Factors influencing community participation in mangroves restoration: A Contingent Valuation Analysis

Stone, Kathy, Mahadev Bhat, Ramachandra Bhatta, and Andrew Mathews. 2008. "Factors influencing community participation in mangroves restoration: A contingent valuation analysis". Ocean & Coastal Management. 51 (6): 476.

The research conducted for this paper aims to define the different economic benefits of participating in a restoration by different stakeholder groups in the community. The proposed restoration project was mangrove restoration in Karnataka state in India, with fishermen, fisherwomen, and rice farmers as the user groups surveyed. The research portion of the paper is not surprising: different groups will help for different reasons. Therefore, to achieve community participation in a restoration project leaders must know what is important to different to each user group.

However, what is most valuable to take from this reading is the shift to understanding an economic model - a cost-benefit analysis - as it applies to community motivations for participation; and the recognition of the distribution of power within a community. That is, managing for the power relations between community groups. It would be easy to assume that different groups act within a participatory process on an equal footing, when in reality it is usual for some groups' needs to be subjugated to the needs of others, depending on the culture and history of the site.

One criticism of the research is of the interpretation of the fisherwomens' survey results. The writers suggest this groups willingness to participate in restoration is a result of this groups greater propensity for altruism. They do not suggest other alternatives - for example the need to supplement the wages of their husbands - and in so doing exhibit a gender-based bias.

Community Landscape Planning for Rural Areas: A Model for Biocultural Resource Management

Del Amo-Rodriguez, S; Vergara-Tenorio, MD; Ramos-Prado, JM; et al.
SOCIETY & NATURAL RESOURCES, 23 (5): 436-450 2010

This article introduces a theoretical model, Biocultural Resource Management (BCRM), for landscape planning and managing in rural tropical areas. This model stresses the participation of the local population and the integration of their needs, values and indigenous knowledge of the landscape as just as important as natural systems conservation and restoration goals. Boiled down, the model works by creating management teams whereby local people undertake concrete management of projects on their lands and biologists and other experts provide financial and technical support.The goal of BCRM is to make local people the drivers of sustainable land management and planning that consider both cultural diversity as well as biodiversity.

The article gives a good over view of the model but often reverts to flowery speech and grand ideas without tying them down to concrete examples. Although they do somewhat describe the process being used in Mexico, the authors don’t go into detail regarding actual examples of success. Although I can see the merits of their model I found this article a little hard to follow. It seemed more an advertisement for their model than something one could use practically to guide one’s own Biocultural Resource Management Plan.

Negative Off-Site Impacts of Ecolofical Restoration: Understanding and Addressing Conflict

Buckley, MC; Crone, EE. Conservation Biology, 22 (5): 1118 - 1124 OCT 2008

This article raises important issues about long-term negative effects for the practice of ecology arising from conflicts between ecologists/restoration advocates and other stake-holders and constituents in a given area. The authors advocate a process of transparency and direct acknowledgement of project pros and cons to all stakeholders, and a willingness to negotiate and compromise in order to achieve (adjusted) ecological goals without entirely losing the good will of other constituents in the process.

I found the article usefully provacative in its basic content, but lacking in its own acknowledgement of the complexity of this kind of conflict resolution and negotiation process. Who, for example, is sufficiently skilled on both sides to resolve conflicts successfully? Are some negative perceptions a matter of cultural bias rather than actual experience (of negative outcomes)? What kind of long term education might help with negative perceptions that may be incorrect? The authors seem to take a lot at face value, leaving room for much further thought, discussion, and information.

A review of their many citations may be useful in discovering what has been effective in the process of conflict resolution at a large community scale. There is no doubt that the stakes are high.

Connectivity and the Governance of Multilevel Social-Ecological Systems: The Role of Social Capital

Annual Review of Environment and Resources
Vol. 34: 253-278 (2009)

Eduardo S. Brondizio (an anthropologist working on environmental change), Elinor Ostrom (a political scientist working on economic governance of commons) and Oran Young (an environmental scientist working on governance and environmental institutions).

Brondizio etal. address the challenges from “increasing connectivity of resource-use systems and the growing functional interdependencies of ecological and social systems.” (253) They use a case study of the Xingu Indigenous Park and its surrounding agribusiness complex in Brazil as springboard to discuss the limitations of mainstream responses, viz. moving management responsibility to higher levels of public authority, or shifting it to lower levels of governance.

A key element of their argument, therefore, is that “no fixed spatial or temporal level is appropriate for governing ecosystems and their services effectively, efficiently, and equitably on a sustainable basis.” (259) However, far from presenting this as “a message of despair,” the authors recommend the benefits of “a different style of scholarship from the dominant orientation of many social and physical scientists, [in order to undertake] a multilevel diagnostic approach to examining relationships at each relevant level and the fit and interplay among levels.” (ibid.)

The authors address forest restoration and draw on some other restoration ecology literature (e.g., comanagement of caribou or bird populations) – but the real benefit of this article for our discussion lies in their explication of “social capital” (from Bordieu, Coleman and Putnam) and the alternative approaches to harnessing social capital in addressing environmental management across social, temporal and geographic scales: multilevel governance, panarchy, polycentric governance, comanagement, and place-based management.

The weakness of the article is the lack of information on their suggested approaches, since they haven’t “been applied often enough and long enough to produce a track record that we can evaluate systematically.” (271)


Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira

Factors influencing community participation in mangroves restoration: A contingent valuation study

Stone, K., Bhat, M., Bhatta, R., Mathews, A. 2008. Factors influencing community participation in mangroves restoration: A contingent valuation analysis. Ocean and Coastal Management. 51 476-484.

Overall an interesting article about the varying ways different groups of people look at and value a natural resource. The authors used a contingent valuation survey to gauge the reasons for wanting mangrove restoration and the degree to which they would be willing to participate in their restoration of three different groups of people: fishermen, fisherwomen, and rice farmers.

The main purpose of the study was to help develop a way to assess the social setting in which a restoration project might occur and how to effectively incorporate the specific perceived benefits that various stakeholders have about the project into the planning process. By identifying the sources of value in mangroves for these various stakeholders, the goal is to modify a project to try to maximize these various sources of value by selecting certain species over others, or emphasize certain communal benefits.

Coming from a science background, I can't comment on their methods too much, but I found it interesting to see what seemed a very fine line between wanting to create the most appropriate restoration project given the local social structure, and what might seem almost like manipulating different groups based on their specific economic needs.

Adaptive Co-Management and the Gospel of Resilience

Nadasdy, P. 2007. Adaptive Co-Management and the Gospel of Resilience. In Adaptive Co-Mangement: Collaboration, Learning, and Multi-Level Governance, eds. D. Armitage, F. Berkes and N. Doubleday. Toronto, Ontario: University of British Columbia Press.

“If we are to take seriously one of the central insights of adaptive management – that social and environmental systems are intrinsically linked to one another – we must expand our analysis of socio-ecological systems to include not only the nature and workings of management institutions, but also the embeddedness of those institutions and indeed management itself, in the relations of capitalist production.”

Like the science and practice of ecological restoration, adaptive co-management is rooted in a particular set of social-ecological values. The rise of adaptive management and co-management followed the non-linear turn in ecosystem ecology, and is currently linked with the concept of resilience. But what sort of social and political values are adaptive co-management and resilience rooted in? Nadasdy addresses this question and following a long tradition in the social sciences argues that ecological arguments are never socially neutral and that environmental management is as much a question of politics as it is a question of ecological science. Ok, so what does that mean? It means that adaptive co-managers that fail to take the broader political economic context “within which environmental management takes place” render a "thorough analysis of socio-ecological systems impossible." Without understanding this context, environmental managers simply reproduce the social relations and values that they all agree are causing environmental degradation in the first place. Just look at the mostly formulaic drivel that Ecology and Society has published over the last 13 years and how these articles on complexity, sustainability, and resilience often serve to perpetuate the very problems they seek to rectify.

Local participation in cultural landscape maintenance: Lessons from Sweden

Stenseke, M. 2009. Local participation in cultural landscape maintenance: Lessons from Sweden. Land Use Policy 26:214-223

Land management strategies historically have been from the “top-down”; however, current discussion in conservation argues that the involvement of local people in land management is essential to its success. Stenseke (2009) outlines some prerequisites for incorporating local participation into management strategies as well as some caveats. She outlines six factors which should be addressed for local involvement to be successful: 1) Institutional framework, 2) Stakeholders & participants, 3) Organization & process, 4) Communication, 5) Knowledge & learning, 6) Contextual factors. She addresses this topic by evaluating 2 success stories of local participation in land management: farmers in southern Öland & conservationists and ranchers in Mälarhagar. Her discussion for the success of the these projects however was revolved around the topics of 1) trust and respect, 2) common understanding, 3) local influence, 4) market potential and 5) money and time. This disconnect made it difficult to follow which factors she was advocating as important for the successful involvement of the local community. Conversely, it was refreshing that she additionally acknowledged those factors that were hurdles for the groups to overcome and generalized strategies that could be used to avoid them in future programs. The author very much emphasizes that there is no cookie-cutter format to implementing a collaborative management program, because politics will always be very site specific. I found this point rather interesting, given that in restoration ecology practitioners are trying to steer away from the site specific management.

Building Local Community Commitment to Wetland Restoration

Davenport, MA; Bridges, CA; Mangun, JC; et al. Building Local Community Commitment to Wetlands Restoration: A Case Study of the Cache River Wetlands in Southern Illinois, USA ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, 45 (4): 711-722 APR 2010

photo: Cache River and Cypress Creek Wetland. credit: US FWS

The paper begins by highlighting the average person's ignorance towards the importance of wetlands. In a number of studies, wetlands were only seen as important for their habitat value, and consistently ranked low on land use priority surveys. Ironically, these same studies showed that protecting water quality (one of the prime functions of wetlands) was of the utmost importance to Illinois residents. Furthermore, residents often judge the success of wetland restoration projects on their habitat, recreation, and aesthetic value; much differently than ecologists. [maybe these become the new reference sites??] Given this information, the authors argue that engaging local residents in wetland restoration projects is critical to their long term success.

The authors undertook a site specific social study to gauge resident's opinions about the ongoing Cache Creek wetland restoration project and found that resident's concerns were rarely taken into consideration during the restoration planning process. They also documented that many residents have strong, diverse relationships with the wetlands and are concerned about restoration outcomes.

The paper concludes by arguing for greater community involvement in restoration projects. They highlight four areas of special concern that either currently cause local opposition to restoration projects or that have the potential to improve citizen opinion of restoration projects. This is a good paper to read, especially for those of us involved in on-the-ground restoration efforts. Local participation and input should not be underestimated, as it has the potential to ensure the long-term success of restoration projects.

Disentangling the effects of natural and anthropogenic factors in species invasions

Pysek et al. 2010. Disentangling the role of environmental and human pressures on biological invasions across Europe. PNAS. vol. 107. no. 27. pp. 12157–12162.

This paper utilizes a massive dataset to explore the effects of climatic, geographic, and anthropogenic (economic and demographic) factors on levels of species invasion across Europe. Analyses were conducted for all taxa pooled, as well as individually for vascular plants, bryophytes, fungi, terrestrial insects, aquatic invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. In general, the authors found that anthropogenic variables (population density and wealth) were more predictive of current patterns than climatic or geographic variables, but that all three classes (alone and in interactions) were influential.

The paper does a nice job of concisely demonstrating and quantifying the role of human factors, relative to natural constraints, in the invasion process. Similarly, the authors successfully argue that attempts to understand invasion patterns without explicitly considering anthropogenic influences are likely to be flawed. However, they also stress that the relationships they have identified are strictly correlative and thus they cannot determine which specific human activities are most important. Nonetheless, they do offer a few suggestions aimed at minimizing invasion. For instance, “Where commodities themselves pose a risk either as deliberate releases or escapes e.g., pets, ornamental plants, new crops, etc., a possible solution would be to ensure the market price also reflects the likelihood and subsequent cost should the species prove to be invasive”. Perhaps I’m a pessimist, but I have a hard time imagining that such a policy has any real chance of implementation. In summary, this paper reports some illuminating patterns, but fails to offer any feasible solutions (however, in fairness to the authors, it should be pointed out they are tackling a problem that may well be insurmountable).

Integrating traditional ecological knowledge and ecological science: a question of scale.

Gagnon, C. A., and D. Berteaux. 2009. Integrating traditional ecological knowledge and ecological science: a question of scale. Ecology and Society 14(2): 19. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art19/



This study compares Inuit peoples’ Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and scientific knowledge about the arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) and the greater snow goose (Chen caerulescens atlantica) in Nunavut, Canada. The authors interviewed Inuit elders and reviewed the scientific literature. They took a “just the facts” approach to analyzing the “complementarity” of data from the two knowledge systems. They found that combining knowledges for foxes expanded ecological understandings more than for geese. This was because foxes are year-round residents (scientists only do summer studies) and a more important for hunting (a priority for community knowledge gathering and transfer). The authors write that understanding the scale at which TEK and scientific observations operate is vital: “TEK usually provides a longer temporal perspective but a more geographically restrained view of the system…”

This study provides an excellent example of how the perceived duality between different knowledge systems can complement one another, with positive results. However, by focusing on duality, the authors do not question whether these are truly diametrically opposed knowledges. They emphasize the values behind TEK, while ignoring values driving scientists.

The authors missed several opportunities to quantify the baseline for temporal and spatial scales. The ignore a central question, what is the area that the community has traditionally used, and is using? This "area of use" should predict the spatial scale of TEK. Also, their literature review fails to quantify the increase in temporal scale facilitated by TEK - although the authors do quantify temporal scale differences in their own cases.

Building Local Community Commitment to Wetland Restoration

Davenport, MA; Bridges, CA; Mangun, JC; et al. Building Local Community Commitment to Wetlands Restoration: A Case Study of the Cache River Wetlands in Southern Illinois, USA ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, 45 (4): 711-722 APR 2010

The authors emphasize the need to incorporate cultural and economic goals (along with ecological goals) in restoration projects in order to successfully generate community-based support for wetland restoration. These goals could include performance measures for environmental education, expanded recreation opportunities, and volunteer programs. Projects could also track grants and donations secured, land owner cost share, training opportunities provide. The authors also emphasize that ecosystem service related cost-savings estimates (flood regulations, clean water and air, human health) should also be incorporated into restoration planning. The authors conclude that focusing only on the ecological goals will reduce broader community’s interest and participation.

The authors state that their “place-based context specific study of human dimension of wetland restoration and findings… may not be generalizable to communities and wetlands with dissimilar social-ecological characteristics.” However, I found immediate relation to their findings with several of the restoration projects I have worked on in a variety of ecosystems in California.

Lacandon maya ecosystem management: sustainable design for subsistence and environmental restoration

Diemont, SA and JF Martin. 2009. Ecological Applications 19(1): 254-266.

The MesoAmerican Biological Corridor was originally proposed as a means to protect biodiversity and endangered species in Central America. While it includes many reserves, it also encompasses private and community lands managed in both traditional and non-traditional ways. This paper studied the agricultural practices of the Lacandon Maya to discern whether their techniques contribute to broader regional conservation efforts. The Lacandon practice swidden (successional slash-and-burn) agriculture comprised of 6 stages over an approximately 25 year period that range from milpa (beans and corn) to secondary forest. They grow numerous species during each phase (over 400 total recorded), many of which are specifically included due to properties that influence nutrient retention in the soil over time. The authors found that species richness is lowest in the first phase, but remains relatively constant thereafter. Soil organic matter and nitrogen increase over time, while phosphorous spikes during the second fallow shrub phase. While not recorded in this study, previous work indicates that the phases provide forest species with habitat and resources as the system matures.
Deforestation and subsequent soil erosion are major problems in the tropics, however Lacandon agriculture builds soil while supporting biological diversity, providing subsistence food, and maintaining cultural traditions. The use of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to enhance land management practices in the human-dominated matrix between reserves could enhance connectivity and thus strengthen conservation efforts. While the authors propose this as a solution, in the introduction they alluded to numerous social, economic and political constraints that may inhibit adoption of such techniques. They do not address how other traditional agricultural or land-use practices could link together across cultures, nor identify whether participation in such projects is attractive to the Lacandon. Finally, it is unclear if the authors propose that existing swidden lands be protected, or whether they advocate using these techniques in already degraded areas, or both. Are these techniques proven to restore degraded lands? Would such lands be opened up to traditional farmers if this strategy were taken up? While an interesting paper, it leaves many questions hanging- neither addressed nor answered.

Photo: Bean field with coffee farm in background, Matagalpa, Nicaragua. Hillary Sardiñas

Adaptive management and adaptive governance in the everglades ecosystem

Gunderson, L. & S.S. Light. 2006. Adaptive management and adaptive governance in the everglades ecosystem. Policy Science 39:323-334.

The Everglades is perhaps one of the most engineered ecosystems in the world. Since the early 1900's, water flow in the Everglades has been managed for agricultural and urban use. Beginning in the 1990's, ecological restoration has also been an important goal in this region. Everglades restoration and management is characterized by both ecological and institutional complexity.

This article focuses on the history and challenges of management and restoration in the Everglades with a focus on adaptive management and adaptive governance. The authors posit that adaptive management has failed and that social institutions are resilient in continuing to inhibit environmental problem solving. In spite of many attempts at adaptive management through various policy initiatives over a period of decades, these institutions are trapped in pattern of "scientific management." The authors advocate a transition to adaptive governance. They described adaptive governance as a multi-disciplinary system of cross-scale linkages where social learning and adaptive management experiments are encouraged.

Pros: Interesting overview of the social aspects of Everglades restoration; interesting ideas about adaptive management and adaptive governance.

Cons: Very jargony, at least to someone who normally doesn't read this sort of literature, and I think the authors have a personal history of involvment in the politics around this issue which I'm sure colors their perspective on it.

Reconnecting social and ecological resilience in salmon ecosystems

Bottom, D. L., K. K. Jones, C. A. Simenstad, and C. L. Smith. 2009. Reconnecting social and ecological resilience in salmon ecosystems. Ecology and Society 14 (1): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss1/art5

Much of this article ties in with previous conversations we've had this semester, particularly because this is a paper on social ecology tied with resilience and published in Resilience Alliance. Bottom et al. target and criticize current fisheries management programs. This paper gives an interesting overview of historic attempt to save Pacific salmon from going down the same road as Atlantic salmon. Management practices of hatcheries were legistlated as a form of conservation in the late eighties. What this didn't take into account was how fishing to capacity and failing to calculate extra salmon spawning, there is a lack of return throughout the ecosystem of the processes not valued. In other words, this "command and control" model doesn't value ecosystem resilience like elements such as clean water, ample stream flows, functional wetlands and floodplains, intact riparian systems, and abundant fish populations.

But equally as important, the paper argues how these management practices neglect social resiliencies attached to a resource and ecosystem. They highlight the fact that managing a resource like andronomous fish is particularly messy because some species can be managed by a dozen or even two dozen different jurisdictions that they pass through. Research is based on three central questions; (1.) What are the social and ecological attributes of resilient salmon ecosystems? (2.) What factors have undermined resilience of salmon ecosystems? (2.)What factors have undermined resilience of salmon ecosystems? and (3.) What changes are most needed to incorporate resilience thinking in fishery management and to strengthen social- ecological connections to salmon?

Because this superficial management of fisheries via hatcheries undermines the ecological nature of a resource and its processes, it also weakens the connection of social ties with salmon and creates more uncertainty among people whose survival and livelihood are strongly connected with salmon.

While this topic is very interesting, they fail to provide a convincing solution of how a different type of resource management could in time unite social and ecological ties to salmon. Similarly, the social nature of resource management is the focus of their paper, but they never delve into the sociological issues and attempt to empower those dependent upon fisheries, leaving me wanting more social ecology issues surrounding this problem.

Negative off-site impacts of ecological restoration: understanding and addressing the conflict

Buckley, M. C.; Crone, E. E. 2008. Conservation Biology 22(5):1118-1124

Buckley and Crone argue that restoration projects can create negative externalities to surrounding lands that may cause neighboring land owners to try to block the restoration efforts. For example, a large-scale restoration effort supported by both private and government agencies on the Sacramento River was stalled because neighboring farmers perceived that the restoration project was introducing weeds and pests (insects, squirrels and deer) to their lands. Consequently the extent of the restoration project was curtailed from 86,000 ha to 32,000 ha.

Buckley and Crone describe this situation as analogous to a factory being accountable for negative externalities caused by pollution emission. Laws curtailing actions with negative externalities typically are designed to protect human health, however, and the examples they offer of negative externalities caused by restoration are all related to economic performance. Consequently I think they over-emphasized the legal argument – it seems to me that restoration on private property that affects the economic status of neighbors falls into the same sphere as property taxes increasing in a neighborhood when one of the residents builds a mansion. Given that the Sacramento river restoration project was led in part by local government, I think the paper should have focused more on understanding how local governments could work to ensure continued restoration outcomes while responding to local concerns.

Sacramento River Credit: NOAA Restoration Center & Damage Assessment and Restoration Program

Factors influencing community participation in mangroves restoration: A contingent valuation analysis

Stone, K; Bhat, M; Bhatta, R; et al. Factors influencing community participation in mangroves restoration: A contingent valuation analysis OCEAN & COASTAL MANAGEMENT, 51 (6): 476-484 2008

This contingent valuation (CV) study measured the economic value of perceived benefits of mangrove restoration in western India. The CV analysis moves beyond single stakeholder estimates to include fishermen, fisherwomen and rice farmers. The study pays lip service to two major issues that are likely to dampen the CV valuation: 1) the absence of long-term property rights 2) the long payback of restoration for communities with very high discount rates.
I wonder if sufficient field work has been done to analyze whether a restored mangrove is likely to provide the same use and non-use values (in the same intensity) as an undisturbed mangrove system. CV relies on community members with varying education levels and life experience assessing a complex restoration’s likely impact on broader systems. Yet, the mangrove description given to survey respondents was simple and focused on mangrove benefits. It strikes me that the general public may not be sufficiently well-informed to make assessments about the likely outcomes of a restoration. This begs the broader question of whether social values should be based on individual values, particularly for complex ecological issues on which the majority of individuals are not likely to have expertise.
Beyond its CV, I should also note that the study supports the notion that community involvement is critical to successful mangrove restoration because of limited budgets for the restoration (community provides” cash, labor, physical resources and management input”) and a restoration effort against a community’s wish may result in backlash. It is particularly focused on inclusion of all stakeholders across the social hierarchy—an important point.

Collectively engaging complex socio-ecological systems: re-envisioning science, governance, and the California Delta

Richard B Norgaard, Giorgos Kallis, Michael Kiparsky

"there is no environmental reality over time, or the possibility of one in the future, that is independent of how people both understand and affect the environment through governance, or its absence"

This article first outlines key components of the important history of the California Delta. The authors offer an in depth look at the multiple actors - both governmental and non-governmental, social, political and scientific - that have had major roles in the development of the Delta system and how those actors have interacted up to today. Because the Delta is such an important water and ecological resource, its use is naturally a contentious issue.

Given the complexities of the interactions between social and environmental systems, the authors argue against managing the delta with a visionary endpoint in mind, and instead stress the need for a broad-sweeping, well understood, adaptive approach. 'Visions of the Delta's future,' they argue, 'must be both dynamic and open to surprise'.

This article provides a good case study of how humans have, will and should interact with environmental systems. Looking as we are toward the future of environmental restoration, it is important to understand historical and current trends, so that we can move forward well-informed and adaptable to the inevitable changes that will occur in both social and ecological realms.

Integrating traditional ecological knowledge and ecological science: a question of scale.

Gagnon, C. A., and D. Berteaux. 2009. Integrating traditional ecological knowledge and ecological science: a question of scale. Ecology and Society 14(2): 19. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art19/

This article does a fantastic job of pinning down the reality of combining Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and scientific knowledge, a task I have heard referred to as "seeing with two eyes." The authors have done a great job of outlining some specific aspects of two species' (arctic foxes and snow geese) ecology and then collecting TEK from Inuit peoples and reviewing scientific literature as well. They discuss the relevance of the different kinds of knowledge through the lens of temporal and spatial scale. In some ways their conclusion may seem obvious: where the different knowledges cover different scales, their knowledge is complementary, and where they overlap, they tend to cross-validate each other. But to actually have demonstrated this is quite a feat. They also do point out that they've focused in this study on the factual part of TEK and not the spiritual or values-based parts. As it is not the focus of their paper, I thought they did a good job of raising the question of how to incorporate those parts of TEK in management processes and decisions, as well as taking some preliminary steps in the discussion and conclusions to suggest how one might proceed.

I was excited to read a paper where they have actually successfully compared the different kinds of knowledge; I think this is a nice bridge between all of the science-based things we've read in previous weeks and the social questions we are about to address head-on. In a similar way, I like that this paper raises the issue of how knowledge and values are related, and as both of those things will inform restoration efforts, I think this is a great jumping-off point for discussion. In addition, I think it is good to hear something about the knowledge of stakeholders who have historically been voiceless: having an indigenous perspective in the mix when we discuss social barriers to restoration is valuable in my opinion.

Photo Credit: Arctic fox from Wikimedia Commons: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Arctic_Fox_1997-08-05.jpg/788px-Arctic_Fox_1997-08-05.jpg. Photo by Ansgar Walk, his caption: "Artic fox (Alopex lagopus) in Quttinirpaaq National Park, Nunavut, Canada"