Improving Environmental Interventions by Understanding Information Flows

A multilevel social-ecological network approach for reconciling coastal saltmarsh conservation and development

In a large-scale region, governance for connectivity in an ecological system often conflicts with management boundaries, causing inefficiencies. Collaboration among management organizations in different areas can help overcome this problem. However, few studies quantified the collaborations' practical relationship with connectivity, considering that some potentially connected paths are easy to neglect by managers. In this paper, collaborations among government agencies in project application process were analyzed, and a multilevel social-ecological network analysis (SENA) approach was developed to identify the collaboration's effect on genetically connected coastal areas. The network framework and methods were shown in a case of coastal saltmarsh conservation and development in the Yellow River Delta, China. Collaboration patterns in conservation and development networks were analyzed and compared among local, subregional, and regional government agencies working in genetically connected coastal areas. Project information flow, reflecting communication frequency and decision-making chances among government agencies was quantified and correlated with ecological connectivity to inform governance effects. Results showed areas with the potential to realize social-ecological alignment, where collaborative networks were measured by network density (percentage of connected network edges). The current reveals that development has more significant potential than conservation at most levels to overcome the misalignment of the social-ecological system, also known as scale mismatch. Empirical evidence also showed a correlation between communication capacity in development networks and improved ecological conditions. The multilevel SENA advanced in this paper can be used for natural resource management when connectivity plays a major role.

A qualitative analysis of health information-sharing networks in the Indonesian poultry sector

Animal production systems are developing into increasingly complex value chains involving a large diversity of actors with multiple and dynamic linkages, concurrently creating many opportunities for disease spread. Access to timely and good-quality animal health information is vital for designing effective disease management strategies. However, several factors may hamper information flows along those chains. Understanding the structure and dynamics of information networks is essential to develop effective and acceptable health information systems. We applied a qualitative network approach to understand how information about poultry health is generated, disseminated and used for decision-making along the poultry value chain in Indonesia. Maps of the value chain and information networks were generated based on data from key informant interviews to illustrate the linkages and information-sharing patterns between stakeholders. Four types of farm business models were identified: company-owned, contract, partnership and independent. Although companies and most independent farmers collected health and production data routinely, their systems were strongly siloed and still relied on a mix of digital and paper-based methods, which impaired their analytical capacity. Technical service providers from the upstream sector and industry associations were identified as key intermediaries in the information-sharing network with the ability to create informal bridges between separate business networks and public actors. These actors can play a strategic role in the development of integrated information systems to improve stakeholders' capacity to monitor, anticipate and manage disease threats at all levels of the value chain. This study contributes to fill an important knowledge gap regarding the layer sector and may help decision-makers to design effective policies and interventions tailored to the type of business model.

Making a greener planet: nature documentaries promote plant awareness

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Plants underpin life on Earth and are essential to human existence. Alarmingly, almost 40% of plant species are under threat of extinction, with plants that are not directly useful to humans being particularly vulnerable. Plant diversity and its untapped resources require urgent protection to safeguard our future, but conservation initiatives are biased towards mammals and birds. Plant awareness disparity, formerly known as plant blindness, describes our tendency to ignore plant life and has been suggested to play a crucial role in the bias against funding and support for plant conservation programmes. Previous studies indicate that nature documentaries can generate shifts in audience awareness of animal species by providing vicarious connections to nature. Here, we investigated whether the plant-focused popular BBC show Green Planet had a similar effect for plants and stimulated audience engagement for information after the broadcast.

METHODS

Online searches for further information were considered a form of engagement for evaluation of the interest of the audience in plants portrayed in Green Planet episodes. The big data activities (Google search engine and Wikipedia pageviews trends) related to the plants mentioned in Green Planet episodes were examined over the period covering the broadcast of the show in UK.

KEY RESULTS

Analyses indicate that Green Planet generated increased awareness and stimulated audience engagement for further information about plants featured in the show, with audience reaction driven by the screen time.

CONCLUSIONS

Natural history films can promote plant awareness, and culturomic tools can be used to assess their impact on the general public, potentially also to inform plant conservation strategies. These are promising findings as we strive to increase public awareness of the value of plant life.

Learning pathways for engagement: Understanding drivers of pro-environmental behavior in the context of protected area management

The participation of local communities in management decisions is critically important to the long-term salience and therefore, success, of protected areas. Engaging community members in meaningful ways requires knowledge of their behavior and its antecedents, particularly values. Understanding how learning influences cooperation in conservation initiatives is also fundamentally important for supporting decisions being made about public lands. However, there is little empirical evidence of how learning from different information sources works in conjunction with values that shape behavior. Using data from a household survey of residents living in the Denali region of Interior Alaska, U.S, we estimated a two-step structural equation model to understand the psychological reasons why stakeholders made decisions to collectively benefit the environment. Results showed that more diverse pathways by which learning occurred were instrumental in explaining why residents performed pro-environmental behaviors over the past year. Additionally, values that reflected the goals of eudaimonia influenced the transfer and negotiation of knowledge exchange among stakeholders as a correlate of behavior. Environmental concern and personal norms were positively associated with reported behaviors operationalized as social environmentalism and living in an environmentally conscientious manner, whereas environmental concern and willingness to pay for protected area management positively influenced civic engagement. We argue that broadening the range of learning spaces and considering a more diverse array of values in communities surrounding protected areas will encourage daily lifestyle changes, social interactions to support environmentalism, and more robust, pluralistic forms of public engagement in natural resource management.

How do information flows affect impact from environmental research? - An analysis of a science-policy network

Evidence of the impact arising from environmental research is increasingly demanded. Exchanges between science providers and actors that use scientific knowledge to address environmental problems are recognized as a key component of the mechanisms through which impact occurs. Yet, the role of interactions between science and policy actors in delivering and shaping research impact is not well established. We aim to better understand how transfer of science in a science-policy network generates impact. Our approach relies on an exploratory social network analysis (SNA), applied to a network of organisations working on land and water management in a catchment in the UK. We analyse flows of scientific information across these organisations and how those contribute to impact, which we conceptualized as change in organisations at three levels: increased awareness, operational change and strategic change. We find that organisations occupying central positions in the network facilitate the transfer of science and influence the level of change achieved. We also find that the effectiveness of the flows of information and impact delivery depends on boundary organisations, in particular public regulatory bodies, that connect agents with others. Moreover, intended change reported by science providers does not often transform directly into change as reported by the receivers of the information. We conclude that both exchanges between researchers and research users and the role of boundary organisations are key to impact delivery and making change possible. This is valuable for understanding where improvements to information flows between organisations might enhance impact.

Impact of Citizens’ Personal Values, Knowledge, Awareness, Informing, Advertising, and Truth of Environmental and Climate Challenges in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals

In order to raise citizens’ awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to develop an effective communication campaign on the SDGs, it is crucial to know citizens’ values, their awareness and knowledge of the SDGs, as well as how they receive information on sustainability. As no previous study has addressed this issue, this study aimed to fill a research gap and find out how demographic variables, personal values, awareness of sustainability challenges, information, and advertising influence citizens’ support for the SDGs. An online survey was conducted with representative Slovenian citizens (N = 502). The results showed that Slovenian citizens know little about sustainability issues and the SDGs. The greater the personal values, awareness of sustainability issues, higher education, efficient information, and trust in advertising, the greater the public support for the SDGs. To gain citizen support for the SDGs, it is important to plan a systematic communication campaign and government-led communication about the SDGs in the media. This includes information on sustainability issues, presentation of the environmental friendliness of a product/service, potential positive actions, and potential negative consequences.

Effects of social networks on interventions to change conservation behavior

Social networks are critical to the success of behavioral interventions in conservation because network processes such as information flows and social influence can enable behavior change to spread beyond a targeted group. We investigated these mechanisms in the context of a social marketing campaign to promote a wildlife poisoning hotline in Cambodia. With questionnaire surveys we measured a social network and knowledge and constructs from the theory of planned behavior at 3 points over 6 months. The intervention initially targeted ∼11% (of 365) of the village, but after 6 months ∼40% of the population was knowledgeable about the campaign. The likelihood of being knowledgeable nearly doubled with each additional knowledgeable household member. In the short term, there was also a modest, but widespread improvement in proconservation behavioral intentions, but this did not persist after 6 months. Estimates from stochastic actor-oriented models suggested that the influences of social peers, rather than knowledge, were driving changes in intention and contributed to the failure to change behavioral intention in the long term, despite lasting changes in attitudes and perceived norms. Our results point to the importance of accounting for the interaction between networks and behavior when designing conservation interventions.

Conceptualizing ecosystem services using social-ecological networks

Social-ecological networks (SENs) represent the complex relationships between ecological and social systems and are a useful tool for analyzing and managing ecosystem services. However, mainstreaming the application of SENs in ecosystem service research has been hindered by a lack of clarity about how to match research questions to ecosystem service conceptualizations in SEN (i.e., as nodes, links, attributes, or emergent properties). Building from different disciplines, we propose a typology to represent ecosystem service in SENs and identify opportunities and challenges of using SENs in ecosystem service research. Our typology provides guidance for this growing field to improve research design and increase the breadth of questions that can be addressed with SEN to understand human-nature interdependencies in a changing world.

Assessing information-sharing networks within small-scale fisheries and the implications for conservation interventions

The effectiveness of behavioural interventions in conservation often depends on local resource users' underlying social interactions. However, it remains unclear to what extent differences in related topics of information shared between resource users can alter network structure-holding implications for information flows and the spread of behaviours. Here, we explore the differences in nine subtopics of fishing information related to the planned expansion of a community co-management scheme aiming to reduce sea turtle bycatch at a small-scale fishery in Peru. We show that the general network structure detailing information sharing about sea turtle bycatch is dissimilar from other fishing information sharing. Specifically, no significant degree assortativity (degree homophily) was identified, and the variance in node eccentricity was lower than expected under our null models. We also demonstrate that patterns of information sharing between fishers related to sea turtle bycatch are more similar to information sharing about fishing regulations, and vessel technology and maintenance, than to information sharing about weather, fishing activity, finances and crew management. Our findings highlight the importance of assessing information-sharing networks in contexts directly relevant to the desired intervention and demonstrate the identification of social contexts that might be more or less appropriate for information sharing related to planned conservation actions.

Intergenerational learning: A recommendation for engaging youth to address marine debris challenges

Youth can impact environmental attitudes and behaviors among adults. Indeed, research on intergenerational learning has demonstrated the influence of young people on adults in their lives for myriad environmental topics. Intergenerational learning (IGL) refers to the bidirectional transfer of knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors from children to their parents or other adults and vice versa. We suggest an educational framework wherein K-12 marine debris education designed to maximize IGL may be a strategy to accelerate interdisciplinary, community-level solutions to marine debris. Although technical strategies continue to be developed to address the marine debris crisis, even the most strictly technical of these benefit from social support. Here, we present 10 Best Practices grounded in educational, IGL, and youth civic engagement literature to promote marine debris solutions. We describe how integrating IGL and civic engagement into K-12-based marine debris curricula may start a virtuous circle benefiting teachers, students, families, communities, and the ocean.

Multiple social network influences can generate unexpected environmental outcomes

Understanding the function of social networks can make a critical contribution to achieving desirable environmental outcomes. Social-ecological systems are complex, adaptive systems in which environmental decision makers adapt to a changing social and ecological context. However, it remains unclear how multiple social influences interact with environmental feedbacks to generate environmental outcomes. Based on national-scale survey data and a social-ecological agent-based model in the context of voluntary private land conservation, our results suggest that social influences can operate synergistically or antagonistically, thereby enabling behaviors to spread by two or more mechanisms that amplify each other's effects. Furthermore, information through social networks may indirectly affect and respond to isolated individuals through environmental change. The interplay of social influences can, therefore, explain the success or failure of conservation outcomes emerging from collective behavior. To understand the capacity of social influence to generate environmental outcomes, social networks must not be seen as 'closed systems'; rather, the outcomes of environmental interventions depend on feedbacks between the environment and different components of the social system.

Consumer-based actions to reduce plastic pollution in rivers: A multi-criteria decision analysis approach

The use and management of single use plastics is a major area of concern for the public, regulatory and business worlds. Focusing on the most commonly occurring consumer plastic items present in European freshwater environments, we identified and evaluated consumer-based actions with respect to their direct or indirect potential to reduce macroplastic pollution in freshwater environments. As the main end users of these items, concerned consumers are faced with a bewildering array of choices to reduce their plastics footprint, notably through recycling or using reusable items. Using a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis approach, we explored the effectiveness of 27 plastic reduction actions with respect to their feasibility, economic impacts, environmental impacts, unintended social/environmental impacts, potential scale of change and evidence of impact. The top ranked consumer-based actions were identified as: using wooden or reusable cutlery; switching to reusable water bottles; using wooden or reusable stirrers; using plastic free cotton-buds; and using refill detergent/ shampoo bottles. We examined the feasibility of top-ranked actions using a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to explore the complexities inherent in their implementation for consumers, businesses, and government to reduce the presence of plastic in the environment.

Natural history films raise species awareness-A big data approach

In urbanized societies that are increasingly disconnected from nature, communicating ecological and species awareness is crucial to revert the global environmental crisis. However, our understanding of the effectiveness of this process is limited. We present a framework for describing how such awareness may be transferred and test it on the popular BBC show Planet Earth 2 by analyzing Twitter and Wikipedia big data activity. Despite lacking explicit conservation themes, this show generated species awareness, stimulating audience engagement for information at magnitudes comparable to those achieved by other conservation-focused campaigns. Results suggest that natural history films can provide vicarious connections to nature and can generate durable shifts in audience awareness beyond the broadcast of the show-key factors for changing environmental attitudes. More broadly, this study underscores how open-source big data analysis can inform effective dissemination of ecological awareness and provides a framework for future research for investigating behavioral change.

An Integrative Dynamic Model of Colombian Population Distribution, Based on the Maximum Entropy Principle and Matter, Energy, and Information Flow

Human society has increased its capacity to exploit natural resources thanks to new technologies, which are one of the results of information exchange in the knowledge society. Many approaches to understanding the interactions between human society and natural systems have been developed in the last decades, and some have included considerations about information. However, none of them has considered information as an active variable or flowing entity in the human–natural/social-ecological system, or, moreover, even as a driving force of their interactions. This paper explores these interactions in socio-ecological systems by briefly introducing a conceptual frame focused on the exchange of information, matter, and energy. The human population is presented as a convergence variable of these three physical entities, and a population distribution model for Colombia is developed based on the maximum entropy principle to integrate the balances of related variables as macro-state restrictions. The selected variables were electrical consumption, water demand, and higher education rates (energy, matter, and information). The final model includes statistical moments for previous population distributions. It is shown how population distribution can be predicted yearly by combining these variables, allowing future dynamics exploration. The implications of this model can contribute to bridging information sciences and sustainability studies.

Integrating models of human behaviour between the individual and population levels to inform conservation interventions

Conservation takes place within social-ecological systems, and many conservation interventions aim to influence human behaviour in order to push these systems towards sustainability. Predictive models of human behaviour are potentially powerful tools to support these interventions. This is particularly true if the models can link the attributes and behaviour of individuals with the dynamics of the social and environmental systems within which they operate. Here we explore this potential by showing how combining two modelling approaches (social network analysis, SNA, and agent-based modelling, ABM) could lead to more robust insights into a particular type of conservation intervention. We use our simple model, which simulates knowledge of ranger patrols through a hunting community and is based on empirical data from a Cambodian protected area, to highlight the complex, context-dependent nature of outcomes of information-sharing interventions, depending both on the configuration of the network and the attributes of the agents. We conclude by reflecting that both SNA and ABM, and many other modelling tools, are still too compartmentalized in application, either in ecology or social science, despite the strong methodological and conceptual parallels between their uses in different disciplines. Even a greater sharing of methods between disciplines is insufficient, however; given the impact of conservation on both the social and ecological aspects of systems (and vice versa), a fully integrated approach is needed, combining both the modelling approaches and the disciplinary insights of ecology and social science. This article is part of the theme issue 'Linking behaviour to dynamics of populations and communities: application of novel approaches in behavioural ecology to conservation'.