Psycho‐Social Processes in Dealing with Legal Innovation in the Community: Insights from Biodiversity Conservation

Abstract

Mitigation measures for tackling the consequences of a changing climate will involve efforts of various types including the conservation of affected ecosystems. For this, communities throughout the world will be called on to change habits of land and water use. Many of these changes will emerge from the multilevel governance tools now commonly used for environmental protection. In this article, some tenets of a social psychology of legal innovation are proposed for approaching the psycho-social processes involved in how individuals, groups and communities respond to multilevel governance. Next, how this approach can improve our understanding of community-based conservation driven by legal innovation is highlighted. For this, the macro and micro level processes involved in the implementation of the European Natura 2000 Network of Protected Sites are examined. Finally, some insights gained from this example of multilevel governance through legal innovation will be enumerated as a contribution for future policy making aimed at dealing with climate change consequences.

Local communities responding to ecological challenges—A psycho‐social approach to the Natura 2000 Network

“…This reinforces the literature suggesting that public and privare sphere behaviours are indeed predicted by different patterns of variables (Stern, 2000). Also, the usual formulation of laws in rather generic and abstract terms may enable communities both to present high global levels of support and try to reinterpret the law and express disagreement on context-specific applications (Castro & Mouro, 2009;Tuffin & Frewin, 2008). Further research is required that focuses explicitly on this subject.…”

Pro-environmental beliefs and behaviors: two levels of response to environmental social norms

“…One of the ways through which this problem is tackled is in the legal arena: international legal frameworks are transcribed to the national laws, and locally implemented (Castro & Mouro, 2011;Ferreira, 2000). Considering that this process evolved from the public opinion to the legal sphere in a more consistent and quick way in European Union member states than in Brazil (Ferreira & Tavolaro, 2008), we wanted to verify whether this formal valorization led to a different informal valorization between Portuguese and Brazilian participants.…”

“…Environmental ideas first emerged during the post war years, mixed with antinuclear and counter-culture movements (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982). At the time, those ideas were marginal and specific of grassroots movements (Castro & Mouro, 2011;Laessøe, 2007). Only after the 70's did a consensus begin to emerge with regard to the importance of protecting the environment (Dunlap, 2008) and the environmental movement started to be institutionalized notably through formal regulations (Castro & Mouro, 2011;Laessøe, 2007).…”

Towards a better understanding of people’s responses to renewable energy technologies: Insights from Social Representations Theory

“…This implies that generic laws will need to be translated to specific local realities, to which they are usually not adapted to (Castro & Mouro, 2011) therefore having the potential to create conflicts, and that this should be considered when trying to understand people's responses to such laws.…”