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Free keywords:
community-based conservation, conservation adoption, conservation planning, environmental change, man-groves, participatory mapping
Abstract:
Approximately one quarter of the earth’s population directly harvests natural resourcesto meet their daily needs. These individuals are disproportionately required to alter theirbehaviors in response to increasing climatic variability and global biodiversity loss. Muchof the ever-ambitious global conservation agenda relies on the voluntary uptake of conser-vation behaviors in such populations. Thus, it is critical to understand how such individualsperceive environmental change and use conservation practices as a tool to protect theirwell-being. We developed a participatory mapping activity to elicit spatially explicit per-ceptions of forest change and its drivers across 43 mangrove-dependent communities inPemba, Tanzania. We administered this activity along with a questionnaire regarding con-servation preferences and behaviors to 423 individuals across those 43 communities. Weanalyzed these data with a set of Bayesian hierarchical statistical models. Perceived coverloss in 50% of a community’s mangrove area drove individuals to decrease proposed limitson fuelwood bundles from 2.74 (forest perceived as intact) to 2.37 if participants believedresultant gains in mangrove cover would not be stolen by outsiders. Conversely, individualswho believed their community mangrove forests were at high risk of theft loosened theirproposed harvest limits from 1.26 to 2.75 bundles of fuelwood in response to the sameperceived forest decline. High rates of intergroup competition and mangrove loss werethus driving a self-reinforcing increase in unsustainable harvesting preferences in commu-nity forests in this system. This finding demonstrates a mechanism by which increasingenvironmental decline may cause communities to forgo conservation practices, rather thanadopt them, as is often assumed in much community-based conservation planning. How-ever, we also found that when effective boundaries were present, individuals were willingto limit their own harvests to stem such perceived decline
