revealed potential interventions best suited to each location around the island, thus allowing local managers to examine previously unexplored, yet locally relevant management possibilities. The approach leading to the selection of the interventions portfolio is transparent and can be replicated through time (Fawcett, Pearce, Ford, & Archer, 2017;Thiault et al, 2018b), providing a structure for implementing an adaptive management process that supports responsive strategies (Kaplan-Hallam & Bennett, 2018).…”