**Reframing Native Knowledge, Co-Managing Native Landscapes: Ethnographic Data and Tribal Engagement at Yosemite National Park**

#### **Rochelle Bloom and Douglas Deur \***

Department of Anthropology, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207, USA; rbloom@pdx.edu **\*** Correspondence: deur@pdx.edu

Received: 25 August 2020; Accepted: 18 September 2020; Published: 22 September 2020

**Abstract:** Several Native American communities assert traditional ties to Yosemite Valley, and special connections to the exceptional landmarks and natural resources of Yosemite National Park. However, tribal claims relating to this highly visible park with its many competing constituencies—such as tribal assertions of traditional ties to particular landscapes or requests for access to certain plant gathering areas—often require supporting documentation from the written record. Addressing this need, academic researchers, the National Park Service and park-associated tribes collaborated in a multi-year effort to assemble a comprehensive ethnographic database containing most available written accounts of Native American land and resource use in Yosemite National Park. To date, the database includes over 13,000 searchable and georeferenced entries from historical accounts, archived ethnographic notebooks, tribal oral history transcripts and more. The Yosemite National Park Ethnographic Database represents a progressive tool for identifying culturally significant places and resources in Yosemite—a tool already being used by both cultural and natural resource managers within the National Park Service as well as tribal communities considering opportunities for future collaborative management of their traditional homelands within Yosemite National Park. We conclude that the organization of such data, including inherent ambiguities and contradictions, periodically updated with data provided by contemporary Tribal members, offers a rich, multivocal and dynamic representation of cultural traditions linked to specific park lands and resources. Indeed, some Yosemite tribal members celebrate the outcomes as revelatory, and as a partial antidote to their textual erasure from dispossessed lands. In practice however, as with any database, we find that this approach still risks ossifying data and reinforcing hegemonic discourses relating to cultural stasis, ethnographic objectivity and administrative power. By critically engaging these contradictions, we argue that one can still navigate pathways forward—bringing Native voices more meaningfully into the management of parks and other protected spaces, and providing a template useful at other parks for collaboration toward shared conservation goals.

**Keywords:** Yosemite National Park; ethnographic databases; ethnography; National Park Service; cultural resource management; tribal co-management; Southern Sierra Miwuk; Mono Lake Paiute

#### **1. Introduction**

Since the advent of national park creation, United States national parks have provided a globally influential template for the preservation of preeminent natural landscapes. Simultaneously, the U.S. experience with parks underscores fundamental inequities and contradictions that animated these early conservation efforts. Initially, park-boosters such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Theodore Roosevelt supported early park development to set aside lands for their sublime scenic values and recreational potentials for America's leisure class—shaping the priorities and the policies of the early National Park Service [1]. Guided by a historically inaccurate concept of "wilderness" and treating large swathes of

the American landscape as terra nullius, the U.S. set aside keystone parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Crater Lake—places long inhabited by Native peoples. Abruptly, these landscapes came to be managed by non-Native peoples like they were uninhabited wild spaces. These were "imagined wildernesses" [2], for they were "inhabited wildernesses" [3]. Nonetheless, federal policy shaped by this colonizing logic contributed to Native displacement, and in turn, Euro-American concepts of wilderness came, over time, to be manifest on the land.

While Native American archaeological sites might be treated as objects of touristic interest in the young National Park Service, as at Mesa Verde, the presence of living Native people was often perceived as an obstacle to national park goals. Indeed, some have suggested that the creation of U.S. national parks was an act of "ethnic cleansing"—a national project that removed people from the landscape, all the while eradicating the memory of their history within these unique places [4]. This phenomenon of physical and textual displacement has been documented among national parks globally [3,5] as well as in specific U.S. parks, with Yosemite National Park being an oft-cited example [2,6,7]. Such displacement of Native peoples from park lands has been said to disrupt human lives and longstanding anthropogenic ecologies within park lands, and to undermine the cultures of Native communities and the heritage of the American nation writ large [8,9]. In response, Native American tribes, as well as academic and administrative writers, have called for an effort to "restore a presence"—not only restoring a material presence of Native peoples and their traditional practices to park lands, but also restoring the knowledge, power and textual representation of Native peoples relating to dispossessed park lands [10]. Through the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this call has reflected not only broad ideological shifts in US public thought and governance, but increasingly practical necessities as well. For in recent decades, the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) has been transformed, becoming the lead agency legally responsible for implementation of several cornerstone federal laws protecting Indigenous cultural sites and the rights of Native people—from the protection of Native American graves, to the protection of "Traditional Cultural Properties" such as sacred sites as part of the National Register of Historic Places. With a retooled mission and a new sense of urgency, the agency has grappled with the meaning of this responsibility and has sought mechanisms to meet it.

Turning to Yosemite National Park, the written record makes it clear: despite 130 years of park management and the gradual removal of all Native residents, Native presence and Native imprints on the landscape endure at Yosemite [11–13]. Several Native American communities—descendants of the park's resident peoples—still assert traditional ties to Yosemite Valley and particular connections to its landmarks and natural resources. Traditional activities such as plant gathering continued in the park for generations after park creation, sometimes openly, but often clandestinely. In recent decades, park managers have demonstrated increasing interest in and recognition of the role that native peoples have had in shaping the landscape. This has been reflected in changing park interpretation, consultation and management efforts. Throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Native American tribes have gained political leverage and attained important roles in influencing park policy. In this period, the NPS has hired a greater number of Native American staff, increased consultation with tribal governments, and explored opportunities for the collaborative management of certain parklands and resources with tribal partners [2] (pp. 16–17). Resource managers have begun incorporating Indigenous perspectives into research, recognizing connections to plants and landscape, and often seeking ways to achieve positive outcomes that achieve both scientific and cultural purposes.

While the tribes possess rich oral traditions of Yosemite, the written record of human activity has been understandably diffuse. Ironically, the written record is now in high demand. In this internationally visible park with its many mandates and constituencies, tribal claims to particular sacred places or plant gathering areas, for example, require substantiation from a written historical record to meet the terms for access set by federal laws and policies. The National Park Service has found itself with an awkward mandate to "restore a presence", including a textual presence, of peoples displaced by the park's creation.

Addressing the need to assemble a written record of Native presence, the authors, in collaboration with the National Park Service and park-associated tribes, directed a multi-year project to assemble a comprehensive ethnographic database containing available written accounts of Native American land and resource use in Yosemite National Park. This tool is already being used by cultural and natural resource managers within the National Park Service, as well as tribal communities, as they consider collaborative management of their traditional homelands within Yosemite National Park and the sharing of Native history with park visitors.

Initially, the NPS approved the development of the Yosemite Ethnographic Database to facilitate basic ethnographic research for park planning, and to identify significant cultural features and culturally significant natural resources that might be legally protected in the course of park planning. In time, however, park managers found less conventional applications for its use. The specific design of the database and the way the data has been organized makes it particularly appealing to natural resource managers who can readily access cultural information in a format familiar to them. The ease of access and newfound perception of cultural data as being approachable and "functional" has supported multidisciplinary research and collaboration and introduced natural resource staff to new perspectives on resources. While the database has proven useful, there are inherent dangers in forcing cultural data into a positivist framework. The database was originally designed as a tool for cultural resource employees with a background that would allow them to comprehend the data, in context; significant challenges arise when this database is used without regard to its context or complexity, and when subjective interpretations are accepted as objective truth.

Databases are at once powerful and increasingly popular tools to support the integration of Native voices, values and knowledge into park management, while being a significant threat to such efforts if used unadvisedly. Therefore, we offer our experiences developing, managing and sharing the Yosemite database as a potentially instructive reference point for other parks and protected lands —at once providing the database as a model, while also seeking to problematize the concept of database production generally. We do so recognizing that natural scientists increasingly seek to adopt ethnographic data in innovative ways, and that other national parks in the United States and beyond now seek to develop their own databases. In these efforts, Yosemite's experiences with both the opportunities and pitfalls of incorporating ethnographic data into park land and resource management prove informative.

Though the quantification of cultural data makes it more accessible to natural resource managers, promoting multidisciplinary studies and facilitating identification of sites for compliance projects, this approach risks ossifying data and reinforcing hegemonic discourses related to cultural stasis, ethnographic objectivity and administrative power.We conclude that contextualizing the data, including its inherent ambiguities and contradictions, by periodically updating it with data from contemporary Tribal members, offers a richer, more multivocal and dynamic representation of cultural traditions linked to specific park lands and resources. Indeed, we recommend employing the database only in conjunction with such a hermeneutic approach—especially in consideration of the weaknesses of other databases and issues within the specific cultural and historical context of Yosemite National Park. A more culturally relativistic and historically contextualized representation of cultural data serves as a partial antidote to the textual erasure of tribal communities from dispossessed lands. Herein, we will discuss both the general issues confronting the use of a positivist framework for using and interpreting cultural information, and will analyze specific issues inherent in such a methodology as it pertains to Yosemite National Park. By critically engaging these contradictions, one can navigate the complex path of bringing Native voices more meaningfully into the management of parks and other protected spaces while simultaneously enhancing opportunities for collaboration toward shared conservation goals. Specifically, the following discussion summarizes pitfalls inherent in adoption of cultural data without attention to nuance, as well as opportunities to incorporate data in useful and meaningful ways both to perform innovative conservation work and to build and foster relationships between resource managers and tribal communities.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

Without a clear written record of their connections, however, tribes and tribal organizations often struggle to meet the legal standards to develop plant-gathering agreements, recover human remains unearthed by park development, and the like—not only at Yosemite, but at other national parks across the nation. Additionally, in the absence of clear mandates and funding sources, U.S. national parks have highly variegated systems for documenting information regarding Native American uses of lands and resources within parks. Most have maintained paper files in various stages of development, often scattered somewhat unpredictably between multiple offices relating to different aspects of Native-park relations; in more recent times, GIS databases and electronic files have taken shape.

In initial efforts to create databases, the NPS has developed a Cultural Resource Inventory System (CRIS) oriented more toward basic compliance and resource management needs. CRIS offers useful but perfunctory data for resource managers regarding the location and identity of specific identified sites. It contains technical data such as location, site condition and resource type. Separate subunits of the database include such basic information for archeological sites, specific built features in the cultural landscapes, ethnographic sites and historic structures [14]. Nuanced ethnographic information is a poor fit for the existing CRIS model and is poorly represented in this format. So too, academic databases such as the Human Resources Area Files (HRAF) provide database tools and models; the database tools and models are maintained by Yale University with contributions from a range of researchers, HRAF indexes and codes covering vast stores of ethnographic knowledge across over 400 cultures with the intention of supporting cross-cultural comparison and study [15]. NPS staff seldom access the HRAF system, however, as this database's general focus on cultures writ large, with few geographically specific details, seldom speaks to the specific needs of park managers.

In this context, within almost every national park, ethnographic data has been aggregated on an ad hoc basis. Certain specific projects, such as infrastructure development in a particular corner of the park, often drive the development of files relating to a particular topic or area within the park. Other topics or places remain unexamined—and, all too often, separate sets of files are spread between multiple offices with no clear way to identify or reconcile them. In this context, the basic CRIS database has been of little use. Anyone seeking to document tribal interests in a particular national park typically has to embark on a significant reconnaissance: moving from office to office within the National Park Service, seeking what information can be found in each, before identifying substantial data gaps that must be filled by recourse to collections outside of the park and to Native knowledge holders. Until recently, this was the case even at Yosemite—among the most visible flagship parks in the U.S. and the world.

Clearly, this situation has been less than ideal. The significance of lands within Yosemite National Park to certain Native American tribes and tribal organizations extends into the deep past and persists into the present. Many Native American communities have ancient and historic associations with landscape features, cultural sites and natural resources within the modern park boundaries. Importantly, these features remain highly significant to park-associated many tribal members to this day. Robust oral traditions demonstrate the enduring significance of traditional ceremonial and plant-gathering sites, of places that were venues for ancestors' activities such as former villages sites, and geographic features associated with precontact tribal oral tradition for example. These oral traditions demonstrate a degree of continuity in precontact activities, and enduring connections not only for entire tribes but for specific Native American families and individuals with direct ties to places within Yosemite. Today, Yosemite National Park recognizes these enduring connections, engaging in legally mandated consultation with seven "traditionally associated" tribes and tribal organizations: the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians, the Bridgeport Indian Colony, the Bishop Paiute Tribe, the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians, the Mono Lake Kutzadikaa and the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation (a.k.a. the American Indian Council of Mariposa County). In this context, the absence of a single, coherent organization of ethnographic data has been a serious impediment to

tribal consultation, and to the engagement of tribal interests in the management, preservation and interpretation of places within Yosemite National Park.

This situation inspired the creation of the Yosemite Ethnographic Database, a comprehensive collection that provides easily accessible Yosemite-specific ethnographic data designed to address resource management and research needs. A combination of models inspired the Yosemite database. These include a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) database created in collaboration with the Makah Tribe, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and Yurok Tribe to address the potential effects of offshore energy development on culturally significant places [16,17]; and comprehensive ethnographic data compilation efforts undertaken by Douglas Deur, Fred York and others for certain Pacific-West regional parks. Deur and an architect of the BOEM database, Eirik Thorsgard, co-managed the initial development of the Yosemite ethnographic database, with much of the work of database design and construction being undertaken by Rochelle Bloom, Mary Feitz and other interns recruited with the support of the National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE). Shared with tribes and park managers alike, the Yosemite Ethnographic Database has brought new transparency to efforts at natural and cultural resource planning, added a potential tool for collaborative park-tribes interpretive and planning efforts, and potentially contributed to broader shifts in park-tribes relations.

The Yosemite Ethnographic Database is a particularly useful tool for conducting research into Native American uses of lands and resources in Yosemite National Park. A broad review of ethnographic and historical literatures facilitated its development, incorporating ethnographic notes and notebooks, tribal consultation records and other materials currently housed in park collections and other repositories. In compiling the database, researchers systematically reviewed written sources for references to lands and resources used, visited or identified by tribal members as significant in Yosemite Valley. From references gathered from over 575 sources, the database comprises over 13,000 entries. It includes data derived from historic reports, early historic accounts written by visitors to Yosemite, ethnographies, ethno-ecological studies, oral histories, historical and contemporary newspaper articles and more. The collected data relates either specifically to Yosemite National Park, to the immediate surrounding area, or represents general regional data related to tribes traditionally associated with the park. Significantly, it is a living database, meant to reflect the dynamic nature of tribal culture. Therefore, information is derived through tribal consultation, and new research is added regularly. The data is largely qualitative and stored in an Excel spreadsheet, with the intention of making it easy to use by a variety of people with differing levels of database and research experience. The database is intended for in-house use and not for global distribution, and though linked to particular landmarks, does not georeference its contents with precise geographical coordinates.

The database provides a wide range of searchable data including information on archeological, hydrological, botanical and other natural and cultural resources with traditional cultural significance to the American Indian tribes and groups traditionally associated with the Park. Some of the specific resource categories include culturally significant and utilized plant and animal species, plant gathering areas, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and management (TEM), landscape features described in oral traditions, village sites and other habitation areas, historical and ceremonial sites, bedrock mortars and other archaeological site features, burials and cremation sites and trails. While the database includes references to archaeological sites and material culture, it is not intended to be an archaeological database. These sites and items were included because of their enduring cultural importance to modern tribal communities. In fact, one of the many important functions of the database is to indicate to resource managers that such material sites should not solely be considered relics, but as loci of enduring meaning within living Native societies.

Among the most unique aspects of the database may be its suitability to the needs of the ethnographic data, rather than the reverse. Categories and sub-categories were amended and added to better reflect data collected, allowing inquirers to access it more accurately. As a result, various specific, as well as general, sub-categories were tailored to account for how ethnographic information is presented in the literature. A breakdown of the different sub-categories can be found in Table 1. The taxonomy for entering resource information involves a narrowing classification scheme: *Resource Type*→*Resource Subtype*→*Resource Name*→*Resource Component.* Entered into the database, an example of this might be: *Flora*→*Tree*→*Oak, Black*→*Acorn.* Table 2 summarizes the various resource types included in the database. Entries can be searched, filtered and sorted by any of the individual subcategories. Entries provide full quotations with relevant information and citations referencing source material. Table 3 provides a sample database entry to demonstrate how information derived from the text is organized into different fields.


**Table 1.** Excerpt from Ethnographic Database Metadata with Description of Field Content [18].


**Table 1.** *Cont.*

#### **Table 2.** Summary of Resource Types [18].



**Table 3.** Sample Entry in Database Demonstrating how Information Derived from the Text is Organized by Field.


**Table 2.** *Cont.*


**Table 3.** *Cont.*

The database also contains columns with checkboxes for the presence or absence of certain attributes, making it easy to filter results for specific topics of interest, or for types of information relevant to research and management decisions. This permits researchers to limit their queries to entries containing certain types of information, such as first-person accounts, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), harvesting locations, oral traditions, maps or sensitive information necessitating differential access.

While the concept of an ethnographic database is certainly not new, the Yosemite Ethnographic Database offers a unique level of nuance and comprehensiveness for a specific study area. It performs a different function than most, bridging the divide between academia and applied anthropology. In contrast to earlier database development efforts, such as CRIS, the Yosemite Ethnographic Database gathers the majority of all available data on a specific study area and its associated people, organizes it, and makes the associated text searchable. Due to cultural sensitivity, access is limited according to security level, yet the database has applications for both research and compliance. It is intended for use by NPS cultural and natural resource staff, tribal communities and qualified researchers.

#### **3. Results**

#### *Current and Potential Uses for Resource Managers*

Originally developed for cultural resource staff, the Yosemite Ethnographic Database was intended for conventional and routinized uses of ethnographic data in a public land management context. For example, NPS staff have often used the database to assist in preliminary research to facilitate formal and informal discussions with Native American tribes and organizations regarding lands that may be affected by proposed agency activities. Database applications have included cultural affiliation studies, Traditional Cultural Property (TCP) studies and review of Section 106 undertakings for potential impacts to cultural sites. In addition to being useful to resource staff, the database proves useful in assisting park interpretive staff to locate ethnographic information toward the goal of educating park visitors. Interpretive research requests have included those related to Indigenous placenames for park landmarks, and information needed to contextualize online museum artifact descriptions.

The database has been useful in identifying landmarks within proposed areas that are known or likely to be of significance for contemporary tribal members. The types of information considered in these analyses are diverse. Oral tradition, combined with the archaeological record, provides insight into the distant past—a period undocumented in most post-contact historical and ethnographic literature. Then ethnographic data, mostly in the form of past ethnographic studies, have been useful in providing accounts of Native life at the time of Euro-American contact and in subsequent years. Additional information on the contact era and its aftermath comes from firsthand accounts of early settlers, park visitors and park employees dating from the late 19th century to the present. These perspectives within the database are then combined with consultations with contemporary tribal members, providing their recollections on life, traditions, and family associations within the park over

the past century. Finally, information derived from analyses of historical photographs and paintings depicting village sites and tribal members has augmented evidence for the identification of known or culturally important locations that would otherwise be less accessible.

It soon became evident that the format and usability of the database made it uniquely valuable for natural resource management and multidisciplinary research, beyond being useful for cultural resource management. The database presents a range of opportunities for assisting with protected area and species management, research and decision making; it has been used to incorporate Native perspectives on management of natural resources and entire natural landscapes, and not just resources conventionally designated as "cultural" such as archaeological sites. In part, this reflects the evolution of federal policy, such as National Register of Historic Places guidance on the protection of "ethnographic landscapes" and "traditional cultural properties. It is also a reflection of the growing academic and public appreciation that Native peoples hold the entirety of the landscape and associated species to be significant, while also possessing unique insights into their management.

Biologists and ecologists often wish to incorporate ethnographic information in their studies, as it provides them with a stream of evidence in support of their research, potentially providing insight into species and landscapes predating that provided by recorded scientific studies. Early ethnographic accounts of resource use, as well as descriptions of material culture, lend insight into the presence of, or access to, certain species historically. This has assisted with identification of historical species' presence within study areas, and of historical landscape conditions. Oral traditions have been used to identify both landscape features and animal and plant species that hold significance for associated tribal members. They also provide information on how landscapes and species were utilized and managed, and on cultural beliefs associated with them. The most prominent example of this in recent times is the incorporation of Indigenous information in the form of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for ecological restoration projects [8,9]. The ethnographic data within the database provides valuable insight into various techniques that Native resource managers employed to tend different species, as well as the seasonality of these activities.

As it has reframed cultural data in a positivist framework, the database represents the rigorous application of scientific methods to create an objective understanding of the past, thus making it appealing to natural resource managers. Because it more closely correlates with their own quantitative data, they can more easily incorporate this data into their projects. While obviously not a substitute for research or consultation, such tools are useful for facilitating research and aiding in accelerated acquisition of reference material before initiating consultation. It is therefore particularly useful for researchers unfamiliar with the available ethnographic material who would need several months, if not years, to search and synthesize, or even find data relevant to their projects. The database potentially provides researchers with information they might not know how to find, allowing them access to sources they might not otherwise encounter, thus allowing them to approach problems from a different perspective.

#### **4. Discussion**

#### *4.1. Caveats and Contradictions*

While the database represents the most comprehensive collection of available ethnographic data on Yosemite and has a wide range of applications for cultural and natural resource management, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of this research tool. The development and use of the ethnographic database are rooted in the tenets of positivism that dictate how anthropology can be used in a resource management framework. As is often the case when finding ways for culture to be "useful" within the positivist framework favored by the NPS and other government agencies, it is typically necessary to reframe qualitative and often intangible heritage to make it more readily understood within a Western scientific framework. The emphasis has been on practical applications, turning away from historical understandings of the past to create generalizations about human behavior [19]

(pp. 767–769); [20] (p. 408). By finding ways to make cultural data "quantifiable," it can therefore meet the needs of a compliance driven framework in which objective, scientific rules and generalizations can be formulated [21] (p. 20). This derives from the early days of the discipline when scientific rigor was needed to provide anthropology with legitimacy and acceptance by the wider scientific community.

Assumptions of the ethical neutrality and objectivity of such approaches are rooted in frequently unexamined empiricist paradigms, contributing to the belief that "data can speak without intervening theory" [19] (p. 773). Empiricism requires an unquestioning assumption of the similarity of different cultures and that contextualization and interpretation of data is not necessary. It does not account for the different ways cultures experience and interpret events; it tries to subsume them under a single perspective [21] (p. 19). It also assumes a collection of detached, objective data without the need for interpretation, failing to identify the bias necessarily injected by ethnographers in the construction of data [22] (p. 495); [21] (p. 19). This is particularly problematic when those biases are not explicitly identified and collected data is accepted uncritically.

However, empirical data, with all of its limitations, is more familiar to natural resource managers, and is thus more readily understood and adopted, allowing for incorporation of cultural data among a more diverse group of researchers and in multidisciplinary research. Resource managers tend to want unambiguous, quantifiable data with concrete boundaries that can easily be entered into GIS for mapping. Ambiguous and contradictory information, a hallmark of ethnographic research, does not fit neatly into the framework most Western scientists operate within.

While the database is useful for providing natural resource managers and compliance personnel with a quantitative version of cultural data that is more easily reconciled with the needs of a Western scientific framework, certain characteristics of ethnographic data must be considered and used in a proper manner. Unlike the natural sciences, which allow for unproblematic application of empirical observations, cultural information requires a hermeneutic approach. Though the material manifestations of cultural actions can be observed, social phenomenon are only meaningful through the interpretative lens of relevance to the associated community [22] (p. 495). Using cultural data in an uncontextualized manner ignores underlying contradictions, complexities, and ambiguities, and does not account for theoretical underpinnings. Additionally, disregarding differing perspectives and failing to identify bias results in the creation of false coherent narratives. With access to a tool like the Yosemite database, resource managers risk using only the information that easily "translates" into quantitative data, thus privileging those categories of ethnographic knowledge while ignoring less quantifiable, intangible information not readily engaged or validated by Western science. Complicating this further, even the notion that Indigenous information must be validated through the methods of Western science can be deeply offensive to Indigenous peoples.

The dangers of uncritical imposition of positivism on ethnographic data within certain databases, and the underlying assumptions inherently held by many who create and use such data, can be demonstrated in the criticism of the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), mentioned earlier in this paper. Wax [21] (p. 19) specifically calls out the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) as an example of the issues involved with forcing ethnographic data into a positivist framework, referring to it as the "positivistic project par excellence of cultural anthropology." Some of the criticisms are similar to what we have discussed. The HRAF assumes that ethnographers are capable of sufficient detachment to record data objectively, and that the cultures were static and atemporal, permitting creation of a universal system in which different cultural elements could be delineated and organized [21] (p. 19).

Rather than assuming the neutrality of the data, information must be approached critically, without making assumptions about accuracy or "authenticity." Cultural relativism is therefore necessary when considering how to apply ethnographic data, and it is then necessary to "translate" between cultures [19] (pp. 773–774). Particularly in sharing cultural information with personnel who specialize in the natural sciences, it is important to convey the necessity for critical interpretation of data and for rejecting unquestioning empiricism, or the tendency to force data into performing certain functions.

Listing ethnographic data in a database also raises the risk of ossifying it, thus treating it as the final word on resource significance. This may be particularly problematic when the database is employed by natural resource managers tempted to use Indigenous cultural information as they would use natural data. The discipline of anthropology has for generations confronted this tendency, which is rooted in racist assumptions. The issue is often manifested through assertions of the authenticity of only pre-contact traditions, privileging older ethnographic data over information shared by contemporary tribal members and giving the views and interpretations of Euro-American ethnographers primacy over those of tribal members.

It is therefore necessary to avoid reinforcing past prejudices by using ethnographic data in the manner in which one would use natural data. This practice often relates to the historical tendency to equate Native peoples with nature, as represented by the storage of their material culture in natural history museums, by extension imagining their culture as unchanging [20] (p. 187). Connotations of the "noble savage," depicting Indigenous peoples as a part of nature, unchanging and leaving no impact on the landscape, have long been a feature of the discourse at Yosemite [23] (p. 554); [24] (p. 146); [7] (p. 34). The racist view of Native peoples as inherently primitive and culturally static, denying their cultural dynamism, was particularly influential in the nineteenth century and survived into the mid-twentieth century. This belief that their technologies and cultures remained unchanged throughout prehistory allowed for easier ethnographic analogy and projection of interpretation into the distant past [20] (pp. 179, 189, 191). As such, it is important to note that the data recorded in the Ethnographic Database is not the final record of sites and resources significant for Traditionally Associated Tribal peoples. Significance is not static. Rather the database is meant to assist in contextualizing and supplementing information provided by tribal members in consultation, incorporating new data to provide a richer pool of information.

It is also necessary to recognize that this database, like any database concerned with organizing data for resource management, is a fundamentally Western tool of data management; it is first and foremost a research tool intended to facilitate resource management, as well as to support academic study and tribal cultural documentation within the park. While useful to Tribes to supplement their own research relating to traditional resource use, genealogical studies, federal recognition or other actions within a Western framework, it is not in any way meant to replicate or supplant Indigenous methods of knowledge transmission. The database primarily represents a method of packaging data in a way that makes it accessible to park resource managers and permits integration with bureaucratic and scientific management frameworks [25] (p. 10). This has necessarily involved distilling and conveying knowledge using language, epistemologies and methods of transmission through which it was never originally intended, separating it from its cultural context [26] (p. 5).

Certain characteristics are typically ascribed to Western science and Indigenous Knowledge in order to distinguish between the different epistemological frameworks: Western science tends to prioritize hierarchically categorized information that is quantitative, analytical, product-oriented and transmitted textually, while Indigenous Knowledge generally tends to organize information in contexts that are holistic, qualitative, intuitive, process-oriented and transmitted orally [25] (p. 9); [26] (pp. 75–76). In general, the method of transmitting knowledge is different in Western and Indigenous cultures. Western learning involves asking questions and obtaining information from written sources. In contrast, Indigenous learning is undertaken through participation and observation over long periods of time, and is typically transmitted through generations by way of oral tradition that places information in layered social, ecological, and historical contexts [27] (p. xxii); [26] (pp. 23, 33–36). The database takes a compartmentalized approach to organizing knowledge, permitting entries to be entered, filtered and sorted according to ever-narrowing categories of classificatory schemes. This compartmentalization is a key feature of Western frameworks [25] (pp. 5–7). This contrasts with the more holistic, integrated, "gestalt" way of knowing in Indigenous thought, in which different elements cannot be understood separated from the greater whole [27] (p. xxii). Also, while the database allows for new information to be recorded, it conveys written forms of oral traditions and other forms of knowledge that was

traditionally conveyed in oral form. This separates knowledge from the context which gives it meaning and translation from its original language can result in inaccuracy and the inability to articulate certain Indigenous concepts [28] (p. 4); [26] (pp. 69–75); [29] (p. 134). The contents of the database can therefore serve as touchstones, and as points of entry into Indigenous knowledge systems, but are scant representations of the larger whole. Native American representatives using such databases generally perceive both the limitations and the opportunities of such tools—which provide points of entry into discussions of traditional knowledge, rather than meaningfully replicating the vast and interdependent domains of Native knowledge relating to park lands.

Also, importantly, by virtue of being recorded in a government database, one must acknowledge that there is a risk that a database, with its tangibility and academic imprimatur, can become the authoritative reference rather than the original Traditional Knowledge holders [28] (p. 4); [30] (pp. 5–6). In some cases, databases invite the risk of displacing Native ways of knowing, and Native knowledge-holders. Underscoring this point, Stevenson [30] (p. 5) notes:

The most common practice is to take specific elements of [Traditional Knowledge] that are of interest to the conservation bureaucracy out of context and then insert them into the dominant framework of western scientific knowledge. This procedure almost always entails sanitizing and rendering [Traditional Knowledge] into a form that is palatable, recognizable, and usable to the dominant culture.

As such, byits very nature, this framework risks perpetuating unequal power dynamics and privileging Western knowledge and Western scientific reconceptualization of Indigenous Knowledge [25,28].

#### *4.2. The Context of Ethnographic Study at Yosemite*

While it is instructive to offer criticism of positivist frameworks for cultural data in the abstract, an in-depth analysis of the opportunities and constraints at Yosemite offers deeper nuance and insight. An overview of the complexity of Yosemite's cultural data, the park's early historical context and the biases impacting the recording of ethnographic data illustrate the necessity for caution when using the database. This overview entails a discussion aimed at demonstrating the limitations and dangers of selectively harvesting "useful" data that conforms to certain scientific characteristics without an understanding of the deeper context.

The Yosemite database contains early ethnographic data, including a significant amount collected in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, beginning as soon as Euro-Americans entered Yosemite. Though some might assume the early date of cultural recording mean that are indicative of pre-contact conditions, it is dangerous to use accounts with unknown accuracy or potentially impacted by unknown historical events as direct analogies for the more distant past.

For example, Lafayette Bunnell, a doctor who in 1851 accompanied the Mariposa Battalion, authored the first account describing Yosemite Native lifeways, providing a useful firsthand account of the events and circumstances at contact [31]. In 1851, the Mariposa Battalion, a militia unit, was sent into Yosemite Valley to launch a campaign against its Native inhabitants, an effort representing the first official entry of Euro-Americans into the future park [32] (p. 26); [13] (p. 9); [33] (p. 25). While Bunnell's account included the Native names of geographic features he obtained from translators, the locations of Native trails and the identities of villages he observed on the valley floor, his perspective was much skewed by his role in military operations against the valley's inhabitants. As with many of the early, and even later, recorders of Native lifeways in Yosemite, Bunnell lacked the expertise to reliably comprehend the nuances of the culture he recorded. His lack of fluency in the relevant Native languages and overreliance on potentially untrustworthy translators compounded his shortcomings as a cultural interpreter.

Furthermore, tribal identity itself has long been a complex matter in the Yosemite region. Well before direct Euro-American contact, people from many tribal communities converged at Yosemite. Tribal peoples from east and west of Yosemite Valley—Paiutes, Miwok, Yokuts, Western Mono and

others—often gathered there, married, and shared other long-term economic, social, and kinship connections. With the advent of the Gold Rush and increasing Euro-American settlement of the surrounding region, the population and lifeways of Yosemite associated tribes were impacted—this long before the physical arrival of the newcomers participating in the Mariposa Battalion. Disease had accompanied the influx of Euro-Americans to the wider California region before the military incursion, spreading indirectly into the Yosemite area to decimate Native populations [34]. Major tribal shifts in the generations prior to 1851 are likely to have occurred. Indeed, as an ancient site of Native American settlement, Yosemite became a refuge for families displaced from other parts of California—the new families often integrated into preexisting villages and social networks within the valley [35] (p. 78); [7] (p. 31).

The official arrival of Euro-Americans to Yosemite Valley in the mid- to late nineteenth century further complicated matters, ushering in a period of violence, disease, and displacement of Native peoples throughout the region. In particular, after the entry of the Mariposa Battalion a series of events rapidly impacted and further disrupted the lifeways of Yosemite associated tribal communities—namely a series of violent altercations, some deadly [32] (p. 27); [36] (p. 503). In the early 1850s, attempts had been made to forcibly remove Yosemite's Native inhabitants to the newly created Fresno River reservation [32,33]. This proved unsuccessful, however, as the removed peoples quickly returned [32] (p. 27). But soon after the arrival of the Mariposa Battalion in 1851, Euro-American visitation and settlement flooded the Yosemite region, dramatically affecting Native life and the character of the valley. The latter half of the nineteenth century was thereafter marked by drastic reductions in Native populations, relocation, restrictions on gathering and traditional landscape management and many other changes to social, ceremonial and economic life [32] (p. 27). In 1864, Yosemite Valley was placed under the administration of the state park commission, and then established as a national park in 1890. In short order, further changes came to the people of the valley—especially restricting traditional mobility, access to certain locations, and traditional resource practices like gathering, hunting and landscape management [37] (p. 11); [38] (pp. 16–19); [39] (p. 2).

As subsistence and other cultural activities were relegated to the margins of ancestral lands, Native villages were soon displaced and consolidated into more restricted enclaves. Over the course of the 20th century, the NPS increasingly made residence in the valley contingent on tribal members' employment with the NPS or its concessionaires, with tribal members increasingly engaged in paid employment for collecting and cutting firewood, overseeing maintenance work, assisting in construction, working as interpreters of Native culture, and in other roles. Well into the 1990s, a small number of individuals continued to reside in the valley, allowed to stay by virtue of their status as NPS employees [13] (pp. 105, 111–113); [40] (p. 49); [41] (pp. 205–206).

For these and other reasons, elucidating Yosemite Native identity requires a nuanced approach —an approach obviated by the frequent oversimplifications and misrepresentations within the original ethnographic text. The concept of what constitutes a "Yosemite" Native person has been contested from contact to the present. As early as 1851, Lafayette Bunnell remarked upon the complex nature of Yosemite tribal identity, writing in *Discovery of the Yosemite* [31] (p. 199) that the "Yosemites were a composite band, collected from the disaffected of other bands in that part of California, and what is now Nevada." He further related that Major James Savage, who knew elements of local dialects, asserted that "the dialect in common use among them was nearly as much of a mixture as the components of the band itself, for he recognizes Pai-ute, Kah-we-ah and Oregon Indian words among them."

Early writers passing through Yosemite without this historical context conveyed much more simplistic views of tribal associations with the park, often referring generically to "Yosemite Indians," without attention to specific tribal designation. Alternatively, they simplistically assumed that all tribal peoples belonged to the Southern Sierra Miwok without further comment or clarification. Consequently, even in more recent times, NPS interpretation has continued to accentuate Southern Sierra Miwok in their public depictions of tribal history, with relatively little mention of other communities or the great

complexity of this history. A result of these developments and others has been a persistent uncertainty and debate regarding the identification of tribes historically linked to the park.

Notably, even the name "Yosemite" represents a mistranslation and misunderstanding of the Native people inhabiting the valley. Bunnell originally suggested naming the valley for the Native occupants, whom he understood to be called the "Yosemites." He, and some subsequent observers, later learned the tribe identified themselves as the "Ahwahnechee"; but by then it was too late. The incorrect name was already adopted [36] (pp. 503–504). A diverse set of explanations have been offered regarding what "Yosemite" actually denotes, with possible suggestions including "grizzly bear," "killer," "great hunter" or relating to tribal moieties [35] (p. 4); [42] (p. 59); [43] (p. 2). In general, however, sources agree it was not the name of the tribe.

As database entries are solely a review of available literature, they reflect the biases contained within original source materials. The database employs terminology used in the original sources and makes no assumptions about the accuracy of accounts. As a result, it contains oversimplifications of tribal identity and associations as well as racially insensitive language and stereotypes. Early writers ignored the complexity of both nineteenth and twentieth century tribal identity, erasing the significant presence of various tribes in the park and projecting simplistic understandings into the distant past. In particular, the park has faced accusations of underrepresenting Paiute and other connections to Yosemite Valley. Attempting to use the data to definitively and uncritically identify tribes can have potentially disastrous results. Particularly dangerous implications exist if data is misused to assert affiliation in a way that disenfranchises or misappropriates cultural traditions or connections, potentially erasing complex tribal identities and denying tribal communities rights or recognition based on biased readings of the material.

The information contained in the database also reflects gaps in the ethnographic record. Notably, the written record is incomplete regarding lands and resources of concern to Native American communities. Relevant to this discussion, Anderson [44] (pp. 112–115) details the limitations of ethnohistorical descriptions of California Indian plant species identification, which necessarily impact the available information within the database. Few of the early ethnographers and travelers who documented early resource use among Yosemite Native peoples were trained botanists or ecologists. As a result, much of the recorded information was incomplete, oversimplified, ignored or inaccurate. Early ethnographers often grouped plants together in generic categories since they were unable to identify species. Furthermore, many of these researchers undertook their field work at settlements instead of at traditional resource gathering or management sites and missed crucial details. They often relied upon remembered descriptions from interviews instead of first-hand observation. Another key issue with available plant data is that much of the field work was undertaken exclusively by men who failed, by interest or access, to obtain key information from female Native consultants on a wide range of topics associated with women's knowledge, from gendered social and ceremonial knowledge to the traditional procurement and use of plants.

The database is also especially weak in documenting perspectives of contemporary tribal members whose enduring attachments to Yosemite Valley are essential to understanding the significance of Yosemite Valley resources. In addition, facts that past generations of tribal members viewed as too sensitive to share, or that were simply difficult to convey across cultures, are often omitted from their accounts. Accordingly, available information tends to focus on material objects, underemphasizing intangible values and the deeper cultural importance and meaning of those objects to Native American people.

As a result of both the availability of information and the funding for the project, Yosemite Ethnographic Database materials are largely focused on Yosemite Valley at the expense of other parts of the park. A combination of factors—including accessibility, weather conditions and the absence of certain notable landmarks—mean that other park areas receive less visitation and, consequently, less written attention historically and today. The comparatively scant record of early cultural activity in more remote parts of the park compounds the skew of data toward tribes closely associated with the western portion of Yosemite.

Furthermore, the ambiguous, conflicting, dynamic, and holistic nature of cultural information does not conform well to a positivist framework. The identification of individual culturally significant lands and resources by consulting itemized entries in the database is inherently reductionist, and must be done advisedly. As Native American communities hold the entirety of Yosemite to be significant, a holistic review would typically indicate that no land or resource within the valley may be deemed culturally *insignificant*. By extension, tribal representatives may reasonably suggest through consultation that the entire valley be construed as one large, contiguous area of significance without differentiating between specific "contributing resources" therein. Again, it is critical to avoid the assumption that places or resources not identified as significant within the database, that the gaps in the maps of such places, are by definition "insignificant." Such matters require a broader understanding, aided by direct engagement with tribes through consultation.

It is also important to recognize the implicit ambiguity of most ethnographic site boundaries, particularly in attempting to assign them distinct spatial locations in a manner conforming to expectations of quantitative data. Many categories of ethnographic sites, including village areas, gathering sites and trails, did not possess distinct boundaries. Perimeters sometimes changed depending on environmental factors and seasonal conditions, differing habitation patterns, and personal preference. As a result, ethnographic villages tend to possess amorphous boundaries that do not necessarily represent the structural components of sites and material culture associated with them. While overlap may exist with archaeological sites, which do have definite boundaries, they are not necessarily the same. Reoccupation of certain desirable sites was inevitable in view of the long occupation history of the valley—especially when combined with the small size of the region and preference for areas with exposure to sunlight, flat ground and proximity to key resources. Additionally, the ethnographic sites listed in the database represent the names and locations as recorded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, or within living memory of tribal consultants at the time, and do not necessarily represent their identity throughout antiquity.

Plant harvesting areas represent another site category that is difficult to quantify. Gathering patterns have been impacted by a variety of changes since Euro-American settlement and the ensuing creation of Yosemite National Park. Changes in hydrology, construction of park infrastructure, prohibition of traditional ecological management, proliferation of tourists and federal gathering restrictions have altered both the quantity and quality of plants, as well as the locations in which tribal members can gather. The desire to avoid tourists and heavily trafficked areas causes many tribal members to shift their gathering to margins of the valley where they face less scrutiny. This has sometimes meant shifting to less productive or less desirable areas. As such, when harvesting locations are identified within the database, the sites represent preferences of specific tribal members at a specific point in time. While useful for identifying species, personal attachment and cultural continuity, they do not infer static locations, delineated boundaries or the extent of all areas in which plant species are found and gathered. Notably, in past studies and consultation, tribal members were adamant that sites for plant gathering should not be mapped, suggesting that while patterns of plant gathering were intense throughout the valley historically, they must now be highly dynamic in response to changing vegetation conditions and the impacts of park infrastructure, management and visitation on gathering opportunities [45]. To identify and map specific sites in this context may constrain the geography of harvesting options and, by extension, undermine tribes' resource resiliency. Thus, tribal members have indicated that for purposes of plant gathering, the entire valley floor must be considered as one large and integrated whole. As such, in an effort to better reflect the cultural and historical realities of these sites, it is typically more appropriate to provide qualitative descriptions of site locations where necessary, demonstrating their amorphous and dynamic nature.

The use of information contained in oral traditions is also done advisedly. In many cases these were written and transmitted by early visitors to the park or early residents, such as hotelier and magazine owner James Hutchings, who sought to sensationalize the park and its Native inhabitants [46] (pp. 103–106); [47]. Oral traditions compiled by Hutchings and others [48–51] were often embellished and romanticized, incorporating fantastical elements that would appeal to Western readers. The reality is best exemplified by the response of Choko, Stephen Powers' Yosemite Native consultant, to such versions: "White man too much lie" [52] (p. 368). Furthermore, it is necessary to accept the necessarily ambiguous nature of oral traditions even when they are faithful retellings. By their nature, oral traditions are emblematic of the dynamic nature of culture. Rather than provide a static account, individual storytellers transmit cultural knowledge through the generations with changes that reflect the particular recounting. As such, while the core narrative might provide insight into species presence and management, geological changes, and historic events through creation stories and cautionary tales, direct analogy is inappropriate.

#### **5. Conclusions**

Since its inception in 2016, the Yosemite Ethnographic Database has proven to be one potentially useful way to "restore a presence" in national park settings [10]. The database permits specific queries about a variety of topics, such as: information on the identity and enduring significance of archeological sites, the use and significance of culturally significant flora and fauna on park lands, the significance of particular landscapes or places to tribes, specific ceremonial or oral traditions that explain the intangible value of the park and its places to tribes or the places and circumstances of historic events in the park involving Native communities.

With such information in hand, National Park Service managers are able to avoid development impacts on culturally significant sites, negotiate collaborative solutions for plant community management and envision interpretive opportunities with much enhanced speed and clarity. The framework of the database has allowed greater access to information and to an audience beyond National Park Service staff. Additionally, to the extent possible within the protocols for sensitive data, the database democratizes access to knowledge regarding the cultural significance of park lands—returning this knowledge to Native peoples and, at their discretion, a wider range of researchers and interested parties. With roughly 13,000 independent entries on numerous topics, the database brings into any park planning process an unprecedented level of cultural detail—a richness of data about tribal interests that would have been impossible in more conventional planning and tribal consultation efforts. Some tribal members, too, find the database to be an astonishingly useful tool, bringing the knowledge and perspectives of many elder consultants, assembled across the generations, to bear on particular topics in a way few living individuals could offer. Presently, a number of other NPS units in the western United States have requested that the team that constructed the Yosemite Ethnographic Database begin constructing similar databases for their parks as well.

While this approach to Native American historical and cultural data provides tribes and park managers with a powerful tool, it is a tool both unwieldy and potentially hazardous if used without attention to its limitations and sensitivities. Placing so much potentially sensitive cultural information in one place, where it can be immediately beheld and transmitted, is fundamentally problematic. In Yosemite's case, negotiations regarding who may hold or access the database is fraught with uncertainty and enduring distrust. Tribal communities express delight in receiving the database, but fear its diffusion, for example, into the hands of private promoters or potential looters of archaeological sites. In this respect, databases demand negotiated agreements as to restrictions to guide sharing and distribution of information. Prior to Yosemite's database construction, those with nefarious intent had to undertake extensive research, often in multiple collections with their own safeguards, and even the most motivated pillagers often were not successful. Today, they might gain access to a world of information with a few keystrokes. Formal agreements between parks and Native communities are required, and in the case of Yosemite, imminent, if all parties are to provide consent for long-term database development, use and sharing.

While much of the database is derived from publicly accessible materials, some of it is not. Therefore, the Yosemite database contains sensitive data, such as information regarding tribal religious practices and the locations of culturally significant sites. This information cannot be shared with the public, and in many instances perhaps might not be shared with park staffs who have not been granted explicit approval. It is therefore necessary to develop a system and protocol ensuring different levels of access and securing the data. At Yosemite, the data is encrypted and stored on a federal government network; access is limited to specific cultural resource personnel with accredited professional credentials who have been granted clearance. Yosemite tribal partners also have copies of the database. If natural resource managers wish to gain access, they may submit a request for use of a database version without sensitive information. Parks wishing to extrapolate from the Yosemite experience might consider this structure of multi-tier access; alternatively, parks can produce two-tier databases, with highly sensitive information not present in the version that is widely available.

For ease of access, a tool like the Yosemite database has forced a great deal of complex cultural information into a crudely positivist framework. The tool's ease of access therefore requires particular cautions. Certain agency contrivances, such as maintaining standing lists of "ethnographic resources" to be managed on public lands, are useful for compliance with federal laws, but are not an accurate representation of cultural realities. We find that agency database users, such as park resource managers, tend to perceive the items in the database as if they represent the sum total of all Native interests—the alpha and omega of what is of value and must be protected. They tend to focus on static objects of cultural interest—for example, landscapes, archaeological features and plant gathering areas—in curious isolation from the dynamic context of their significance, which is the complexly evolving realities of Native engagement and attachment with park lands. In worst case scenarios, databases can provide land managers with false confidence, and a plausible excuse for not directly engaging Native communities and forming relationships of mutual trust.

Indiscriminate use of the database also risks ossifying ethnocentric biases in the historical and ethnographic written record and privileging the past as recorded largely by Euro-Americans. Using terminology from original texts without interpretation, the database contains recorder bias, even racially insensitive terms, concepts, and stereotypes that cannot be accepted uncritically. In an attempt to address this, the Yosemite database contains a column that includes recorder's notes, allowing for a degree of clarification, though this too is often insufficient and potentially subject to bias. These risks are aggravated when such a tool is employed by an audience with little or no prior exposure to the topic of Native American cultural values and practice, many of whom are likely unaware of the existence of these epistemological problems, let alone of how to navigate them.

Any park or protected area that seeks to produce a database must consider these challenges, then, and develop enduring procedures and guidelines to accommodate Native knowledge and practice within the management and interpretation of park lands. While such tools are meant to simplify and synthesize data for the sake of intelligibility and accessibility, tribal members and anthropologists must be vigilant, contextualizing the data, highlighting its complications, contradictions, and nuances, and anticipating its misuse with proactive policies, procedures, and metadata. In some respects, then, tribes and anthropologists must simultaneously construct and problematize the database.

In doing so, it is necessary to critically examine and openly discuss the specific political, cultural, historical, and theoretical contexts that created the data within the database. The accessible written record is incomplete and does not represent the full extent of issues, values, and places of concern to Native American communities. In many cases, tribal members have deliberately chosen not to share information due to reasons of sensitivity. Moreover, tribal cultures, traditions and preferred locations are dynamic and certain practices, values and cultural geographies change over time. However, explaining these complications to park administrators requires a delicate balance. Contextualization, acknowledging the ambiguity and complexity of ethnographic data, may undermine park managers' trust and use of the database if not conveyed in terms that speak pragmatically to management tradeoffs. For example, simply resorting to academic explanations of the "crisis of representation" can (and has) undermined NPS use of ethnographic databases and ultimately undermined Native interests in park lands [53]. Conversely, utilizing a database as a tool that parallels broader ongoing conversations between park managers and Native American tribes, facilitated by anthropologists or other cultural resource specialists to provide context, has proven more effective than use of a database alone. A database does not obviate the practical and legal imperatives for direct tribal consultation. Furthermore, through direct engagements tribal members may make contextually appropriate decisions about what is proper to disclose, what is relevant, and what is inadmissible within the context of an ongoing exchange between park managers and park-associated tribes.

Responding to many of these concerns, the Yosemite database has been designed as a living record of cultural significance. It contains both historical and contemporary data and—funding and staffing permitting—continues to be updated with information emerging within ongoing tribal consultation, reflecting the dynamic values and guidance of park-associated tribal communities. Thus, when identifying plant harvesting locations, managers can account for the gradual transformation of those places in the context of climate change, emerging tourist pressures and dynamic tribal plant uses and needs. Indeed, tribal members at Yosemite have resisted mapping of such sites—not so much because of the sensitivity of the data, but because they express a concern that this will "lock them in" to particular gathering areas when the actual pattern of plant gathering has been highly dynamic and adaptive to changing environmental conditions, tourist pressures, and cultural preferences of Native peoples [45]. A place that was good for gathering when anthropologists arrived in the early 20th century, they note, might not be a suitable place for gathering today. In lieu of mapping sites, these tribal members suggest active engagement and ongoing data collection to protect plant gathering interests writ large—a goal achieved by maintaining the ethnographic database continuously over time and allowing the contents to evolve as the cultures and landscapes also evolve. If park staffs collaborate with tribes actively, reviewing database protocols and outcomes together, such databases and their use can be improved over time—eliminating such sources of error and continuously calibrating these tools to fit the cultural, legal and ecological realities of protected lands.

By sincerely seeking to engage Native communities, and by maintaining a pragmatic view of ethnographic data—duly balancing respect for and critique of that data—parks may develop databases with confidence. While recognizing that Native communities as well as landscapes change even as certain relationships endure, databases can be constructed as living documents continuing to evolve over time. Certainly, forcing the particulars of very long-term human relationships with park landscapes into a crude positivist framework is a fraught exercise. Nuances are surely lost in translation, facts become ossified and sensitive information is aggregated in ways laden with both threat and opportunity. Conversations between park managers and tribal representatives therefore must be direct and ongoing regarding places and resources of significance, their meanings, their importance within Native societies and the right ways to document and share this information within and between organizations. Approached in this way, the Yosemite Ethnographic Database has begun to demonstrate the potential for innovative uses of ethnographic data in resource management. While not comprehensive, it encompasses a vast amount of information, allowing for ongoing efforts to incorporate Native values and needs into park planning. The accessibility of the data has facilitated multidisciplinary conservation and restoration undertakings, promoting meaningful collaborations between park resource managers and tribal communities. Critically, the database places tribal interests in a much richer historical and cultural context. It can be used to address longstanding grievances and to meaningfully build long-term relationships between park staffs and Native peoples. Developed as a collaborative tool, the database now helps bring a much enhanced understanding of the significance of Yosemite's resources and landscape to management and conservation efforts—for the benefit of future generations, Native and non-Native alike.

**Author Contributions:** R.B. and D.D. conceptualized and designed the study and both contributed to designing the database. Both authors analyzed the data and wrote the paper. Both authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the USDI National Park Service through Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit agreements with PSU under Cooperative Agreement H8W07110001.

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to express our gratitude for the time and assistance of the many park staff, tribal partners and others who made this research possible: Mary Feitz, Kristin Herrick and Katie Donlan; Eirik Thorsgard and Scott Carpenter; Tricia Gates Brown; Jason Lyon and four anonymous reviewers; the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians, the Bridgeport Indian Colony, the Bishop Paiute Tribe, the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians, the Mono Lake Kutzadikaa and the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation (a.k.a. the American Indian Council of Mariposa County) for their participation in the original research.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References and Notes**


© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

*Article*

## **Accessing Local Tacit Knowledge as a Means of Knowledge Co-Production for E**ff**ective Wildlife Corridor Planning in the Chignecto Isthmus, Canada**

#### **Jessica L. Needham \*, Karen F. Beazley and Victoria P. Papuga**

School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University, P.O. Box 15000,

Received: 30 July 2020; Accepted: 15 September 2020; Published: 20 September 2020

Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada; karen.beazley@dal.ca (K.F.B.); v.papuga@dal.ca (V.P.P.)

**\*** Correspondence: jessica.needham@dal.ca; Tel.: +1-(705)-344-5509

**Abstract:** Inclusive knowledge systems that engage local perspectives and social and natural sciences are difficult to generate and infuse into decision-making processes but are critical for conservation planning. This paper explores local tacit knowledge application to identify wildlife locations, movement patterns and heightened opportunities and barriers for connectivity conservation planning in a critical linkage area known as the Chignecto Isthmus in the eastern Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Thirty-four local hunters, loggers, farmers and others with strong tacit knowledge of wildlife and the land participated in individual interviews and group workshops, both of which engaged participatory mapping. Individuals' data were digitised, analysed and compiled into thematic series of maps, which were refined through participatory, consensus-based workshops. Locations of key populations and movement patterns for several species were delineated, predominantly for terrestrial mammals and migratory birds. When comparing local tacit-knowledge-based maps with those derived from formal-natural-science models, key differences and strong overlap were apparent. Local participants provided rich explanatory and complementary data. Their engagement in the process fostered knowledge transfer within the group and increased confidence in their experiential knowledge and its value for decision making. Benefits derived from our study for conservation planning in the region include enhanced spatial data on key locations of wildlife populations and movement pathways and local insights into wildlife changes over time. Identified contributing factors primarily relate to habitat degradation and fragmentation from human activities (i.e., land use and cover changes caused by roads and forestry practices), thereby supporting the need for conservation measures. The generated knowledge is important for consideration in local planning initiatives; it addresses gaps in existing formal-science data and validates or ground truths the outputs of existing computer-based models of wildlife habitat and movement pathways within the context of the complex social-ecological systems of the place and local people. Critically, awareness of the need for conservation and the value of the participants' shared knowledge has been enhanced, with potential influence in fostering local engagement in wildlife conservation and other planning initiatives. Consistent with other studies, engagement of local people and their tacit knowledge was found to (i) provide important insights, knowledge translation, and dissemination to complement formal, natural science, (ii) help build a more inclusive knowledge system grounded in the people and place, and (iii) lend support to conservation action for connectivity planning and human-wildlife co-existence. More broadly, our methods demonstrate an effective approach for representing differences and consensus among participants' spatial indications of wildlife and habitat as a means of co-producing knowledge in participatory mapping for conservation planning.

**Keywords:** local tacit experiential knowledge; participatory mapping; conservation planning; connectivity conservation; wildlife movement pathways; ecological corridors

#### **1. Introduction**

Connected systems of effectively protected and conserved areas are considered critical to addressing both biodiversity and climate crises [1–5]. Ecological connectivity allows for genetic flow and is imperative to maintaining natural ecosystem processes [6,7]. Discontinuous and fragmented habitat can restrict the movement of wildlife and gene flow with adverse effects on populations and the persistence of species [8,9]. Connectivity facilitates genetic exchange among subpopulations [10–13] helping to maintain genetic diversity and metapopulation viability [14,15], which support species resilience to changes such as disease and climate [16–19]. In the face of climate change, ecological connectivity is considered crucial to species adaptation strategies [1,20]. As temperatures rise, connectivity can enhance the ability of species to move in response to range shifts by utilizing ecological corridors [19–22].

Given the importance of connectivity, and on-going threats to it, conservation measures are warranted to maintain and restore key ecological corridors [2,5,23]. With competing demands on a limited land base, however, any plans for additional protected or conserved areas need to be grounded in rigorous evidence and supported by local people [24–27]. Conservation issues are multi-faceted and involve complex social and natural systems that require both the natural and social sciences to solve [28]. For effective conservation decision-making processes to occur, there must be a mobilization of diverse forms of knowledge and ways of knowing. Knowledge systems that combine social and natural sciences, including local perspectives, are often difficult to generate and mobilize [29–33]. Yet, the importance of local and inclusive knowledge in conservation planning is increasingly recognized [34–36].

This paper accesses and generates local tacit knowledge of wildlife locations, movement patterns and landscape features that represent opportunities and barriers for connectivity conservation planning. The study area is the Chignecto Isthmus, a primarily rural region that serves a critical landscape linkage function in the eastern Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia (NS) and New Brunswick (NB). While the local findings and outcomes are important in their own right, the work contributes to the growing body of conservation planning literature that demonstrates the value and utility of local tacit knowledge as complementary, accurate information for decision making in diverse contexts. The generation of local experiential knowledge in study regions where formal-natural-science data and resources are sparse may represent a particularly important source of relevant data to address data gaps, validate or ground truth modeling studies, and weave in important social and ecological knowledge particular to the place and people. Even in areas where formal-science data are available, the engagement of local people and their tacit knowledge is important to opening up research to different ways of knowing, breaking down western-scientific notions of science and whose information counts. At the same time, inclusion in the research process may increase awareness and potentially mobilize locally influential participants to engage in associated planning and management initiatives. In our case, the research process may foster consideration of wildlife and key wildlife movement pathways in government efforts to identify engineering solutions to protect infrastructure from sea-level rise and engagement in on-going collaborative wildlife conservation initiatives in the Chignecto Isthmus.

The Chignecto Isthmus is a narrow strip of land (currently ~25 km in width, ~19 km as dry land) that connects NS and southeastern NB to the rest of mainland North America. It is threatened by sea-level rise [37–39], storm surges and flooding [40], along with increasing human developments such as roads, railways, and energy and communication infrastructure [41,42]. Effective mechanisms to conserve wildlife movement patterns are critical to biodiversity conservation and climate resilience and adaptation for species in this region. Although previous conservation planning studies have identified the region as of critical importance to species at risk and broader ecological connectivity [43–45] there have been relatively few empirical and spatial analyses. Most assessments of wildlife habitat and connectivity have been based on computer-based models [46–48], often at larger provincial and eco-regional scales [43–45]. In their 2005 study, Macdonald & Clowater noted that scientific knowledge of local species distribution in the region is lacking, making it difficult to assess habitat connectivity [46]. This situation remains at present. Wildlife monitoring and management by provincial government

agencies is not coordinated across NS and NB and the empirical wildlife data that do exist remain provincially specific and not readily accessible or compatible for application across the Chignecto Isthmus region [46]. Recent predictive modelling by the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has identified high-probability wildlife movement pathways between protected areas in the region, with the recognized need for model verification and more detailed assessment of identified 'pinch points' to assist in future land management and conservation in the region [47,48]. Some model validation has occurred through roadside surveys of wildlife roadkill [49,50]. Capacity for wildlife research is limited in the area, with a lack of financial and other resources for field studies across the entire region.

To date, regional efforts to mobilize knowledge have largely focused on natural science and nature conservation, rather than on local tacit experience and perceptions. Yet, local forms of knowledge and ways of knowing are as important as those generated through formal natural sciences and models. It is likely that there is a strong base of knowledge of the land and wildlife in the region, given long-standing traditions, livelihoods, and pastimes associated with living off the land, seasonal hunting, trapping, and fishing in the area, and other natural resource uses. Indigenous peoples—the Mi'kmaq—have lived here, in their ancestral and unceded territory—Mi'kma'ki, for 15,000 years and Euro-American settlements began in the 1600s.

Realizing that human factors have been largely neglected in conservation science [51–56], our work aims to enhance the generation and use of local tacit knowledge for connectivity-conservation planning and broader norms of human-wildlife co-existence in the Chignecto Isthmus. More specifically, our study seeks to address data gaps and limitations by engaging in participatory research with local knowledgeable people as a means of garnering important insights on wildlife habitat locations and movement patterns that are likely not adequately represented in the existing empirical and spatial data. At the same time, we hope to enhance the participants' support and engagement in conservation planning initiatives. In doing so, we aim to contribute to a more inclusive knowledge system and capacity base for potential infusion of local knowledge into conservation and other land planning initiatives in the region. Beyond the study area, our research contributes to the growing body of literature related to conservation planning, particularly for wildlife connectivity and the use of public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS).

#### *1.1. The Chignecto Isthmus in Context*

The Chignecto Isthmus is a unique study region as it plays a critical role in landscape connectivity [43–46] (Figure 1). Recognized nationally and internationally as a high priority corridor, both for wildlife movements and linear human infrastructure such as roads, railways and energy pipelines, this region is key to maintaining connectivity between NS, southeastern NB and continental North America [48,57,58]. Its ecological importance is recognized through designation as one of Canada's 15 Community-Nominated Priority Places1 [59]. Enhanced local awareness of its role in species' population persistence has been raised through NCC's 'Moose Sex' project [60,61]. Several challenges emerge, however, in understanding, maintaining, and restoring connectivity for wildlife and other ecological processes through this narrow region, particularly in the context of complex networks of roads and other human infrastructure. Bounded by the Northumberland Strait and the Bay of Fundy, the Isthmus is fragmented by seven two-lane roads that transect the region [46,50] and the Trans-Canada Highway and Canadian National Railway that transverse the region [42,62].

<sup>1</sup> NS and NB—'A community of practice to protect and recover species at risk on the Chignecto Isthmus': Nature Conservancy of Canada and partners (e.g., Birds Canada, Community Forests International, Fort Folly Habitat Recovery Program, Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq-Mi'kmaw Conservation Group) aim 'to build and strengthen community relationships, develop a conservation plan, build public awareness and deliver programs benefiting species at risk. The project will benefit 20 listed species at risk ... and 20 additional species of concern. It will occur in the Chignecto Isthmus region of both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, covering 739,596 hectares.' [59].

**Figure 1.** The Chignecto Isthmus Region in NS and NB, Canada. The region is delineated as a level 2 watershed [48]. Protected areas are from the Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database [63] for terrestrial protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, compiled by Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Sea-level rise [38,39], storm surges, and flooding [40,64] threaten terrestrial connectivity across the Isthmus, compounded by habitat loss and fragmentation [41,42]. Drivers include urban and rural development; transportation, energy and communications infrastructure; forestry and agricultural activities; and climate change [46,58,65]. At times, historically and during the Saxby Gale in 1869 [66,67], the Isthmus has been inundated with waters from the Bay of Fundy [37,68]. Storm surges funnel up the Bay of Fundy—a dynamic marine system with the highest recorded tides in the world (16.3 m)—culminating in the Chignecto Bay [69–71]. The elevation of the entire region is less than 90 m above sea level and is dominated in the southern region by low-lying salt marshes, wetlands, and bogs [46]. Beginning with French Acadian settlement in the late 1600s, large areas of salt marsh were transformed into dykelands for agricultural use [69,72]. The northern portion of the region is at higher elevation and relatively better drained, supporting mixed forests [46]. Higher elevations also occur towards the Northumberland Strait, rated by Canada's Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Program as of 'medium' sensitivity to sea-level rise compared to areas of 'high' sensitivity in the Isthmus' southern portion [58].

Projected sea-level rise2, extreme weather events and storm surges threaten to breach the dykes, flooding parts of the Isthmus including the towns of Sackville, NB and Amherst, NS [38–41,73]. Over the past two centuries, major storm events have breached the dykes and caused extensive flooding around the perimeter of the Bay of Fundy [73]. Flooding threatens the Trans-Canada Highway and

<sup>2</sup> An average measure from tide gauge records at Saint John, NB, estimates sea-level rise as 22 cm over the past century in the Bay of Fundy. This suggests that the current level is approximately 32 cm higher that at the time of the Saxby Gale when a storm surge breached the dykes, causing flooding that temporarily severed NS from NB [73] (p. 9). Historic trends and modelled projections show that even in the absence of climate change an increase in tidal high water in the order of 0.3 m can be expected in the Bay of Fundy over the next century. Combined with the influence of climate change, "high water in the Bay of Fundy is predicted to rise on the order of 0.5 m over the next 50 years, and on the order of 1 m by the end of the century" [71] (p. 274).

the Canadian National Railway, which move an estimated 50 million CAD per day in trade [58], potentially causing detrimental economic impacts [74]. As climate change adaptations become necessary, human infrastructural demands could put increased adverse pressures on wildlife habitat across a narrow five-kilometer-wide strip of higher elevation land at the NS-NB border [48]. Further fragmentation of habitat would restrict the movement of wildlife, with negative consequences for the persistence of populations of wide-ranging, sensitive and vulnerable species [8]. Alternatively, carefully planned adaptation measures could potentially provide opportunities to mitigate barriers and pinch points to wildlife movements. Conserving connectivity would facilitate geneflow between subpopulations of species, helping to maintain genetic diversity and species resilience in response to climate and other changes [8].

NCC's recent predictive modelling [48] of high-probability wildlife movement pathways in the region may serve to identify priority areas for conserving connectivity. They modelled habitat suitability and least-cost paths for 15 terrestrial species selected to capture a range of territory sizes and habitat requirements3. Their analyses identified routes predicted to require the least energetic cost, providing the lowest risk to mortality, thereby minimizing risks to movements among habitat patches between five protected areas in NS and NB. The predictive modelling of potential corridors and pinch points has provided key information for future land management and conservation in the region [48]. Subsequent roadside surveys and roadkill hotspot analyses have helped to validate some of the model outputs [49,50]. Yet, further validation and consideration of areas outside of modeled and field-surveyed sites are warranted.

At the same time, there are increasing pressures to protect human infrastructure in the Chignecto Isthmus from impacts of climate change. In January 2020, the Province of NB sought professional assistance to explore climate mitigation solutions for the transportation corridor [75]. An engineering firm is leading, with the Provinces of NB and NS and the federal government, a 700,000 CAD feasibility study, with the aim to design engineering adaptations that are resilient to climate change and protect the trade corridor by preserving roads, dikes and infrastructure [76]. A previous cost–benefit analysis of adaptation measures to mitigate the impacts of sea-level rise and storm surges included scenarios of reinforcing and raising dikes and barricades, building new dykes further inland, and relocating and re-routing current transportation routes [77]. The need to 'engineer' new 'solutions' provides a potential opportunity to infuse an ecological lens into the mix, such as by considering opportunities for maintaining wildlife connectivity. It is imperative to identify and accommodate critical areas of ecological significance, especially if there is the need to relocate infrastructure and mitigations that could impact wildlife, positively or negatively. Critical areas should include pathways that are important to wildlife, as the Isthmus plays an essential role in not only trade and transportation but wildlife connectivity between the provinces. Successful implementation of any such conservation solution or initiative, however, will require political support, including engagement and buy-in by local communities.

#### *1.2. Conservation Planning and Local Knowledge*

Over the past 20 years, there has been a shift in the way science has been used in conservation planning [24,25], recognizing the importance of considering social factors along with ecological ones [78]. The social and natural sciences are now seen as complementary, with the challenges now being how to bring them together without privileging one over the other and how to infuse them into conservation planning and practice [34,78,79]. As such, conservation planning has begun to draw on transdisciplinary approaches from human geography, social-ecological systems, PPGIS and others. Such concepts are

<sup>3</sup> The 15 focal species in NCC's Chignecto Isthmus connectivity analysis are moose, black bear, red fox, bobcat, snowshoe hare, fisher, northern flying squirrel, Barred Owl, Northern Goshawk, Pileated Woodpecker, Yellow Warbler, Brown Creeper, Ruffed Grouse, Boreal Chickadee and Blackburnian Warbler [48].

commonly applied in mapping and modeling studies of human-environment relationships, such as spatial patterns of land use and land cover [79]. Core principals are that conservation efforts ought to be systems oriented and cognizant of dynamic social-ecological interconnections between humans, culture, wildlife and ecosystems that are influenced by broad scale political, economic and biogeochemical conditions [28,34,80–82]. Ideally, both society's and science's perceptions of conservation issues should be collaboratively considered [28,83–85]. As such, conservation planning is challenged to apply innovative models through engagement of diverse communities, facilitate co-learning about conservation and derive solutions through the co-development of knowledge and practice [79,86,87]. Accordingly, there is a growing interest in engaging local people and diverse forms of knowledge to help interpret, frame, verify4 and otherwise complement knowledge gained through formal-natural-science methods, including addressing its gaps and limitations [88–90].

There is ongoing debate about the use of the term 'integration', referring to the inclusion of both local knowledge and scientific knowledge within environmental management [91], with important relevance for conservation planning. While the value of including local knowledge has been acknowledged, studies focused on knowledge 'integration' can struggle with considering which forms of knowledge are being privileged, sometime favouring scientific over local knowledge [56]. Differing epistemological beliefs about what and how things are known may constrain researchers' abilities to engage fairly with the process of integration [56,91]. Challenges may also arise with distrust among researchers and local knowledge holders and through institutional power dynamics and privilege [55,56]. Such issues are inherent in attempts to 'validate' local or traditional knowledge with science. The desire to validate can derogate the legitimacy of local tacit and experiential knowledge, especially when the forms of knowledge and ways of knowing derive from fundamentally different epistemological systems, such as with traditional and scientific knowledge [92,93]. To acknowledge and address these challenges and barriers, conservation planning approaches are needed that facilitate the co-production of knowledge, engage more inclusive knowledge systems, and represent different forms of knowledge.

Connectivity conservation is a subset of conservation planning in which inclusive and collaborative efforts are particularly necessary, as it aims to address the conservation of public and private lands and Indigenous territories between protected areas [5,94–96]. The broader landscape is often highly contested space, with multiple demands and claims over a limited land base. Nonetheless, it is important to maintain and restore connectivity across human-dominated landscapes because habitat fragmentation is a key cause of wildlife decline [5]. Linear human developments such as roads are increasingly recognized as predominant impediments to habitat connectivity [97–101]. Yet, there are few studies that address wildlife and linear development patterns at broad-regional scales, despites calls for such attention [102–105]. There is also growing recognition that, particularly in coastal areas, responses to sea-level rise will require adaptation measures such as relocations of linear and other infrastructure from low-lying areas to higher elevations, with potential risks of further incursions into wildlife habitat and disruptions to wildlife movement patterns with implications for population persistence. In order to protect and maintain ecological connectivity, appropriate conservation planning strategies must be developed at local, regional, and national scales underpinned by an understanding of species distribution, barriers to movement and threats to their persistence, consideration of complex social-ecological contexts, and broad support of local people.

Given the challenges inherent to considering multiple, diverse layers of natural and social information and landscape spatial patterns in conservation planning, computer-based GIS are often

<sup>4</sup> Terms such as 'validate' and 'verify' can be contentious when talking about bringing together formal science and local tacit knowledge. Such words can imply a privileging of one form of knowledge over the other in terms of veracity, value, etc. What we mean by 'verify' is a form of 'ground truthing' based on local experiential and tacit knowledge, to identify areas of agreement and disagreement, which may then be further explored. In light of such concerns, we at times use 'verify' and at others 'ground truth', although we have not done ground checks in the field.

used to facilitate data compilation and analyses [80,106]. The mapped outputs of such analyses are powerful tools for communication and decision support, yet they are strongly influenced by the choices of input data and the rules around interpreting it, such as in setting goals and targets for conservation modelling. These technologies, data sets and decisions about objectives and rule setting have been dominated by formal-natural sciences. To make these systems more inclusive and transparent, PPGIS approaches have been developed [107]. While helping to democratize the planning process and enrich the data, questions remain as to how best to reach consensus and how to accommodate and incorporate differences in knowledge and values [108]. Methodologies for representing differences and building consensus in participatory mapping are needed. This is especially important given that including local knowledge in planning and decision making is always troubled with questions of whose knowledge is included and privileged [56,91,92]. The idea of a homogenous community has been deeply critiqued in the literature and PPGIS methods provide an interesting model for engaging multiple viewpoints without assuming sameness in a local community [109]. Distinct from building consensus among diverse stakeholder groups, managers and planners, the question arises as to how to build consensus 'within' distinct groups, such as among local knowledge holders engaged in a participatory mapping exercise.

While the infusion of local perspectives in participatory mapping has expanded over the past two decades [90,110,111], there has been relatively little uptake in its application to wildlife connectivity planning. Local knowledge provides a key tool for understanding the complex social and ecological systems in which conservation planning operates and for which solutions are increasingly coming from models that are unconnected to local people and place. The Chignecto Isthmus provides a study area where conservation planning is not only imperative for maintaining local wildlife, but also for broader scale wildlife connectivity. Monitoring of wildlife movement, distribution and abundance is time consuming and costly and large gaps in knowledge for conservation planning remain. Local knowledge provides a means to help address these data gaps and limitations, while engaging local people and contributing to a more inclusive knowledge system. Accordingly, this study focuses on generating local tacit knowledge to help identify areas important to wildlife connectivity at a regional scale through an exploratory analysis using a participatory mapping approach. We focus on the local experiential knowledge of wildlife species, locations and movement pathways and landscape features that present opportunities or barriers to then. We address how such local knowledge enriches existing data and models, not simply through gap filling but by offering a deep understanding of interrelating factors that influence wildlife patterns within the region. We explore means of spatially delineating 'fuzzy' boundaries, representing diverse perspectives and generating consensus in local knowledge. The mapped outputs may be used to supplement and validate formal-scientific data and models relevant to delineating areas for wildlife connectivity and adapting human infrastructural developments in the region. Through the process, we seek to enhance local participants' confidence in their knowledge and foster their support and future engagement in local conservation and other planning initiatives in the region, while contributing to more inclusive knowledge systems. We propose that the generation and engagement of local experiential knowledge can enhance understanding and support for wildlife connectivity planning. Our study provides broad intellectual contributions around validating or ground truthing modeling studies, where local knowledge provides a key tool for understanding knowledge about complex social-ecological systems that is increasingly coming from models that are unconnected to place and local people. As such, our approach and findings contribute to the scholarship and practice of connectivity conservation planning and PPGIS.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

We used a mixed-methods approach engaging qualitative and quantitative social and natural sciences to create a spatial data set of wildlife connectivity patterns across the region. A combination of participatory one-on-one mapping interviews and two focus-group mapping workshops elicited local, tacit knowledge. Individual participants' maps were digitised and compiled into

a computer-based-mapping system. Spatial analyses were conducted to capture themes, similarities, and differences among the compiled mapped data from the individual interviews and group workshops. Maps were prepared to overlay local knowledge maps with NCC's modeled wildlife habitat and movement pathways for discussion purposes. Explanatory texts from the participants' interviews and workshop discussions were used to enrich, support, and interpret the participants' mapped data. The methodological details associated with each step are provided in the following sections.

#### *2.1. Participatory Mapping Interviews*

We conducted participatory mapping interviews [112–115] with local knowledge holders to gather textual and spatial data representing their knowledge of wildlife species, population locations, habitat and movement patterns in the Chignecto Isthmus. Recruitment purposefully targeted people with long-term, lived experience on the land such as subsistence harvesters, woodlot owners, farmers, naturalists and recreational users of the land and wildlife. We conducted initial recruitment through local and provincial hunting, trapping, fishing, and naturalist groups and in collaboration with NCC, who has preestablished relationships with individuals and organizations in the region. Supplemental 'chain-referral' or 'snowball' sampling [116,117] was then employed, wherein interviewees were asked to suggest other potential participants knowledgeable of the land and wildlife. Recruitment ceased when no new referrals were forthcoming. Efforts were made to represent both provinces, aiming for 15–20 participants in each, and a breadth of experience and backgrounds. The participant sample was designed to reach the most knowledgeable local people while achieving a reasonable complement (n = 30–40) in terms of pragmatic logistical constraints such as time and funding, balanced against obtaining a range of viewpoints from knowledgeable individuals. The intent was to explore the deep experiential knowledge within this sub-section of the population, rather than be generalizable to the broader public. Preliminary screening ensured participants were knowledgeable of the region, identifying the nature of their relationship to the land and the time they had spent there. For the purpose of our study, "the local knowledge of an individual is unrelated to any institutional affiliation and is the product of both the individual's cultural background and of a lifetime of interaction with his or her surroundings" [90] (p. 158). Knowledge sought from participants was to be based on the livelihoods and pastimes of the individuals and gained through "extensive observation" [118] (p. 1270) of the land and wildlife across the region over time. While it not possible to separate an individual's tacit knowledge gained through their time spent on the land from their training within organizations and institutions, we asked participants to share their personal and experiential views and information, rather than represent the perspectives or provide formal data gleaned from their employers or member organizations.

A total of 34 local people with tacit knowledge of wildlife in the region participated in one-on-one participatory mapping interviews. Often participants did not identify as one specific type of knowledge holder, but rather had experience through a variety of work and recreational activities. Participants were engaged in hunting and trapping for sport, sustenance and income; farming and agriculture; forestry both at industrial and private woodlot scales; wildlife rehabilitation and photography; as naturalists and trail groomers; and in other recreational uses such as fishing, canoeing, hiking, birding, snowmobiling, biking and cross-country skiing. Many participants have spent their lifetimes growing up and working in different capacities in the Chignecto Isthmus, with 11 participants from NS, 18 from NB and five who had lived on both sides of the border. While some participants are not originally from the region, their connection to the land is strong through their work and long-term residence in the area. The shortest time a participant has lived in the region is 10 years, with a large part of that involved being out on the land. We did not seek other demographic data from our participants as we did not intend to stratify our sample into sub-groups. Since we intentionally targeted recruitment toward people with longer histories of time and relevant experience in the region, participants tended to be ~40 years and older. Due to their long-term, deep engagement and familiarity with the region, we were able to collect a wide temporal range of data based on their knowledge from the past to the present. Although we made significant efforts to increase recruitment of younger adults, women

and Mi'kmaw individuals, these were largely unsuccessful, with only five women and none who identified as Indigenous participating in interviews. Particularly, we recognize that the inclusion of Mi'kmaw individuals is important, as the Chignecto Isthmus is situated within Mi'kma'ki, their ancestral and unceded territory. Unfortunately, the time frame of the study was insufficient to develop the relationships of trust and Indigenous methodologies necessary to meaningfully engage Mi'kmaw individuals in culturally appropriate ways. We acknowledge this limitation in our discussion (see Section 4.1). Inclusion of the Mi'Kmaq in dialogues and decision making within their territory is important, as are the insights likely to emerge, and as such their engagement in co-production of knowledge should be sought in future efforts (see Section 4.2).

We conducted semi-structured, face-to-face interviews in June-August 2019 in both NS and NB, at locations convenient for participants, such as at their farm, hunting cabin, or a coffee shop in a nearby town. Interviews of 1–2-h duration explored how participants view and value wildlife and wildlife habitat within the region. Interview-guide topics centered around several key questions used as prompts as they arose in natural conversations (Supplementary Materials S1). Questions were not necessarily all asked or addressed in any specific order as interviews were conversational and participant driven, based on their own experiential knowledge of the region. The first portion of the interview established context and built rapport to learn more about where participants live, how they came to live in the area, where they have spent their time in the region and the activities through which they have experienced the land. The second portion focused on core topics involving wildlife species, population distributions, movement patterns, habitat, conservation, roadkill hotspots, threats, and mitigation.

We solicited spatial data during the interviews through a participatory-mapping component. Participants selected base maps from among five options at three scales (1:30,000, 1:60,000, 1:170,000) upon which to convey their knowledge of the region. The base maps were centered around the NS-NB border and showed major highways and secondary roads, towns, protected and conserved areas, lakes and rivers, forest cover and elevation contours, all sourced from 1:50,000 Topographic Data of Canada [119]. Land cover was classified simply as forest or non-forest where the forest cover layer comprises a single land cover category which does not classify dominant species or forest type [119]. Often, forest cover served to orient participants to specific areas in the region such as the location of a pipeline right of way (i.e., a distinct linear feature of non-forest) and frequent occurrences of wildlife road crossings (i.e., adjacent known patches of forest cover on both sides of a highway). Elevation contours were often used to identify areas of higher elevation around Hall's Hill and Uniacke Hill associated with known movements of terrestrial wildlife. Elevation contours were also useful for participants to orient themselves within the two main watersheds in the region and to identify two distinctive ridgelines in the region that were used as landmarks for recording wildlife observations. After the first few interviews, significant local landmarks emerged as identified by participants and were often used as points of reference for orienting and locating spatial data; these landmarks were added to the base maps. Key landmarks include the Old Ship Railway, a historical ship-railway route which is now used as a multi-use trail connecting the Bay of Fundy to the Northumberland Strait running from Tidnish to Fort Lawrence, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio towers located in the Tantramar Marsh near Sackville, NB, which were distinctive landmarks at the border region for decades but have since been demolished.

Participants chose the map(s) on which they felt most comfortable identifying their key areas and observations, with the option to use multiple maps at various scales. Paper maps provide an integral elicitation and engagement tool and a means of physically recording participants' responses in a spatial way. Participants were encouraged to draw directly on the maps, indicating any insights and tacit knowledge pertaining to wildlife, such as wildlife presence, absence and movements, particularly around roads, areas of concern for conservation, features that represent barriers to or heightened opportunities for wildlife movement, key areas used for their livelihood or recreational activities and their perception or the spatial extent of the Chignecto Isthmus as a region.

Individually mapped data were scanned and georeferenced to align with base map coordinates within a Geographical Information System (ArcGIS). The maps were then digitized to identify specific species' presence, movement pathways and barriers to movement using layers of points, polylines, and polygons. The individual maps were compiled and organized to form a thematic series of maps representing participants' landscape-based and experience-based knowledge of wildlife presence and pathways in the region. These were combined and overlaid to form group-consolidated thematic maps providing a composite landscape-scale perspective of wildlife presence and pathways in the region. Following the proposed methods outlined by McCall [115] for representing local spatial knowledge through dynamic mapping, composite areas were shown as multi-layered zones with fuzzy boundaries in recognition that individually delineated boundaries were not identical to each other. Local spatial knowledge often includes descriptive spatial terms and fuzzy boundaries which are not always perceived by participants as the same place or as existing in isolation [115]. There are also multiple levels of detail that are not single occurrences of location but rather represent temporal and spatial ranges, such as those used for hunting and trapping, and seasonal wildlife usage. The need for precision in participatory GIS can change in accordance with the intended output and goals of the research. As outlined by McCall [115], there is a need for less precision and lower resolution to represent various levels of certainty and confidence in the data. Such flexibility is appropriate in PPGIS applications aimed at eliciting and transferring generational knowledge for analysis of conflict or consensus and management applications [115] such as in our study.

#### *2.2. Participatory Mapping Workshops*

Subsequent to the individual map-interview phase of our research, we held two sequential, half-day mapping workshops near the border in Aulac, NB, in January and February 2020. The aim was to review and refine the map series derived from the interviews. We invited a subset of 20 individuals from among the 34 interview participants, selected on the basis of their demonstrated, strong experiential knowledge of the land and wildlife in the region and high regard as such by those in the larger group. Eight of these individuals participated in the first workshop, in which we sought to verify the consistency and accuracy of our interpretations and compilations of the individual data. Spatial data were presented and discussed as a series of thematic consolidated maps of wildlife habitat, movement pathways and associated threats and barriers. The second workshop brought together the same group of participants with an additional two who were unavailable for the first workshop but were identified by others as important to include. Workshop participants continued to represent a mix of diverse roles and knowledge of the region including hunters and trappers, farmers, loggers, birders, wildlife rehabilitation workers, wildlife photographers, active members of the Chignecto Naturalist Club and conservationists. This active engagement across various livelihoods and lifeways provided the opportunity for a mix of diverse perspectives and expertise and allowed for strong consensus building across experiential domains to develop a robust data set of spatially mapped, local tacit knowledge.

Workshop participants were asked to comment on the consolidated maps and whether or not they thought they accurately and/or completely represented their knowledge of (i) areas of wildlife presence, habitat and movement pathways and (ii) areas that represent heightened opportunities or barriers to wildlife passage, such as landscape features or changes. They were encouraged to note areas of similarities and differences in the maps and factors such as level of confidence, agreement/consensus and rationale. The workshop facilitated the pooling of participants' knowledge and collective markings directly on the maps through roundtable breakout groups, where refinements were noted, such as additional or missing data and spatial revisions. Large printed maps were provided of the compiled, thematic spatial data. Participants were broken into two smaller groups to assess each map sequentially and provide opportunity to comment and draw on the maps, working through any areas of disagreement or uncertainty. Open focus-group discussions at the start and end of each

workshop facilitated the sharing of participant's views, thoughts, and opinions on the mapped data, expanding upon conversations and topics that had emerged.

After consensus was reached at workshop 1 on refinements to the initial consolidated thematic maps, the maps were updated to reflect the received inputs. In preparation for workshop 2, the outputs from NCC's wildlife-movement-pathway model [48] also overlaid with the local knowledge holders' consensus maps to develop a new series of thematic maps. Maps of wildlife roadkill hotspots identified by Barnes et al. [49,50] were also presented for comparison. The resultant composite maps reflected themes based on species distribution, movement patterns and wildlife-road interactions derived from both local-tacit knowledge and formal-science models, privileging neither.

In the second participatory mapping workshop held with the same subset of participants, the composite maps were reviewed for accuracy and completeness and to explore whether and why there may be similarities and differences in the results derived from their knowledge and those generated from the two formal-science data sources: (i) NCC's model outputs of high-probability wildlife movement pathways derived from habitat-suitability and least-cost-path analyses for the focal species; and (ii) roadkill hotspots statistically derived from roadside survey data in the region [49,50]. Any differences between their tacit representations and the models were identified and discussed. Discussions also provided an opportunity to identify missing information in regard to other areas of habitat, wildlife movement or pathways and roadkill evidence. Questions explored whether they perceived problems with the model outputs; whether we had interpreted their feedback correctly or if further refinements were required in the maps; and why there may be differences between the model outputs and among their own knowledge of the land and wildlife. We also queried the most important patterns revealed through the maps, such as critical areas for supporting wildlife species and for addressing key threats to wildlife, and asked which species, if any, warrant heightened conservation attention.

After the second workshop, maps were refined based on participant feedback to create a series of final, local-consensus maps. Participants' input and remaining similarities and differences between local-consensus and formal-science-derived maps were thematically and spatially analyzed. Points raised by the participants during the second workshop were used to understand patterns that emerged in the local data and how they compared to the modelled data.

#### **3. Results**

#### *3.1. Predominant Species and Threats*

During the interviews, participants were first encouraged to speak freely about their knowledge of wildlife and wildlife movement in the region and were later asked about the species considered in NCC's modeling (see footnote 4). Species that featured prominently were closely tied to the livelihoods or relationships participants held with the land. These were predominantly large mammals, including moose, white-tailed deer and black bear, and other furbearing species that were hunted and trapped, including beaver, otter, mink, muskrat, coyote, hare and fisher. Others were porcupine, various bird species, including waterfowl, songbirds and birds of prey, along with fish, primarily gaspereau. Often these lesser-mentioned species were talked about more generally across the expanse of the region or as species affected by barriers, such as roads, but were not considered of conservation concern. A common theme was the general decline in species abundance across the region over the past few decades. As noted by a local forest ecologist, biologist and birder, "essentially every animal that belongs in this ecosystem is still there, although in depleted numbers, from predators to songbirds" (P27) 5, 6.

<sup>5</sup> We assume that by 'essentially' the participant meant 'almost', as wolf, eastern cougar, woodland caribou and other historically present species have been extirpated over the past few centuries since Euro-American settlement.

<sup>6</sup> Participant numbers (e.g., P27, P22) are used in reporting our results to de-identify individuals, consistent with our approved research ethics procedure for confidentially attributing paraphrases and quotes.

Of the species modelled by the NCC, participants elaborated only on four, namely moose, black bear, hare and fisher, and showed considerable knowledge of habitat, movement pathways and barriers for black bear and moose (Figure 2a,b). Bears were said to be numerous and increases in bear activity across the region were noted, especially in NS, and often associated with forestry practices and agriculture, both of which were considered to provide enhanced food sources for bear. While key areas of habitat and points of observation were mapped for bear (Figure 2a), the common response was that you could find black bear 'everywhere' and that the population was increasing: "years ago there was hardly a bear around, but now they're everywhere" (P25); and, "I mean, there's bears everywhere. More than people realize" (P15).

Moose were mapped very differently from bears by participants (Figure 2b). They noted many factors impacting the locations and movements of moose across the region, including competing deer populations and the associated brain worm, climate change, heavy tick loads, poaching and habitat fragmentation, consistent with published explanations (*P. tenuis* is a parasitic brain worm that deer can live with but is fatal to moose; for a summary, see [8]). Many participants commented on the abundance of moose in NB and the dwindling population that persists in NS, with limited explanations as to why moose are not as abundant there. An avid hunter, trapper and past wildlife technician noted that moose "wander from the NB side, there's no doubt about it, but they don't seem to wander very far. Once they hit the Cobequid, along here, they just don't seem to migrate much further than that" (P22). Participants recognized that there appears to be abundant moose habitat within NS but did not know why moose do not prefer that habitat, stating "I can't really draw a conclusion if they will [move into NS], because if they're not using it today, what's going to make them use it tomorrow" (P18), and "I often go into areas and scratch my head, 'why aren't there moose here?' The feed is there. The water is there. Everything is there for a moose, but there's no moose in the area" (P10).

**Figure 2.** *Cont*.

(**b**)

**Figure 2.** Observed and known locations, movement pathways and roadkill areas for (**a**) black bear and (**b**) moose collected and compiled from individual participatory mapping data collected in July and August 2019. Road data collected from Government of NS Geographic Data Directory [120] and GeoNB Open Data Licence catalogue [121].

There was speculation among participants as to why moose do not seem to persist in NS yet remain abundant in NB. Poaching of moose in NS was raised as a concern by hunter, fisher and wildlife-technician participants (e.g., P1, 7, 18). Because native moose (*Alces alces* Americana) are officially listed as provincially endangered7, it is illegal to hunt them in mainland NS. Hunting for moose is allowed in NB, with limiting regulations managed by a lottery draw for a licence to hunt them each season and a bag limit of one [123]. However, illegal hunting was mentioned as a threat to moose moving across or on the NS side of the border: "Yeah, all over this area, here, ... poaching goes on, ... as you get back in the woods. I played golf with this guy three years ago and he said, 'We poach one every year'!" (P7).

Another explanation that participants provided for relatively low numbers of moose in NS is increased temperatures impacting habitat selection, exacerbated by climate change. As a wildlife rehabilitation specialist noted, "they're [moose] starting to move further north, like up into the highlands, because of the temperature changes where there's enough variance that you can still get colder, snowier areas. The moose aren't going to like hotter areas" (P29). This same pattern was observed by hunters, trappers and lifetime farmers who commented on temperature being a large factor and noted that populations of moose tend to persist further north in NB where it is cooler. Although information specific to the study area is not available to substantiate temperature trends, regional temperatures in the Atlantic provinces are projected to increase by 3–4 ◦C over the next 80 years [124]; and, annual

<sup>7</sup> The native moose species (*A. alces* Americana) in NS was officially listed as provincially endangered in 2003 and remains only in small localized groups distributed across the mainland portion of NS, where hunting of this species has been prohibited since 1981; non-native moose introduced from Alberta in 1948–49 proliferate in Cape Breton Island, NS, where hunting of this introduced species is allowed (i.e., in Victoria County and Inverness County) [8,122]

average temperatures in NS have increased by 0.5 ◦C over the past century (1895–1998) [122]. Due to latitudinal and ocean influences, temperature changes in the Atlantic region are projected to be relatively moderate; however, even small changes are considered likely to have negative effects on populations of species at the limits of their thermal tolerances, which may be the case with moose in the Chignecto region and the rest of mainland NS [8,125]. Loss of mature forest cover adds to heat stress by limiting important opportunities for thermal regulation near forage in both summer and winter [8,125].

Some participants noted some relative changes in species abundance over many years, observed over generally extended temporal time frames spent on the land or hunting and trapping specific species. A common thread was consistency over time in the relatively high abundance of moose in NB as compared to NS. This trend remains evident in current distributions of moose shown in Figure 2b, where there is a dense amount of moose-related data recorded in NB versus smaller and more sparse pockets recorded in NS. This aligns with studies conducted in NS [8,122,126]. In the early 2000s it was estimated that there were approximately 1000 moose left in mainland NS, however recent aerial surveys conducted by T. Millette for NS Lands and Forestry has revealed very low numbers of moose, underlying concerns that there are likely far fewer left in the wild than previously thought [127].

Generally, when participants were asked to consider the focal species that the NCC used to model their wildlife corridor, they were reported as present and well dispersed across the Isthmus. Red fox and deer were described as more likely to be found around towns where they were safer from predators and near food sources. Deer and bear were said to be abundant around foraging areas such as farmers' fields and deer wintering areas. In terms of relative declines and increases in abundances, deer and hare were frequently mentioned, noting a cyclical nature based on predatory pressures, hard winters, and food availability rather than a steady trend over the years.

As for the factors affecting species, several key themes arose from the interviews. Participants identified several barriers to wildlife movement across the Chignecto Isthmus, indicating that while roads provide an obvious physical detriment to movement, factors such as highway speed and forest cover are likely compounding limiting factors. A resounding factor, deeply expressed and agreed throughout, was the relatively fast rate at which the landscape has been changing over the past 30, 10 and as recently as 5 years. Landscape changes were considered to have not only impacted the resilience and abundance of species, but also their ability to move freely between NS and NB. Participants remarked on the proliferation of roads, especially for forestry, which have also facilitated access into natural areas. They described an increase in extent and intensity of forestry activities, which have diminished old growth forests and converted habitat through frequent clear cutting and herbicide applications. Noticeable increases in road speed, traffic and tourism-related travel were also reported.

Though anecdotal and relative, these qualitative observations are consistent with landscape changes found in other studies. Human footprint (HF) scores in the Isthmus are higher than average across the larger Acadian/Northern Appalachian ecoregion, with HF scores of 21–30 (out of 100) assigned to most of the Isthmus and higher HF scores (41–60) in a broad swath dissecting the Isthmus; as such, the Chignecto Isthmus region is classified as 'high threat', defined as above average levels for the ecoregion [45,65]. In general, many wildlife species are negatively affected by roads (for overviews relevant to the study area see, [99,128]). Moose populations have been shown to be vulnerable to increased hunting pressure near roads, especially illegal hunting; and in NB, 92% of moose killed by hunters occurred within 1 km of forest roads [129]. Densities for roads and trails across the study region are 'moderate' to 'very high' [125,128] and higher than a suggested threshold (0.6 km/km2) for sustaining mammal populations in naturally functioning landscapes [98]. Once road influence zones are taken into account, remnant forest patches are small and fragmented [46], average forest patch size across the region is <5.0 hectares [130]. Forestry practices, including clearcutting and herbicide spraying, have been criticized in NS (see [131] for an in-depth, independent review). Local species declines and the need for attention to such threats are documented in status reports and recovery plans for species at risk, provincially [e.g., 122, 126] and nationally [132,133], and reflected

in the region's designation as one of Canada's Community-Nominated Priority Places for Species at Risk [59]. Accordingly, there is strong agreement between the participants' observations and the small number of potentially corroborating studies available, with the local descriptions infusing rich explanatory insights to the local socio-ecological context.

#### *3.2. Patterns in Spatial Elicitation through Participatory Mapping*

Based on predominant spatial data emerging from the participatory interview mapping, eight thematic maps were produced: (i) avian species presence, movement and roadkill; (ii) movement pathways of terrestrial wildlife; (iii) point locations, sections and areas of roadkill for terrestrial species; (iv–vii) location, movement and roadkill for black bear, moose, deer and other fur-bearing species; and (viii) overlapping moose and deer locations, movement patterns and observations (see Figures 2–4. These maps served as the basis of discussion for workshop 1. At the workshop, participants indicated that the locations of species and other mapped spatial forms of knowledge were reflective of what they had indicated in their individual interviews. Although there were instances where participants noted a gap, they later discovered that the data was included on a map other than the one they were examining at that moment. As a consequence, the participants neither added nor removed information and requested no refinements to the consolidated, thematic maps, although encouraged to do so. Despite being mapped separately by 34 individuals, participants noted a high degree of agreement in their spatial representations. Accordingly, participants considered group consensus to have been established for the mapped information presented regarding species locations, movement pathways and roadkill areas for moose, deer and black bear and a suite of furbearing mammals. Participants in the two consecutive workshops reported that they were able to see their knowledge, along with the compilation of data from other participants, reflected in the maps, and that this increased their confidence in their knowledge in terms of its veracity and spatial accuracy.

**Figure 3.** Movement pathways recorded and compiled from individual participatory mapping interviews (July and August 2019) identifying areas and pathways for terrestrial and avian species across the Chignecto Isthmus. Road data collected from Government of NS Geographic Data Directory [120] and GeoNB Open Data Licence catalogue [121].

**Figure 4.** Points, lines and polygons of recorded areas of roadkill for various species, compiled from individual participatory mapping interviews, July and August 2019. Road data collected from Government of NS Geographic Data Directory [120] and GeoNB Open Data Licence catalogue [121].

That said, methods varied by which participants used base maps to record their knowledge. The spatial extent of their perceptions of the region, wildlife habitat, movement and barriers varied widely, drawing upon various map scales; 42 individual maps were produced at 1:30,000 (n = 11), 1:60,000 (n = 18) and 1:170,000 (n = 13). Some spoke broadly about general patterns and habitats across large geographical extents at a coarse level of detail, while others conveyed finely detailed knowledge in local vicinities, recording a total of 556 discrete points, lines, and polygons to record their knowledge of 47 different species. Their degrees of confidence varied across scales and background knowledge. Participants often demonstrated a desire to record a precise location, yet if they felt any uncertainty in spatial precision, they hesitated to place a mark on the map. In such cases, we encouraged them to make the mark according to their best judgment while representing uncertainty by a dashed line. Interestingly, when data were later compiled and collectively reviewed during the workshops, it was clear that there was much consensus in the various attributes that had been marked by individual participants, with uncertainty at the individual level overcome at the group level.

#### 3.2.1. Wildlife Movement Pathways

A total of 129 discrete points, lines and polygons were drawn for 15 different species to indicate movement pathways (Figure 3) along with 41 records of roadkill sections (Figure 4) on key stretches of road, which also are indicative of wildlife movement within these areas. Pathways were merged in a single map layer to represent composite movements for all species (Figure 3). There were differences in ways individuals represented and thought about wildlife movement pathways. Some thought in terms of roads and how species were forced to move either across or along them. Their notations would often indicate an area or section of road where species frequently moved along (n = 12) or across (n = 34), at times representing places where species would readily cross due to factors such as higher elevation (n = 16) (versus low-lying wetlands and coastal marshes) or tree cover on either side of the road. At other times, these represented their observations of wildlife crossing the road, wildlife tracks or high numbers of incidences of roadkill in the area. Of note was a 1-km road section along Highway (Hwy) 16 between Aulac and Port Elgin, NB, which is the sole area along that highway with remnant tree cover on both sides. Wildlife, both live and roadkill, were reported to be frequently seen in this location. The surrounding landscape has been cleared for agriculture, housing, and forestry.

Many participants noted that wildlife often travelled along 'paths of least resistance'. The most frequently mentioned was a natural gas pipeline right of way, which runs North-West to South-East across the NS-NB border and Hwy 16 near Hall's Hill, NB. The pipeline is cleared of brush along its entire route but remains forested on either side and is relatively less frequently bisected by fences and devoid of other human developments as compared with other potential routes. Several participants have observed wildlife and other evidence of travel along this corridor, such as moose and black bear sightings, tracks, and scat. Similar use of human-made routes was noted for moose and black bear in areas where logging roads and other forestry activities have permeated forested regions. Participants often reported that wildlife may be seen travelling along logging roads as they move through an area and often recorded observations of species sightings or signs (tracks and scat) along these routes when mapping out their spatial knowledge. Some participants reflected that there may be increased observations in these areas due to increased human presence facilitated by road or trail access, consistent with observational or sampling bias often reported in field studies. As one trapper, hunter and fisher said, "I'd see tracks all over where the cuts (clear cuts and logging roads) are. The only reason I would see them there is because those are the places where I have access, where I can get to" (P4).

Others described wildlife movement in a broader context in terms of how species move throughout the region, particularly across the NS-NB border and between suitable areas of habitat for specific species (Figure 3). At this broader scale, it was also noted by several participants that the region between Halls Hill and Uniacke Hill along Hwy 16 is the highest point of elevation when crossing between the two provinces and provides a natural funnel where terrestrial wildlife are "streamlined" (P3) across the Isthmus. When describing how wildlife move between NB and NS, some participants drew an hourglass shape which captured suitable habitat on either side of the border for terrestrial wildlife but was constricted through a pinch point in the border region, along this area of higher elevation.

Temporal, daily and seasonal, movement pathways were also indicated, particularly for deer and migratory birds. Wintering areas and deer yards were often delineated, along with areas where deer would frequently graze in agricultural fields and near salt marshes, and spring and fall movement pathways in and out of wintering areas. These pathways often included areas along and across roads where high frequencies of vehicle-deer collisions and deer crossings were reported. Temporal movements were also recorded for migratory birds such as the American Black Duck and Common Eider. In contrast to most patterns, migratory birds were shown as moving across the Isthmus from the Northumberland Strait to the Bay of Fundy (Figure 3). Human changes to the landscape were noted as interfering with these daily and migratory flightpaths, acting as barriers to movement. A couple of participants who are hunters and also work in the conservation field identified power lines that stretch across pastures near the High Marsh Road just west of the NS-NB border that birds would strike on their daily flight paths at dusk and dawn. The powerlines were described as so frequently deadly that eagles have begun to perch and wait there to scavenge dead, stunned or injured prey (P8, P9). The wind turbines located between Sackville NB and Amherst NS were also stressed as a deterrent to movement for bird species and associated fencing as a barrier to other species (P13).

#### 3.2.2. Threats to Wildlife Habitat and Movement

Roadkill in general was frequently mapped during the interviews (Figure 4), primarily for deer, moose and black bear. Moose was noted as a hazard to drivers and most frequently hit in NB on Hwy 16 between Port Elgin and the bridge to Prince Edward Island. This stretch of Hwy 16 is notorious for

vehicle-wildlife collisions and was highlighted 16 times as a hotspot for moose crossings and roadkill. Several participants indicated the surrounding area as moose habitat, supporting a healthy moose population (Figure 2b). Deer movements were also marked along the same highway, but south of the moose hotspot between Port Elgin and Halls Hill (Figure 4). Deer roadkill hotspots were also noted along the Tyndal road east of Hwy 16 in NS and at the Aulac, NB interchange at the start of Hwy 16. Black bear roadkill locations were noted along the Tyndal Road in NS; near cottages in Tidnish, NS along the Northumberland Shore; and along the Trans-Canada Highway east of Amherst. The hotspot on the Trans-Canada Highway separates two large black bear habitat areas and populations identified by participants (Figure 2a).

Increasing human-wildlife conflicts [134], especially pertaining to moose, can result in varying societal attitudes and values [135]. In NB where many rural routes and highways pass through moose habitat, there is the potential of increased risk of moose-vehicle collisions which could cause damage to vehicles or have the potential to injure and kill both wildlife and humans. Individual and social characteristics can influence one's risk perception; the evaluation of the probability and consequences of an unwanted outcome is heightened by experiencing the effects of danger [136,137]. Risk perception can be amplified by a mixture of individual, social, and environmental factors combined with perceptions and attitudes influenced by testimonials of extreme events [138]. This may well be the case with participants in our study. Collision data from NB Department of Energy and Resource Development show 13 records of dead moose on NB Routes 15 and 16 from 2013–2018 [49], and in an eight-week period in May–June 2017, vehicle-moose collisions averaged one per week [139]. Related media and other attention may have fostered a heightened sensitivity to moose-road interactions among our participants, resulting in its prevalence in their reports; however, it is also the case that high rates of moose-vehicle incidents do occur in this area.

Forestry was another predominant emerging theme that was often discussed and sometimes mapped during the interviews. Except for providing improved forage habitat for black bears, forestry was often discussed with a high level of frustration and concern for the 'devastation' it causes, resulting in a continuously changing landscape across the Chignecto Isthmus. Although some participants have worked in the industry and privately log wood from their land, there was overwhelming consensus that industrial silvicultural practices have rapidly shifted the landscape and negatively impacted habitat quality and quantity in the region.

We can go for a drive today and drive up in this area and see moose tracks, but does it represent or have any remnants of what it was like 35 or 40 years ago? Not even close, and it never will. That piece of ground will never be the same. Those things in itself, to me, are changes that are irreversible and are going to represent some sort of adversity to wildlife" [referring to swaths of land currently being used for industrial forestry] (P10).

Referred to as "death by a thousand cuts" (P27), the impacts of forestry across the region have "devastated diverse ecology" (P27). What was once a mature, mixed Acadian forest is now young plantations of jack pine and balsam fir, creating monocultures which have stripped away wintering areas for deer and feed for moose (P17, P18, P28). Participants criticized such practices, calling the push toward monoculture as 'borealization' due to the focus on specific softwood species, disrupting the balance in Acadian forests (P27, P28).

#### *3.3. Comparison with Modeled Wildlife Movement Pathways and Roadkill Hotspots*

Local, tacit knowledge maps were overlaid with NCC's high-probability wildlife movement pathways [48]. This resulted in four additional maps being created and discussed at Workshop 2. Two maps overlaid participatory mapping for moose and bear with outputs from NCC's population patch, breeding patch and least-cost-path models for these species (Figure 5a,b). Two other maps overlaid NCC's modelled wildlife movement pathway with participatory mapping of roadkill, habitat, and species occurrence observations (Figure 6) and movement patterns for all species (Figure 7). Spatial similarities were evident when participants' mapped data were compared to NCC's modelled outputs for both moose and bear (Figure 5a,b). The existing protected areas used as 'patches' to be linked in NCC's pathway modelling were also identified by participants as habitat areas for several species, including moose and bear. NCC's modeled suitable habitat and breeding patches<sup>8</sup> were also similar to areas captured by participants' location, habitat, and movement pathway data. Nonetheless, the participants also noted other wildlife movement patterns lying outside of the high-probability movement pathway and other areas for species that were not modelled by NCC.

Participants had identified three major hotspots of roadkill across the NS-NB border that also fall within the NCC's modelled high-probability wildlife movement pathway (Figure 6). These three major roadkill hotspots were along Hwys 940 and 16 for deer and the Tyndal Road (Hwy 366) for deer, porcupine, bear and coyote. These three major roads run parallel to each other and transect areas identified by both participants and the modelled data as areas of wildlife movement and habitat. Deer presence and abundance was noted to be concentrated along the NS-NB border in the agricultural belt along Hwy 16 between Point de Bute and Baie Verte as well as in another pocket East of Hwy 940. Deer movement was reported as heavy between habitat patches alongside Hwy 16, with increased roadkill occurring during spring movements from wintering areas. Roadkill hotspots identified through roadside field surveys conducted in the region in 2018 [49,50] revealed overlap with road sections that intersect with NCC's modelled high-probability wildlife movement pathway. Some of these overlapping areas are also consistent with movement and roadkill observations indicated by participants including areas highlighted along Hwy 366 and Hwy 16 (Figure 6). Most of the species movements mapped by participants converge into a major pinch point across the border, as in NCC's model (Figure 7). There was group consensus that their compiled spatial data bore strong similarities to the modelled outputs, with no outliers or glaring differences to address between the two sources of information. NCC's modelled pathways aimed to optimize landscape conditions and minimize movement costs for the suite of species considered, including bear and moose, which participants also mapped. The similarity in patterns seems to suggest that the participants and the modellers have consistent understandings of the conditions favourable to these species and where they occur on the landscape. It likely also reflects the somewhat limited options for wildlife in making their way through the region.

The conversation transitioned to possible factors as to why the observed trends were occurring, particularly pertaining to the types of landscape changes impacting wildlife movement. Once again, forestry impacts dominated the conversation (i.e., excessive clearcutting, use of herbicides and logging roads). Participants reported increasing human access into once remote spaces through the development of access roads without restrictions on recreational users. Concerns were also raised about increased highway and road traffic in general, which they attributed in part to increased tourism. Little regard for speed limits by many drivers on some of the highways was noted, with participants recommending better outreach and mitigation in terms of signage to raise awareness of high vehicle-wildlife collision risk. Overall, landscape changes were considered the major driver of wildlife locations and movement patterns, most often as direct limiting factors and barriers, but also including indirect effects such as those related to increased disease and ticks.

<sup>8</sup> A population patch is the minimum area which can sustain a breeding pair for ten years and a breeding patch is the minimum area needed for a breeding pair [10,48].

(**a**)

**Figure 5.** NCC modelled connectivity data [48] overlaid with participatory GIS data for (**a**) black bear and (**b**) moose.

(**b**)

**Figure 6.** Species location and roadkill data for all species mapped and compiled from individual interviews (July and August 2019) overlaid with NCC's modelled high-probability wildlife movement pathway. Inset A highlights the 5-km wide pinch point along the NS-NB border identified in the NCC report [48].

**Figure 7.** Movement pathway data for all species mapped and compiled from individual interviews (July and August 2019) overlaid with NCC's modelled high-probability wildlife movement pathway. Inset A highlights the 5-km wide pinch point along the NS-NB border identified by participants and in the NCC report [48].

#### *3.4. Emergent Themes*

#### 3.4.1. Species of Conservation Concern

Participants agreed that moose are of conservation concern in NS, though plentiful in NB, and bear are increasing everywhere. They were relatively silent on conservation concern for other specific species, though concerned about general declines. Less clear, though a recurrent theme in conversations, was the question of whether deer are a nuisance or a species of conservation importance. A total of 126 points, lines and polygons were mapped during individual interviews to indicate habitat, locations, movement and roadkill for deer. While some viewed deer as pests who yard in their pastures and feed off their crops, in some cases these same participants also talked about deer in a positive light, indicating a complex relationship. Others simply enjoyed the sight of deer on their property and the opportunity to photograph them. Regardless, deer were talked about widely across all participants, who perceived the species as having the potential to shed light on key landscape changes and habitat fragmentation in the area. As noted by a local wildlife biologist, " ... not that deer are endangered. That is not to say they're not important ... It [deer] became a symbol of the corridor and the deer told that story. I don't know if you'd call it a keystone species, ... but I think it's a good indicator of why that corridor is important" (P15).

Participants also spoke to interactions between deer and moose, recognizing them as 'competing' species, and further, that they cannot inhabit the same space due to the detrimental impacts of a 'brain worm' on moose, which is a parasite (*P. tenuis*) carried by deer but deadly to moose (for a description, see [8]). They acknowledged that deer and moose have different habitat requirements and that landscape changes from agriculture, forestry, roads, and other activities have favoured deer and caused incursions into or overlaps with moose territory. At the same time, however, several noted that forestry activities also negatively impact deer, such as by interrupting their ability to move through areas or find suitable habitat and feed. As such, many saw deer as an indicator of the severity of the adverse impacts of landscape change and current forestry management practices for other, more sensitive species (P2, P4, P10, P20). These perceptions are consistent with those reported for these species more generally in NS and elsewhere (see, for example, [8,122,125,131,140]).

#### 3.4.2. Species and Ecological Interrelationships

References to 'totality' and interconnections were prevalent among participants, who acknowledged that ecological systems are intricate and complex, and therefore you cannot focus on one component alone. For example, "So, in terms of the Isthmus—in terms of the ecological things you can think about—it is so important, eh? ... [J]ust the ... different species, and so on" (P3); and,

[I]f you get anybody out and then try to have a connection—let them have a connection and see that—what connects to what, like that salamander connects to that—it doesn't matter how big a snake, ... anything. It all starts down here. You know, moss and the grass and then, you know, like, you gotta look at the whole picture (P27).

Participants recognized that wildlife, resource management systems and social interactions do not act independently and are intricately connected in the landscape. Such observations are reflective of systems thinking [141] and social-ecological systems frameworks [82,142], in which humans are intertwined with their environment. They situated the wildlife patterns within the complex social-ecological systems of the region, enriching existing data and models. During an interview, one participant, a wildlife rehabilitation technician, remarked, "[F]ew biologists will sit down and look at these issues in their totality, ... and that's what a project like this can do, is bring some clarity to those kinds of issues" (P29). Recognizing what the project can do—situating formal data within broader local tacit forms of knowledge to bring context, clarity and utility to decision making—is consistent with social-ecological-systems thinking, as is its representation through participatory mapping [81]. The value of the larger story and inclusive knowledge mobilization was acknowledged by participants,

such as in stating that "the problem is we have a lot of environmental groups and activists out there that don't know what the story is ... . So, what you're doing is telling the story" (P29).

Participants are not naïve about the social-ecological complexities of the situation, however, and noted challenges associated with the geographical extent of the Chignecto Isthmus, recognizing it encompasses multiple jurisdictions. Not only do ecosystems vary across the region, but so do institutional mandates, policies and social relations, creating problems for conservation governance, as pointed out by [143]. The scale of the challenge, especially when considering the role of human values and pragmatic factors inherent to decision making, is recognized by participants:

I mean, it's a massive undertaking. It's so complex and distanced from the realities in nature. The arguments, like, should we stop spraying the forests to protect the deer, when in both instances they're both invasive issues? ... We're no longer making choices of environmental stability; we're making choices of preferences over things that will make it (P29).

Adding to the complexity and urgency of the situation are uncertainties and measures needed to adapt to sea-level rise in this mostly low-lying, coastal region, both for wildlife and human infrastructure.

#### 3.4.3. Sea-Level Rise

At the outset, our study assumed sea-level rise as a 'given', rather than as a research question. Accordingly, we did not ask participants specifically about the effects of sea-level rise. Regardless, several participants spoke about 'water' levels being an impediment to wildlife movements due to the large extent of wetlands and marshes and many streams and undulating coastline in the area. At least one participant fully recognized the effects of climate change and sea-level rise on movement pathways, associating it with the funneling effect on wildlife movement visible in Figure 3.

And it's also the highest point of land on this size of the Isthmus. This is 350-foot elevation. And that's kind of important for looking at climate change and, you know, sea-level increases. Because, essentially, that elevation works like this: the elevations go from here, up through the top of this area here, which is the ridge—Jolicure. So, this is the highway and this is all, of course, relatively low compared to sea level, here. So, that kind of constitutes an important movement area, especially with the climate-change stuff happening (P27).

The ridge of higher elevation traversing the Isthmus was recognized as an important movement pathway for animals; participants recognized it as a safe passageway for animals who could not make their way through boggy or wet areas. Although not all participants linked it to sea-level rise, some went on to elaborate that part of the change on the Isthmus was associated with water levels and that these water levels affected not only human activity but also influenced animal movements and wildlife populations (influencing decline of some species while others became 'overpopulated'). The importance of the higher elevation area for movements was linked with seasonal effects on wet areas at lower elevations. Observations associated most wildlife movements with the higher ridge of elevation, while recognizing that wetter areas are used in the winter when the water and land is frozen, facilitating traverse over firmer terrain: " ... [T]here's seasonal travel through this wet area, ... Yeah, that would be of concern to some species. And once you get up to here [inland], I know there's a rise in elevation, there's more forest" (P12). Terrestrial ungulates (i.e., deer and moose) were reported to move through water on occasion but only in areas with adjacent habitat for landing and shelter. Participants widely noted the negative influences of forestry practices on cover habitat and associated this loss of habitat with influencing movement not only in the obvious ways (e.g., cutting out the forest, fragmenting the landscape) but also by no longer providing landing sites for possible movements through water, which may be further exacerbated by rising water levels in the region.

There's definitely a seasonal component, actually, to the animal movement through here, in my opinion. I hear—people would tell me stories when I was doing the wind farm bird

surveys, they were telling me that—this is a long time ago, probably in the 1960s—they had this moose going out to the, to the water and swimming over here to this peninsula. And they, they saw it ... . But I don't think it's happening today (P12).

Other participants also recognized that changing water levels, particularly deeper levels, pose movement challenges for particular species (i.e., deer, bear, coyote, small mammals). Deeper water is recognized as a direct barrier to movement: "They [deer] could cross over [but] it's pretty deep water, so they're not likely going across here because of that barrier" (P8). Some observed increases in siltation and how this has influenced water levels in the region, especially pertaining to rivers and the Bay of Fundy. Participants noted fish populations and movements as being affected by receding waterlines and muddied shorelines. Impediments to deer movements along shorelines of rivers to cool off and to access food and water were also noted as of concern, with muddied shorelines affecting their ability to walk.

Into the Bay of Fundy. This is a tremendous change here, over the last 4 or 5 years. ... I go down there every year ... [W]e used to walk the shore. Can't walk the shore anymore. There's a tremendous influx of silt, here, and the only open water now is over by the fields on this side ... . On this side, this is all silted in. There's a tremendous amount of silt here, and that's 4, 5 years.... We suspect—my friend and I—that it's come down the Petitcodiac River after they opened the causeway. Yeah, and there was a lot of silt accumulated there ... . [T]here's a tremendous, tremendous change there. That's probably going to be good for the shorebirds but it's just muck. You can't walk. It [deer] would be a fool to walk on it. But, uh, it's changed tremendously. (P1)

One participant spoke directly to the tenuous circumstance provided by the prevalence of water, recognizing the importance of the land bridge and associated infrastructure such as dykes to maintain terrestrial connections through the Isthmus, for both social and ecological reasons.

Yeah, without it, NS would become an island ... . [T]here are big parts of the Isthmus that are protected by dykes; and, uh, if the dykes fail or the dykes are breached, NS will very quickly run out of what they consume and buy in the store. The railway, the rail line, is right across the Isthmus and all the roads go across the Isthmus ... . So, the only connection NS would have to the rest of us in the case of breached dykes would be by air! But also, there's some very interesting wetlands up through the Isthmus. The Chignecto, ... the Missaguash River and all the complex of lakes and so on. The Isthmus is—it's an interesting canoe ride, to go from ... Point de Bute ... to Hall's Hill. (P5)

Observations like this recognize that sea-level rise presents an important current and future context for wildlife in the region. They are consistent with studies showing that sea levels are rising, storm surges and flood events are increasing, and the land is subsiding due to post glaciation isostatic rebound [64,69,71,73]. As such, the already narrow land connection between NS and the remainder of North America is predicted to be much narrower and in instances of storm surges potentially severed completely, as has occurred at times in the past. Although our intention was not to address this issue explicitly, participants raised it nonetheless. It supports the rationale for generating local insights on current wildlife populations, locations, and movement pathways within the context of larger social-ecological contexts, to provide more inclusive knowledge systems as baseline data for various conservation and other planning responses to sea-level rise in the region.

#### **4. Discussion**

Knowledge creation such as in this study is important for conservation planning, particularly for connectivity conservation across broad landscapes of complex social-ecological systems. The use of local tacit knowledge and participatory mapping represents a rich contribution towards a unique and robust dataset for conservation planning, research and decision making. Using participatory research combined with geospatial technologies has provided a method to generate local tacit knowledge and represent its spatial components within a GIS, serving to enrich and address current gaps and limitations in formal-natural-science data and models. The contributed local knowledge provides insights into historical and current distributions, abundance and status of wildlife populations in the region, similar to findings elsewhere in NS [144]. The engagement of knowledgeable community members was effective for eliciting and incorporating social and ecological knowledge. As observed by a renowned farmer and naturalist in the region during the second workshop, the dataset that we have been able to create through the collaboration of a diverse group of local knowledge holders is probably "the best available data" for illustrating trends and patterns for this region (P5). There was overwhelming support and buy-in for the participatory process we used to collaborate with local knowledge holders. The process incorporated a bottom-up approach, allowing for local participation, consensus building and the inclusion of local knowledge in the research.

The multi-directional learning relationships facilitated through our approach has led to increased awareness among participants about wildlife locations, populations, habitats and movements and threats to their persistence within the region. It has fostered and enhanced participants' interest and investment in conservation priorities across the Isthmus, providing a spatial focus for conserving key areas. Each participant created spatially referenced maps representing their lived, individual experience by employing overlay drawing onto topographic maps. Together they identified areas of combined experiences, noting strong, validating consensus, and thereby gaining confidence in their knowledge and its potential use in decision-making processes. Not only did the methods serve to elicit spatial data, but the maps served as a method to facilitate conservation knowledge sharing throughout the interviews and workshops. Participatory mapping has been commonly used to create 'sketch maps' for such purposes [145–147]. Our use of maps increased participant involvement during the interviews and workshops by providing an anchor for the dialogue to revolve around, furthering conversations, and stimulating memories through the process, as was found by Boschmann and Cubbon [145]. Participatory GIS methods such as ours have been identified as serving to democratize research and planning processes [148–151] and build consensus between stakeholders and land use managers [152,153]. Knowledge exchange plays a key role in conservation management by facilitating the social, environmental and economic impacts of research [29,30]. Not only is knowledge exchange critical to research during knowledge production and disseminating phases, but also during mobilization and translation for policy planning and decision making.

Inclusive knowledge systems and participatory mapping approaches such as those applied in this study can help to guide knowledge production and contribute to novel solutions to conservation challenges at the intersection of human and natural systems, consistent with findings in environmental management in general [28,83–85,154]. Significant work has been done in the realm of PPGIS to operationalize concepts that bring social-ecological systems into spatial mapping frameworks [81] and our study contributes to the field. Conservation planning approaches recognize the need to embrace local knowledge along with formal science data and models and to utilize participatory methods to not only increase local participation, but to improve the validity of knowledge across spatial scales [56]. A critical step to overcoming barriers to knowledge exchange is improving access to information to allow the co-production of knowledge for use by decision makers [29]. Research such as ours facilitates local knowledge exchange and provides the opportunity to contribute to evidence-based decision making in the region, responding within a timeline that can directly impact conservation planning, as urged by Lemieux, Groulx, Bocking, & Beechey [155].

Local engagement and findings generated through our study are timely for supporting on-going work of NCC and partners in the NS-NB Community-Nominated Priority Place [59], national efforts through the Pathway to Canada Target 1 Connectivity Working Group [156], the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers' Resolution 40-3<sup>9</sup> Working Group [157] and the joint NS-NB and federal feasibility study on infrastructural adaptations to climate change [74] among others. Opportunities to put this information into the hands of the decision makers and have the voices of key local people from across the region included within the decision-making process have been heightened through the research. The relationship between knowledge and decision making has become increasingly important in scientific literature recognizing that there needs to be a convergence of disciplines in order to properly address complex environmental management problems [29]. Several contributions of the conservation social sciences, as outlined by Bennet et al. [79], are highlighted throughout our research including facilitated learning of conservation challenges and the innovation of novel models for conservation through engagement of local knowledge holders. Our methods represent a generative effort to better enable and improve conservation data, models and planning. Such applications are vital to guiding processes with the best available and robust set of information [79].

Collaborative approaches have been recommended to help improve evidence-based decision making and this extends to conservation planning. Often, however, there is a disconnect between research and planning for conservation. To address the disconnect, research should match the evidence needs for conservation priorities [155]. Our research comes at a timely manner to address current concerns in the Chignecto Isthmus region surrounding climate change, biodiversity conservation and infrastructural adaptations such as those to be addressed in the feasibility study on the transportation corridor. Sea-level rise poses a heightened predicament for the tenuous land bridge provided through the Isthmus to people and wildlife. This threat highlights the need to think proactively about conserving and restoring wildlife habitat connectivity through this restricted land base, especially in light of current projects aimed at 'engineering solutions' to safeguard and adapt highways and other human infrastructure. Adaptations are likely to entail in-land relocation of some infrastructure to higher elevations and raised levels of others in place, such as for roads and dykes to remain above water in flood events and coastal inundation scenarios. Such adaptations are likely to further fragment habitat and restrict wildlife movement. On the other hand, engineered solutions, if planned with wildlife in mind, may provide heightened opportunities to mitigate barrier effects and other threats that infrastructure such as roads, railways and wind farms currently pose to wildlife populations, habitat, and movements.

Many known social and ecological issues intersect in human-wildlife systems. Within the Chignecto landscape it is important to identify key wildlife features (populations, habitat and movement patterns) so that they may be considered in conservation planning and infrastructural adaptation studies. Local knowledge has been shown to improve understanding of species distributions and the factors that influence them, especially where recent shifts in these trends have occurred that are not yet captured in scientific data [88,144,158]. Such up-to-date knowledge is critical in situations when timely conservation planning is required, such as in response to imminent threats (e.g., sea-level rise), sudden opportunities (e.g., infrastructure adaptation studies) and urgent priorities such as recovery of endangered species (e.g., NS Mainland moose) [144,158]. In our study and others [158,159], local tacit knowledge has proven successful in identifying species distributions, movement patterns and influencing features and processes within the study region, offering valuable information for planning and management.

While scientific data and models can reveal high-probability wildlife movement pathways or barriers to movement through the region, underlying factors as to what may be attributing to these spatial patterns can sometimes be left to speculation. Model outputs such as maps are limited by the accuracy, relevance and completeness of the data and are influenced by the optimization rules that drive the analysis. Such model outputs are powerful tools, yet they largely remain out of context of the complex social-ecological systems. Local tacit knowledge can help to explain the underlying

<sup>9</sup> Resolution on Ecological Connectivity, Adaptation to Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation [157].

'why' of certain phenomenon in a region: what external and acting factors are directly impacting wildlife movement pathways, pinch-point locations, roadkill hotspots and other phenomena? The local knowledge generated through this study therefore not only contributes to a more robust dataset but provides additional explanatory context for the patterns and changes. In the Chignecto Isthmus, for example, NCC's model detected land-cover types and roads based on the best available georeferenced spatial data and projected habitat suitability and potential wildlife movement pathways based on these data. Local participants enriched and complemented these data, expanding upon the impacts of landscape changes on wildlife, such as due to forestry practices, road access and traffic, water levels and siltation, as well as human activities such as poaching and wildlife interactions, such as between moose and deer. Local knowledge also effectively reflected accelerated changes. One participant (P29) noted and another (P30) concurred that since moving to the Chignecto Isthmus,

[W]e have really been recognizing just how important this area is because of animal movement, thinking how much small little sections of land are responsible for having to move so much land-based animals, and when you think of the type of traffic that's happening here ... , the amount of change that we've seen in terms of development and car usage, it's insane (P29).

Our findings provide cross-validated information for delineating priority wildlife habitat and connecting corridors within the Chignecto Isthmus. The process has fostered a diverse base of local champions for wildlife conservation. The next step is to disseminate and mobilize the findings to inform future decision making for conservation planning and land and resource management in the region for a long-term outcome of enhanced human-wildlife co-existence.

#### *4.1. Limitations*

Some limitations exist when using local knowledge in this study [108,115,160]. There were moments when participants were hesitant to draw on the base maps in fear that the spatial data they would provide wouldn't be in the exact location or area or that they may be remembering certain events wrong. The 'shifting baseline syndrome', a concept coined to explain knowledge extinction, occurs when the knowledge of the past is lost and the human perception of biological systems changes [90]. As such the analysis may be limited by the accuracy and reliability of shared information. On the other hand, there was strong group consensus among the local participants and good agreement with NCC's formal science model and roadkill hotspots identified through roadside surveys [49]. Insights from the Mi'kmaq, if participants had been recruited, may have provided longer term insights, and most certainly would have enriched the diversity and inclusiveness of the knowledge emerging from such co-production.

As the livelihoods of many of the participants are linked to their knowledge of the land for hunting, trapping, farming and logging, the data could be seen as inherently biased. This may lead certain participants to talk more about one species than another. For example, a wildlife photographer enjoyed photographing black bears and much of the data represented areas where black bears may be spotted. As such, there is potential over-representation of certain species due to factors also recognized by Loftus & Anthony [90]: personal preferences for certain species, strategic choices in locations of travel and the ease of seeing or noticing a species. When interpreting results for wildlife conservation planning, it is important to acknowledge that the species and habitats are directly connected to the livelihoods and pastimes of participants.

There are some limitations to using participatory methods to gather local spatial data [108,115,160]. Fuzzy boundaries are prevalent throughout the data and it was sometimes difficult to discern class boundaries between mapped spatial phenomenon. Inaccuracies in the spatial data collected may result in inaccurate definitions of classes and assignments of phenomena to a class, which may raise uncertainties about the precision of the data and ultimately impact decision making [160,161]. How participatory data represents participants' and researchers' interpretations of certainty and

ambiguity is important: fuzzy data should not be misrepresented as being precise and accurate [160]. Spatial reality in PPGIS is always fuzzy, and the accuracy and precision of data collected through participatory mapping methods when drawing on maps will also be impacted by factors such as scale and resolution [115]. How to represent and interpret fuzziness was an important concept to frame for this study. A series of decision-making steps and guidelines were followed consistently when choosing how to classify points, lines, and polygons of mapped data into their categorical bins for mapping and representing spatial knowledge. Of course, this interpretation is unique to the classifier of data, using their best ability to accurately represent each participant's individual data.

In studies such as ours that engage relatively small numbers of participants in in-depth and qualitative explorations, questions may be raised about the representativeness of the sample and the generalizability and validity of the results. In our study, 34 participants with deep long-term experience of the region's land and wildlife shared their knowledge through interviews and participatory mapping. Eight of these individuals participated in two subsequent half-day mapping workshops. These participants likely represent a relatively large proportion of our target population—those with deep experiential knowledge of the land and wildlife—in this rural area: nearing the end of our recruitment phase, no additional referrals were emerging from our purposive, snowball sampling method. Near the end of the interviews, no new data were being contributed, which suggests that data saturation was reached. As a qualitative study, we were not aiming for statistically significant results or findings that may be stratified or generalized to the broader public. As such we are confident that the number of participants was sufficient to generate consensus-based insights about local knowledge on the subject. Although the participants represent a relatively small portion of the general public, their voices could potentially be disproportionately influential due to their knowledge base and locally recognized expertise. Now that they are more aware and confident in their insights as a consequence of participating in our research process, they are likely better positioned to influence local people and communities and related planning around wildlife, habitat and connectivity conservation in the region.

#### *4.2. Future Research*

While our study did not focus on assessing landscape changes due to climate change and related sea-level rise, some participants spoke to 'water' levels and temperature increases as potential reasons for wildlife declines and impediments to movements. Comprehensive studies assessing changes in water levels, temperatures and associated impacts on habitats and ecological corridors in the region do not exist. Similarly, impacts of forest clearcutting and forest roads on wildlife presence and movement pathways have not been assessed in the region, though many participants highlighted such relationships as a central concern, as did an independent review of forestry practices in NS [131]. Quantitative data on landscape changes, irrespective of cause, similarly are not readily available nor to our knowledge have they been previously assessed at this scale. It is certain that the clearing of forests and construction of roads and dykes over the 400 or so years since Euro-American settlement have dramatically affected landscapes in ways that are important to wildlife, yet these have not been quantified in the region. In a petition to the colonial government in 1853, however, Mi'kmaw leaders expressed their concern with widespread changes throughout Mi'kma'ki:

The woods have been cut down; the moose and the caribou, the beaver and the bear, and all other animals, have in most places nearly disappeared ... . So that it is now utterly impossible for us to Obtain a livelihood in the way our creator trained us

([162] (n.p.) as cited in [141] (p. 9), citing [163] (p. 111)).

To our knowledge, roads and dykes have not often or recently been 'relocated', per se, as a result of sea-level rise. Such complex inter-relationships and impacts warrant further analyses and some may well comprise portions of the 'engineering solutions' study currently being conducted in the region. In the meantime, our findings serve to enrich the socio-ecological baseline data (while pointing out

important gaps) so that future planning for road, dykes or other infrastructural relocation may avoid ecologically important lands, specifically those that are important to wildlife connectivity.

More proximately, the next steps in our study aim to further develop inclusive knowledge systems and their engagement in conservation efforts. To further understand the interrelationships and patterns in knowledge from diverse sources, future research will explore the local knowledge data in relation to element occurrence records for key wildlife species compiled by the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre [164], forestry cover and roads, and model outputs of projected inundation due to sea-level rise. Forthcoming insights gained through our on-going qualitative, thematic text analyses of participant interview and workshop transcripts will be incorporated and shared. Improved understanding about how efforts such as ours that engage local knowledge can lead to local knowledge holders' support for conservation decisions that emerge from the knowledge sharing process would be beneficial. Important questions also remain about how efforts to engage local knowledge can lead those knowledge holders to further contribute to and participate in conservation efforts. In collaboration with participants, NCC and other partners, we will seek avenues for engaging, disseminating and mobilizing the knowledge gathered through these processes for conservation planning initiatives in the region. Importantly, we will explore opportunities to build relationships and work with the Mi'kmaq, who have lived, deeply immersed, within regional ecologies of reciprocal sharing interrelationships for 15,000 years [165,166]. Their title, rights, laws, governance systems, responsibilities, stories, and ceremonies need to be honoured and their insights would greatly benefit us all [95,96,165]. As signatories to the Treaties of Peace and Friendship (1725–1779) between the Mi'kmaq and Canada, we are all Treaty people [167].

#### **5. Conclusions**

The Chignecto Isthmus is a critical land bridge between NS and continental North America, providing connectivity for wildlife populations and human infrastructure. Coastal inundation and flooding due to rising sea level and storm-induced tidal surges threaten this already tenuous connection. Existing wildlife data from formal-science sources are limited and insufficient on their own to support regional conservation planning and on-going studies exploring 'engineering solutions' for safeguarding and adapting human infrastructure. Accordingly, our study aimed to generate complementary data based on local tacit knowledge, while enhancing local understanding and capacity for engagement in these local planning processes. To do so, we engaged local people with strong, long-term experiential knowledge of the land and wildlife to participate in map-based interviews and workshops. Thirty-four local people who hunt, trap, log, farm, enjoy nature and others participated in individual interviews with map-based spatial elicitation tools to identify key areas of wildlife habitat and movement pathways across the Chignecto Isthmus. Individual mapped data were digitised, analysed and compiled into a thematic series of maps, which were refined by subgroups of 8–10 of the participants through consensus-based workshop processes.

Locations of key populations and movement patterns for several species were mapped, consisting predominantly of terrestrial mammals, primarily moose, black bear and white-tailed deer, along with a group of other fur-bearing mammals and migratory birds. Strong consistency was observed among the mapped elements, resulting in group consensus despite some uncertainty expressed by individuals about their precision in noting the exact locations. When comparing local tacit-knowledge-based maps with those derived from formal natural science data and models, a strong overlap was apparent. Not only did the local participants verify the formal data and model, but they highlighted areas and concerns outside of the model and their explanations lent complex social-ecological context to its mapped outputs. Further, their engagement in the process resulted in knowledge transfer within the group and increased confidence in their experiential knowledge and its value for decision making. The process also increased their support and buy-in for mobilization of the results for wildlife conservation and connectivity planning, particularly for addressing revealed threats to connectivity from forestry practices (clearcutting and herbicide spraying), roads, power lines, wind-energy farms and increased water intrusion and flooding.

As such, our study has generated spatial and other wildlife data representative of consensus in local tacit knowledge relevant to wildlife connectivity and other conservation planning in the Isthmus region. The process represents a contribution to conservation planning methodologies, in which combinations of scientific data and local tacit knowledge are critically needed, both to provide reliable and locally-supported information for planning and to open up the research and planning process to different ways of knowing and to local communities, in the spirit of inclusive knowledge systems. The findings are relevant to on-going decision-making processes and represent important wildlife information for incorporation into local planning initiatives, addressing gaps in existing formal science data and lending validity to the outputs of computer-based modeling of wildlife habitat and movement pathways. The consistency of data obtained from these local people represents an important outcome that demonstrates and supports calls for greater generation and mobilizing of local knowledge in the scholarly fields of conservation planning and participatory mapping.

Our findings contribute to the growing yet nascent body of literature at the intersection of conservation planning and participatory mapping as means of co-production of knowledge and inclusive knowledge systems. Importantly, it also accesses, generates and makes available local tacit knowledge for conservation planning in practice, particularly for wildlife connectivity in a key linkage area identified as critical at local national and international scales. The findings enrich and complement data from formal natural science models, helping to address their gaps and limitations while providing important explanatory context. At the same time, our participatory mapping approach served to build local participants' confidence in their combined experiential knowledge and local support for conservation. It seems to have enhanced our participants capacity to serve as local champions for infusing local perspectives of wildlife and other ecological and social values that warrant consideration in conservation and other planning initiatives, such as for human infrastructural adaptations to climate change. Our study demonstrates a way to help build a more inclusive knowledge system grounded in the people and place. It illustrates an effective approach for representing differences and consensus among participants' spatial indications of wildlife and habitat. It presents a means of co-producing knowledge in participatory mapping for conservation planning. Engagement of local people and their tacit, experiential knowledge of the land and its wildlife provides important insights and means to enrich natural science and foster conservation action for connectivity and human-wildlife co-existence, both of which are key to addressing the twin crises of precipitous biodiversity loss and climate change.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/9/332/s1, Interview Guide S1.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, K.F.B. and J.L.N.; methodology, K.F.B., J.L.N. and V.P.P.; original draft preparation, J.L.N.; writing, reviewing, and editing, J.L.N., K.F.B. and V.P.P.; supervision, K.F.B.; funding acquisition, K.F.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight Development Grant #430-2018-00792) to K. F. Beazley and NCC collaborators, C. Smith and P. Noel, with in-kind support from NCC. Student funding was also provided by Faculty of Graduate Studies, Dalhousie University. Approval was received from Dalhousie University's Social Sciences Research Ethics Board (2019-4763).

**Acknowledgments:** The authors thank the 34 local participants who contributed their time and insights and our NCC collaborators, C. Smith and P. Noel.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## **Beyond Calendars and Maps: Rethinking Time and Space for E**ff**ective Knowledge Governance in Protected Areas**

#### **Claudia Múnera-Roldán 1,\*, Dirk J. Roux 2,3, Matthew J. Collo**ff **<sup>1</sup> and Lorrae van Kerkho**ff **<sup>1</sup>**


Received: 10 July 2020; Accepted: 22 August 2020; Published: 25 August 2020

**Abstract:** Protected area managers rely on relevant, credible, and legitimate knowledge. However, an increase in the rate, extent, severity, and magnitude of the impacts of drivers of change (e.g., climate change, altered land use, and demand for natural resources) is affecting the response capacity of managers and their agencies. We address temporal aspects of knowledge governance by exploring time-related characteristics of information and decision-making processes in protected areas. These areas represent artefacts where the past (e.g., geological periods and evolutionary processes), the present (e.g., biodiversity richness), and the future (e.g., protection of ecosystem services for future generations) are intimately connected and integrated. However, temporal horizons linked with spatial scales are often neglected or misinterpreted in environmental management plans and monitoring programs. In this paper, we present a framework to address multi-dimensional understandings of knowledge-based processes for managing protected areas to guide researchers, managers, and practitioners to consider temporal horizons, spatial scales, different knowledge systems, and future decisions. We propose that dealing with uncertain futures starts with understanding the knowledge governance context that shapes decision-making processes, explicitly embracing temporal dimensions of information in decision-making at different scales. We present examples from South Africa and Colombia to illustrate the concepts. This framework can help to enable a reflexive practice, identify pathways or transitions to enable actions and connect knowledge for effective conservation of protected areas.

**Keywords:** protected areas; knowledge governance; cross-scale management; knowledge systems; temporal dimensions; time

#### **1. Introduction**

Protected areas are artefacts where the past, present, and future are connected and integrated. As public assets, these designated conservation areas are boundary objects—spaces where multiple actors share information and interact [1], connecting diverse social-ecological elements, each with specific temporalities. Elements from the past are represented by landscapes, geological and ecological processes, refuges as sites and symbols of Pleistocene extinctions and historical climates [2], or the deep time evidence of the unfolding relationships between people and nature. Through time, human societies have evolved narratives that reflect different ways of conceptualizing, interpreting, and interacting with nature, justifying what is considered important or of value (including tangible and intangible values) and how to manage nature. In this context, protected areas represent the stage on which particular

societal interpretations of nature are played out [3]. Human agency is expressed in conceiving and deciding what, why, and how nature in these protected areas needs to be conserved.

As complex social-ecological systems, protected areas comprise multiple temporal and spatial scales where human and non-human actors connect [4], although not necessarily at the same pace. Time-related characteristics in ecological systems include ecological and evolutionary processes including variables such as seasonality, frequency, and duration of interacting biotic and abiotic processes that are organized hierarchically [5,6]. For human societies, time provides the cues for specific practices, for instance, traditional local and Aboriginal communities organize their activities according to natural, seasonal tempos (i.e., harvesting, ceremonies, fishing), using customary and experiential knowledge that comes from memories and stories transmitted from one generation to the next. In this perspective, knowledge is active, rather than static and processed [7]; memories represent information from the environment that has been filtered and interpreted by human agents [8]. For modern human societies, time is entrained to deal with administrative issues, the creation of daily routines embedded in time-related metaphors like calendars, clocks, diaries, and time zones. In the case of protected areas, time is related with management and operational plans to meet conservation goals, with specific timeframes for implementation measured in months or years.

Managing and planning biodiversity conservation is complex, with inherent uncertainties and contested interests affecting decision-making [9]. In managing for environmental sustainability—including protected areas—practitioners rely on relevant, credible, and legitimate information for their decision-making processes [10]. Although advances have been made to better integrate information for managing natural resources, two issues are still evident: the constant call for better, more effective science indicates a persistent frustration and perceived lag between science and action [11], and there remain many cultural and institutional barriers to effectively use scientific information [12,13].

Unpredictable change is inherent to managing protected areas as complex systems and managers often are prepared to deal with it [14]. However, the increase in frequency and severity of impacts of drivers of change [15] affects institutional and individual capacity to respond to such events and use information for decision-making; in part, because of the inherent tensions managers face in reconciling management timescales and ecological timescales. For example, the speed and rate of extreme climate events and their impacts can extend beyond both the timeframe of a management plan and boundaries of a protected area or a country; its effects overlapping different temporal and spatial scales and cascading across biophysical systems [16]. Such events limit the ability of managers to identify and use climate information for decision-making processes [17,18], design monitoring systems, and comprehend ecological transformations and how people and nature respond to climate change [19,20]. In short, the additional complexity of climate variability limits the capacity of managers to design conservation strategies that effectively address adaptation to climate change.

What does time mean for managing protected areas under uncertain changing conditions, and how can people plan for, and select the best information to deal with unexpected changes? To help answer these questions, we propose that careful consideration of temporal and spatial aspects could provide benefits for knowledge creation and its application for managing natural resources in times of high uncertainty and rapid change. We argue that the linear conceptualization of temporal dimensions, implemented and reinforced through the use of modern calendars and clocks (as well as timetables, diaries and agendas), might be constraining our capacity to understand complex interactions in social-ecological systems at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Land managers operate in at least two spatio-temporal scales: the here and now and day-to-day of their responsibilities, as well as the scale at which social-ecological processes play out in the longer term at a landscape or regional scale [21,22]. However, managers are often constrained by the need to respond to specific timeframes mandated by the tools for management or urgent responses to meet administrative or political objectives, rather than operating at more extensive spatio-temporal scales beyond administrative constraints and maps [23].

To facilitate a multi-dimensional understanding of knowledge-based processes, we propose that dealing with uncertain futures starts with a better understanding of the knowledge governance context and decision-making processes involved in adapting protected areas management to climate change. Drawing primarily from civic epistemologies studies [24], the manuscript is divided in four sections. In the first section we present concepts related to time, presenting the idea of the "eternally unfolding present" [25,26] to enable actionable knowledge and practice under uncertain futures. The second section focuses on knowledge governance, and the implications for decision-making in the context of protected areas management. In the third section we propose a framework that can help understand time-related issues in relation to identifying, accessing, and using knowledge in ways that reflect the multi-dimensional scales within which protected areas operate. In the fourth section we illustrate our concepts with practical examples from the South African National Parks (SANParks) experience with Strategic Adaptive Management, and interviews performed during a study of knowledge governance under climate change in Colombia [18]. In the concluding section, we highlight the importance of understanding time related processes in planning and practice, to facilitate addressing multidimensional processes where protected areas managers operate.

#### **2. Timescapes and Time Perspective**

#### *2.1. Understanding Time: Connecting Past, Present, and Future*

Time helps human societies, individuals, and institutions to plan and organize activities, connect with specific moments in history, and, in separating the past from the future, it facilitates the making of prospective decisions [27,28]. In every society, different conceptions and perceptions of time coexist. A key assumption in planning for the future is that time is "continuous, linear, unidirectional and irreversible" [28] (p. 140); time is continuous in that it keeps moving on and does not comprise discrete units, unidirectional in that one event follows the other, even if repeated in cycles, and irreversible in that it cannot go backwards. The perception of time as linear or circular is not only a subjective construction but also a cultural one [28].

In modern industrial societies, and the management of natural resources, time is the " ... disciplining coordination metrics of modern clocks and calendar ... by which modern society measures and responds to change and categorically distinguishes the 'past' from the 'future'" [27] (p. 3). Ecological processes and ecological responses to external variables (including human disturbances) operate in longer spatial and temporal scales. This inherent mismatch between human planning and the rhythms of nature constrains the capacity to recognize, access, and use alternative tempos from Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK); such knowledge comprises individual and collective memories, their relation to and interpretation of territory, and environmental change [29].

From a temporal perspective, the duality of nature and society that is inherent in natural resource management does not exist in Indigenous societies [27,30]. For example, a landscape represents both abstract and physical aspects, where time and space are intrinsically related and evident (i.e., in geological eras, evolutionary processes, and human habitation). A landscape is created in the eyes and mind of the observer, so its boundaries depend, in part, on the observer's capability for interpretation and imagination [30] and represent both tangible and intangible elements of cultural relationships between people and nature. From landscapes, we can move to the idea of *timescapes* as described by Adam [30], to acknowledge complex environmental phenomena and inherent temporalities relevant to social-ecological systems. Timescapes encompass time-related characteristics (seasons, rhythms, pace, cycles, environmental change, memories) linked to the natural environment. The concept acknowledges change and how past events and memories influence the present while offering options for the future: "A timescape perspective enables us to integrate scientific and everyday knowledge and the constitutive cultural Self with the workings of nature" [30] (p. 55).

In protected areas and in the context of climate change, timescapes can help integrate diverse forms of knowledge to understand how climate change-related impacts cascade across scales [16] and levels of governance, including different temporal and spatial scales that go beyond the boundaries of protected areas. A timescape includes the complex responses to changes in social-ecological systems, the different interpretations of risk, and the urgency to act. It implies active learning from past events and diverse actors, crafting new knowledge in the present, and envisioning future scenarios under climate change.

#### *2.2. Temporal Dynamics and Conservation Goals*

This interaction of different timelines (past, present, future) is common in biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation studies. However, sometimes knowledge-related work does not explicitly consider temporalities. Knowledge baselines for managing protected areas are often based on species inventories, which are limited to a specific location and time. Long-term monitoring can address temporal coverage from single inventories [31]. Defining indicators of the conservation goals, alongside Thresholds of Potential Concern (TPC) can help managers and scientists to identify levels of unacceptable change in the system under management [32,33]. Ecological responses have specific temporal hierarchies, representing long-term system variability [6]. Understanding the differences between individual ecological responses (events) and processes can facilitate the identification of information needs and the design of monitoring systems. Monitoring ecological processes and responses—not just particular biotic groups—can provide a better understanding of the complex, non-linear processes of ecological responses through time, and help to understand patterns and trajectories across scales (see e.g., [5] for a watershed case covering multiple protected areas, and [34] for long term elephant and fire savannah management in Kruger National Park).

As drivers of change and their impacts operate at multiple scales, monitoring systems might consider units beyond the protected area boundaries to facilitate an understanding of the complex dynamics of social-ecological systems. Tools for forecasting and prediction can help to visualize scenarios for the future and identify information needs for conservation goals [35,36]. These prediction tools have an important temporal basis enabling time perspective: being aware of how events follow each other over time, and the role of past events in shaping the choices made today for the future [37]. It emphasizes the role of everyday practice, experience and learning, placing an actor (individuals and institutions) in an "eternally unfolding present" [25,26].

Memory is an important element of time-related perspectives. In "The importance of a certain slowness", Cilliers [8] describes the relevance of knowledge and memory, and its role to help anticipation of what is to come as complex systems unfold over time. He points out that memory is the "persistence of certain states of the system, of carrying something from the past over into the future". This does not mean to glorify the past, but allowing past events to linger in the present is how we can process information, interpret new events to help inform anticipation of the future, and counter the illusion that "if we live quickly and efficiently in the present we are somehow closer to reality" [8] (p. 108). Knowledge creation is a social process that requires learning, reflection, and dialogue, all of which take time. Integrating diverse forms of knowledge and memories provide a means to interpret the changes and evaluate the rhythm, impacts, and extent of drivers of change.

As different stakeholders in protected areas usually hold a diversity of beliefs, values, and knowledge, and different interpretations of time and change, exploring knowledge governance arrangements can help to identify potential political, cultural or customary tensions when selecting and applying knowledge for planning [38]. In the next section, we discuss how these temporal dimensions connect with knowledge-based processes.

#### **3. Knowledge Governance: Accessing, Using, and Sharing Information**

#### *3.1. Creating Meaning, Crafting Knowledge*

Words and stories shared by a group shape its identity and create meaning for mutual ideas and concepts. Meaning is produced through interactions with the world and reinforced by the selected choice of words, language, and metaphors used in everyday interactions [39]. This collective creation of meaning is closely connected with knowledge creation. Knowledge-based processes are

context-dependent: institutions, rules, geographies, as well as individual and collective preferences, shape how knowledge is created, shared, and applied. A variety of cultural and political settings frame how people perceive, understand, and respond to natural phenomena and processes, including the 'how', 'what', and 'whose' of knowledge and its use [40].

Acknowledging the complexity and varied forms of knowledge, in this paper we consider two domains: scientific knowledge, and ILK [41]; ILK evokes the strong, long-standing linkages of Indigenous people, but also of more 'recent' communities (e.g., pastoralists or farmers) to their natural environments, and their specific interpretations of environmental change. Protected areas provide a good example of the interplay (or lack thereof) between knowledge and action produced by different actors operating at different spatial and temporal scales. As a 'community of practice' [39], protected area managers reinforce meaning through maps, regulations, and management plans, the implementation of which is measured in calendar time. In contrast, Indigenous communities create meaning and make sense of their world through dreams, stories, ceremonies, and traditional practices, where calendars and clocks are less relevant [42]. As explained by Cuvi [43] (p. 81), ILK1 is created through practice, learning, and openness to experiment. These individual and collective interpretations of the world, with different understandings of risk and future climates, can lead to different environmental rules and standards, which can then enable or constrain adaptation options [29]. In managing complex social-ecological systems, it is important to acknowledge the plurality of visions and human dimensions shaping science-policy relationships [44].

In doing their work, protected area managers are expected to find, produce, and use information to connect management objectives with specific time horizons for their implementation, monitoring and evaluation [45]. In deciding what knowledge to use for planning and making decisions to deal with changing environments, protected area managers are conditioned by their decision contexts. Gorddard et al. [46] explain the decision-context as a societal construction whereby held human values (such as the motivation to conserve nature), societal and institutional rules (formal and informal actions, norms and practices for managing and planning), and knowledge (the diverse ways used by people to make sense and understand the world) influence how people make decisions. When certain values or rules predominate it affects how certain forms of knowledge are included or excluded, depending on what values, rules and knowledge the decision makers consider credible, legitimate and important (see examples of values, rules, and knowledge interactions from Australia in [46,47]; for Colombian examples, see [48]). In the next section, we provide details of this knowledge-practice interaction.

#### *3.2. Producing, Co-producing and Governing Knowledge*

In linking science with management decisions, there is a trend to move from the knowledge deficit model [11] to co-production as a way to promote actionable science while considering the complexity of challenges in managing natural resources under climate change [49]. Although co-production has different definitions, we follow Wyborn et al. [50] (p, 3.2): "processes that iteratively unite ways of knowing and acting—including ideas, norms, practices, and discourses leading to mutual reinforcement and reciprocal transformation of societal outcomes". This definition addresses context-related aspects of producing and applying knowledge and the governance of knowledge-based processes in situations where there are different interpretations and ways of creating meaning in the setting of goals, as is the case for protected areas.

Knowledge exchange, understood as processes of creating, sharing, interpreting, accessing and using knowledge, is one way of understanding the interplay that is required for co-production, and is not straightforward [13]. Understanding contexts and barriers can facilitate the identification of options to enable knowledge exchange for more efficient decision-making and management. Such an approach requires an understanding of the governance of knowledge: the overarching rules of how

<sup>1</sup> Here ILK is inferred by the authors; in Cuvi (2019) Indigenous knowledge is mentioned, but does not refer explicitly to ILK.

societies engage in knowledge creation (including the preferred types of knowledge for making decisions) and how to share, protect, use, or access that knowledge [38]. Knowledge governance "can help to understand the role of knowledge and learning in the governance of complex societal issues" [51], including knowledge-based arrangements (formal and informal rules) for decision making, and facilitate more effective interactions between knowledge and practice. Knowledge governance is often confused with knowledge management, however the latter involves the day-to-day practice of organization along with accessing and using information and is not considered here.

Understanding knowledge governance can help to address temporal mismatches when deciding how to address conflicts of interests, identify ways to move beyond traditional practices and embrace innovative options for managing natural resources. A first step is to identify existing knowledge governance systems, for example the so-called 'loading dock' model [50,52], as well as institutional arrangements in use, for example boundary organizations, knowledge exchange, and embedded researchers [13,53]. These models are often framed by high-level processes and complex arrangements that shape the way society governs knowledge-based processes (known as civic epistemology), which therefore influence knowledge systems (such as institutional arrangements for science-policy interaction), as well as interventions and knowledge management responses for the application and translation of knowledge into action [38].

Knowledge-based processes (including co-production) might benefit from explicitly embracing different temporal dimensions. In collaborative interdisciplinary research, different perceptions of the urgency to solve problems, and the different paces to create knowledge by different disciplines and communities of practice, influence how we define timeframes for action [54]. In the next section, we present alternatives to explicitly explore the diverse conceptions of time, how it is conveyed in knowledge-based processes, to open opportunities for productive collaboration and dialogue with multiple stakeholders in and around the protected area, rather than mismatched understandings based on preconceptions or assumptions of time.

#### **4. Framework for Multidimensional Knowledge-based Processes**

"*Some years ago, we started reflecting on fragile ecosystems and climate change, and we realized, what are we going to do with the glaciers? Who is working on that? What management actions are needed?*"

#### Manager, Colombian National Parks, 2016

In its conception and implementation, management of natural assets often neglects or misinterprets temporal horizons when designing environmental monitoring programs and decision-making processes. To facilitate an understanding of time in relation to knowledge processes and decision making, we propose a framework to evaluate current knowledge-based processes in protected areas management and planning, as a guide to understanding the timescapes in which managers operate. Acknowledging that management of conservation goals operates within spatial and temporal limits, the framework is a guide to addressing the complex interactions of multidimensional management in a practical way while identifying options to move beyond constrained and utilitarian concepts of time (such as calendars) in relation to knowledge selection, usage, and the implementation of policies. Each protected area context is different, and it is likely that some managers are already applying some of these ideas. The framework aims to enable managers to navigate options for integrating practice (e.g., management effectiveness), applying science and technical knowledge (e.g., monitoring systems), and connecting diverse knowledge systems and memories to understand social-ecological processes and responses to drivers of change. For example, ILK can provide a richer vision of social-ecological processes, based on multigenerational observations and practice [55].

The framework is based on the idea of ecological reflexivity [56], involving *recognition* (monitoring impacts and system changes while anticipating future conditions), *reflection* (learning from past events, rethinking values and practices and envisioning), and *response* (reviewing objectives and values and reconfiguration of processes and practices). We integrate these elements into a simplified version of protected areas decision making (Figure 1). The framework includes the idea of the here-and-now that protected area managers face every day in their jobs. The present represents the living memory (including previous learning) gained by practice, anticipation of what is going to happen, and careful observation of the outcomes. We present some guidance questions (Figure 2 and Appendix A) intended to facilitate the reflexive process, guide discussions, and help managers exploring multidimensional knowledge-based processes in their current practice. These questions can happen as part of a deliberative process to update management plans or monitoring systems and can guide managers navigate and understand how current knowledge systems address time across scales. The framework and suggested options are not prescriptive, but aim to guide the discussion to identify what information is useful, whose knowledge is relevant, and elements to consider in designing monitoring systems that allow managers to capture systems dynamics in space and time.

**Figure 1.** A framework to address multi-dimensional knowledge-based processes for management of protected areas. The day-to-day practice on the left focuses on monitoring social-ecological processes and anticipating or thinking about future conditions of the system. The reflexive practice (center) emphasizes learning from previous knowledge-based processes, rethinking assumptions and knowledge systems, and envisioning expectations. To the right, the strategic practice level focuses on how to rearticulate or transition to alternative forms of knowledge and management. Modified from Dryzek and Pickering [56].

The first category is the *day-to-day practice*, or operational level, which represents the activities to meet the strategic objectives, including anticipating changes and monitoring current conditions. This level is critical to provide feedback to strategic decisions and update planning. Then, an intermediate level of *reflexive practice*, to allow learning about past projects, planning and activities, rethinking the effectiveness of knowledge systems used to understand change, and envisioning expectations for the future. Finally, the *strategic level* corresponds with decisions related to broad, overarching, long-term goals that span geographical and temporal scales. These can include setting collective visions for a protected area and surrounding landscapes, align management plans with Indigenous Plans of Life (a participatory planning instrument to reimagine Indigenous futures), developing and managing a network of protected areas, or complying with international conventions.


**Figure 2.** Illustrative example of the guiding questions and options for managers, to guide the discussion about multidimensional knowledge-based processes. Tables A1–A3 expand the questions at each level.

The information required to understand changes in ecological functions and the cascade effects of disturbances across scales require more than data collected over narrow temporal and spatial scales [57]. The relationship between information needs and decision-making timeframes might have different interpretations in management and planning [18] (p. 45), affecting how information is produced, selected, and used. Moreover, our lack of clear knowledge about the type, speed, and extent of ecosystem transformation as consequence of climate change challenges how we make decisions, our interpretation of time, affecting knowledge-based processes for managing protected areas. For example, when designing monitoring systems, scientists and managers often omit the response timeframes of ecological processes, or use incomplete datasets that do not reflect the interconnectedness of ecosystem processes at different spatial and temporal scales [5] or the underlying complexity of ecosystem services and the processes that provide them. In this sense, we understand ecosystem services as biophysically and socially co-created; their use and interpretation evolve over time according to societal preferences [58]. As ecosystems, biodiversity and social processes are structured hierarchically across temporal and spatial scales, protected area managers can benefit from explicitly addressing temporal scales, territorial dynamics and ecological processes when using knowledge and information.

Careful linking of management effectiveness times, with long-term monitoring results can help visualize changes and responses while allowing learning, testing of management options, the effectiveness of information collected and evaluation of thresholds of change. At the strategic level, the rethinking of information and knowledge needs involves a process of collective reflexivity on how to adjust knowledge systems for managing change and understanding that management of future ecological transformation requires dynamic management, learning and eventually rethinking and changing practices, structures and conservation approaches consistent with what has been learnt and observed. Although this re-articulation is not straightforward, it can occur as small transitions in

current approaches that facilitate reframing knowledge governance processes and incorporating other forms of knowledge (e.g., see four conceptual transitions to enable future adaptation in [48]).

The example illustrated in Figure 3 shows how ecological processes and information needs on conservation goals distribute across spatio-temporal scales to support predictions of ecological responses and change over the longer term. Anticipatory processes can benefit in setting TPCs, and reflecting on the observed responses of biota to climate and other drivers of change, managers and researchers will be able to better understand the mechanisms of climate impacts, the sensitivity of natural systems and implications for transformation in the protected area. Human needs and their dependence on ecosystem services play an important role in defining conservation goals, but also as underlying drivers of environmental change. Social TPCs can complement ecological ones to allow an integral understanding of processes and responses of the social-ecological system [59].

**Figure 3.** Overview of social-ecological processes and information needs on conservation goals for managing protected areas across spatio-temporal scales, from the short-term and local scale (bottom) to the long-term, large scale (top). Information from local level can help to understand conservation goals and social-ecological responses across scales, and the overall performance of ecological processes and functions. Data collected at the local scale (e.g., inventories) are limited to a moment in time and space; long-term monitoring can address temporal coverage from single inventories. Identifying early warnings like Thresholds of Potential Concern (TPC) facilitates an understanding of systems responses to drivers of change. Drivers of change can be events at local level/small temporal scales, or located at larger spatiotemporal scales, even outside the protected area, their impacts cascading across biophysical systems.

Human responses to environmental change play an important role in the dynamic nature of knowledge production. These responses can include changes in agricultural practices, reforestation and restoration efforts, human migrations or shifts in use of natural resources [20]. Observing and recognizing these responses within and outside the protected area can facilitate learning and experiential management, which is essential to enabling adaptive practices, while adjusting information needs, timeframes, and planning, which is essential for moving into the strategic practice level.

Finally, it is important to recognize the knowledge governance and decision-making context in the protected area. Each case is different and human perceptions and interpretations of the conservation values influence the creation of knowledge for managing these areas. An open dialogue with relevant stakeholders might allow agreement about objectives and desired future goals as well as identify the most relevant socio-ecological processes that require monitoring and management, while defining the thresholds of potential concern and limits of acceptable change [9,59]. In understanding the type of information available, including the timeframes for which climate information exists, managers can reflect on current practices and management questions, update planning tools, and improve decision making processes.

#### **5. Reconciling Calendar Time with Reflexive Practice**

So far, we have considered a framework for multidimensional knowledge-based processes for protected areas management. We emphasize that recognizing temporal dynamics related to production of knowledge is essential to support decision making and planning of social-ecological systems. It can help in understanding complex temporal patterns, the interaction at different geographical scales, and biotic responses to different drivers of change [6]. However, some questions remain outstanding. Environmental managers in the Anthropocene need to be more aware of driver-response dynamics through time and rethink temporal horizons and spatial scales, given the complex context under which multiple actors interact and make decisions [4]. We suggest this framework can help reconcile the different motivations for protecting natural assets when defining and implementing management and adaptation options under uncertain and changing conditions.

Calendar timeframes are useful when dealing with administrative issues, assessing changes in the conditions and guiding future management [60]. Independent on the knowledge model in use, applying a reflexivity process for the management of protected areas can facilitate a time perspective approach and identify relevant information from past events, while observing, documenting, and learning from previous practices, and investing that knowledge in new meaning in the present and into the future. This approach includes thinking about what information is available now or what information might be relevant to understand socio-ecological processes and responses in relation to the conservation goals, while reflecting on the biophysical characteristics that span through space and time and can support an understanding of ecological responses to climate change. In this context, the time perspective can help design monitoring systems with a more systemic vision and facilitate adaptation to a changing climate.

We present examples from South Africa and Colombia to illustrate how calendar times can be reconciled with reflexive practice. An ongoing collaboration between the authors helped to infer how this is happening in each country. The different governance models and knowledge systems of these countries allowed the authors to explore—through an inductive process—the assumptions for the framework. The example from South Africa comes from SANParks extensive experience with adaptive management; for Colombia, we used data collected through a co-production and knowledge governance study [18].

#### *5.1. South African Approach: Strategic Adaptive Management and Reflexivity*

How different is the framework presented here (Figure 1) from adaptive management? Adaptive management has become a foundation of effective environmental management in contexts characterized by high levels of ecological uncertainty [61]. It stems from acknowledging that ecological (and social-ecological) systems are complex, that understanding of such systems is imperfect and partial, and that the responsible way to proceed with management in these contexts is to learn by doing, and to adapt actions as new understanding emerges. It achieves this by integrating research, planning, management, and monitoring in repeated cycles of learning [62]. Adaptive management

is a systematic approach to improving the management process by purposefully learning from the outcomes of management actions.

Strategic Adaptive Management (SAM) is a version of adaptive management that has been iteratively developed and implemented by SANParks for more than 20 years [9,63]. SAM has been applied to a variety of social-ecological challenges, from relatively narrow (e.g., management of elephant populations [64]) to extremely broad (e.g., management of a national park; for more information, see Roux et al. in review) application contexts. Regardless of the context, SAM consists of four interlinked and dynamic sub-processes [65]: adaptive governance (co-producing the 'rules of the game' at a range of levels, from national legislation to park policy to local rules shaped by stakeholder norms and values); adaptive planning (co-creating a vision and management objectives for addressing a specific social-ecological challenge); adaptive implementation (designing and implementing management measures, research experiments and monitoring programs to action the above objectives and enable learning from their outcomes); and adaptive evaluation (assessing and reflecting on the outcomes of implementation against the vision and objectives, to inform ongoing learning and adaptation).

During adaptive planning, diverse stakeholders participate in face-to-face dialogues during which they deliberate the social values, changing contexts (social, technological, economic, environmental, and political) and vital attributes (special or unique features) of the social-ecological system of concern that should guide future decision making. These dialogues provide the basis for jointly articulating a vision and setting management objectives. The tacit knowledge of participants, which reflects past experiences, converges into an explicit vision statement and objectives for directing management in the future.

During adaptive implementation, ongoing engagement between agency scientists, park management, and stakeholder groups enables the consideration of multiple knowledge sources, including experiential and tacit understanding as well as science-based information, to inform decision options. Selected management actions are implemented in conjunction with complementary research projects and monitoring programs, to enable purposeful learning by doing. Monitoring of key indicators, and setting TPCs for these indicators, serve as forms of feedback to stimulate reflection, especially when thresholds are being approached or exceeded.

Adaptive evaluation refers to formal and informal assessment of and reflection on progress towards achieving the vision and set objectives, in line with the reflexive level. Lessons learned through these processes provide forms of feedback to, at least in theory, update or adapt the rules of the game (adaptive governance), the vision and objectives (adaptive planning) and management actions, research agendas, and monitoring programs (adaptive implementation). The SAM process incorporates memories and prior knowledge of stakeholders to anticipate and articulate a desired future state, which in turn guides sense-making in the present through combined actions, monitoring, learning, and research.

The SAM approach aligns to some degree with the framework. However, even SAM, with its strong emphasis on getting "consensus on a desired future state across a range of value systems" [62], has shortcomings. Park management plans are embedded in national legislation, which render their planning, implementation, and evaluation processes less flexible, responsive, and adaptive to natural social-ecological cycles than ideal [62] (e.g., policy determines when a plan gets revised, and not necessarily readiness of the social-ecological system; compliance culture stifles experimentation; and resource constraints limits dialogue with stakeholders). However, there are opportunities to rearticulate the rules. For example, where management plans include a program on climate change, ongoing learning about, and improved understanding of, climate as a driver of social and ecological change will help to update the normative rules of the game, to better understand information needs for climate adaptation, update monitoring systems, facilitate envisioning options, and rethinking assumptions.

#### *5.2. Colombian Protected Areas: Linking Knowledge and Management Beyond the Calendar*

The Colombian protected areas national agency has been actively working to understand the hazards and impacts related to climate change and their implications for managing protected areas. The Future-proofing Conservation project worked with protected area managers to rethink management options in the context of climate change and uncertainty about future socio-ecological transformation [48]. Using semi-structured interviews, the quotes below were documented by C.M. during the project to identify the different forms of knowledge related to climate and ecosystem services that are used for long-term planning and management, and how knowledge governance can be enhanced for strategic thinking and decision making. Full details on the methodological approach and methods are presented in Munera and van Kerkhoff [18]. The quotes in this manuscript have not been published previously.

Knowledge creation is an evolving process of past experiences and everyday interaction with the world, in which reflection is encouraged and learning is incorporated into practice. In Colombia, managers recognize these attributes, and are in the process of implementing reflexive practice: "we have [scientific] information; [now] is a moment to stop, review and analyse what we have, looking at the future, to identify gaps, reflect on other issues we would need to cover and to develop a long-term vision for managing protected areas" (Int. 3). This quote demonstrates the relevance of practices of learning, collaboration, and openness to change. In applying long-term thinking, it is important to consider choices and decisions made today, while being open to accepting and using alternative knowledges to understand territorial processes to support implementation of conservation strategies and connect with different concepts of time and knowledge.

For Colombian protected areas the learning process is allowing reflection on current practices to integrate risk into management and better connect with territory: "we are working on understanding if restoration is an adaptation action or not, what criteria we need to consider and how to apply it in practice to decide if we need to update zoning in the management plan. Managing risk is helping to better understand the territory and identify places where landslides can affect indigenous communities or farmers" (Int. 4). This process is facilitating managers to integrate other forms of knowledge alongside scientific information, enabling the strategic thinking necessary to manage uncertain futures and planning for climate adaptation [18].

Climate change and uncertainty of climate-related information have been reported as a major barrier for making decisions [66], so is the poor understanding of climate change impacts and mechanisms of climate sensitivity for species and ecological processes [17]. These limitations, plus a sense of urgency in trying to avoid ecological change, might prevent managers from fully considering social-ecological dynamics and potential mismatches in the information available to them. Climate change is opening the door to update current practice: "climate change is forcing us to look beyond the boundaries of the protected area and have more integral planning" (Int. 12). Although this openness to incorporating new knowledge was in response to a technical deficit (a lack of instruments for monitoring climate variables), it demonstrates that it is possible to rethink practice [18]. Instead of a reactive use of information, when a climate event triggers a response [66], managers can benefit from careful consideration of how past events have shaped present-day ecosystems, and cross-scale ecological responses of the conservation goals. Such considerations include the identification of conditions that may trigger other responses and can give managers agency to identify the most relevant information to act as the future unfolds.

A diversity of worldviews in a context of managing protected areas and knowledge-based processes can facilitate the reconfiguration and rethinking of managing multidimensional protected areas systems. Indigenous communities have specific timescapes, intrinsically linked with their interpretation of the environment across temporal and spatial scales. In their view, life and nature are not seen as discrete units, but as processes that have specific cycles linked with belief systems and cosmology. For Indigenous groups, decisions on their land requires revisiting their ancestral history [42,55], a view that demonstrates a deep time perspective and connectedness with the territory. Some Colombian

protected areas that are co-managed by indigenous groups are in the process of adjusting modern administrative timeframes to local tempos, set by nature and people's connection with it [42,67], and, when setting meetings, managers need to consider environmental rhythms (e.g., river flows), customs (e.g., funerals, wakes, and dreams) and their timing with nature. Although these parks are managed under State rules, local practices have been influencing the way the National Protected Areas agency interprets their role and governance in areas inhabited by Indigenous communities [42].

#### *5.3. Implications for Future Management*

As we started developing the ideas for this manuscript, an unprecedented bushfire season ravaged parts of Australia. Although bushfires are expected every summer, their severity and extent had enormous impacts on National Parks, wildlife, and livelihoods, challenging the response capacity to deal with them and questioning how to integrate Aboriginal customary practices of fire management. Fire regimes in Australia are well documented, especially in relation with the human practices and Aboriginal knowledge [68]. Aboriginal customary practices to manage the land using fire have been proven to reduce the density of shrubby understory plants and fuel loads, thereby reducing the intensity of bushfires [69,70]. Incorporating Indigenous fire management into Australian protected areas can be regarded as a direct adaptation measure to manage dynamic ecosystems under a changing climate or as an indirect adaptation measure, which aims to maintain ecosystems in their current configuration, depending on context and perspective [71]. Integrating ILK with modern technology and science can be beneficial, but requires changes in knowledge governance hierarchies, reflection on future expectations of conservation goals, and defining how much change managers and local communities are willing to accept to facilitate system monitoring, management, and action [72].

Understanding and accepting change (ecological change, change in practice, change in knowledge, and change in the territory) is a first step to rethink management of biodiversity under changing environmental conditions and climate. This perspective constitutes a shift in the way we conceptualize nature and management, and therefore the epistemic context and responses. In documenting dynamics of change and adaptation in epistemic communities (specifically practitioners and researchers working in ecological restoration), Hirsch and Long [73] found that when practitioners move their expectations from stable climates and ecological models to recognize the possibility that historic conditions and preconceived assumptions of nature might no longer exist, they were able to reorient practice and goals. This shift in thinking and practice might bring new paradigms, concepts, perspectives, and ideas, enabling the integration of new information and knowledge for strategic adaptive management.

Through a reflexive practice, managers, local communities, and other relevant stakeholders (information providers included) can discuss and identify TPCs and limits of acceptable change and identify management responses in relation to change, while adapting information needs. This shift in the science-practice paradigm is reported in Kruger National Park [9], where SAM was a response from managers who realized that instead of avoiding change, it would be better to understand and anticipate it, while working to identify conservation goals and thresholds of potential concern. This re-framing allows a transition from business-as-usual management to an approach where the complexity of social-ecological dynamics is recognized. Rapid change is embraced to allow room for co-learning, to understand change and the multiple values, knowledge, and interpretations of nature.

The interaction between different epistemic communities can help to update knowledge-based processes, as reported for Colombian protected areas [18]. This interaction demonstrates that biodiversity conservation planning processes can accommodate a range of different outcomes and worldviews, while recognizing how environmental decisions connect or impact other sectors. Anticipating the future is not about speculating, but being able to consider future consequences of decisions made today, having agency and willingness to change and take action, question current alternatives, being able to connect with other forms of knowledge, disciplines, and stakeholders, and being aware of others (nature or society) when making decisions [37].

#### **6. Conclusions**

The framework we present provides some guidance to connect multiple dimensions where knowledge and decision-making interact in the management of protected areas. We consider it is adaptable to specific context and circumstances, considering the knowledge governance model in use, and taking advantage of managers' experience and daily interaction with social-ecological systems to facilitate learning and co-production. Also, the framework incorporates a recognition that social-ecological processes and drivers of change have different time horizons and operate at different spatial scales. Rethinking and changing knowledge systems in use can take advantage of the diverse ways people make sense of the present and envision the future.

The custodianship of the present for future generations is augmented by an appreciation of the past and the acknowledgement of the plurality of knowledge systems. Use of diverse knowledge systems takes advantage of a richer set of memories, facilitating the process of anticipation and adaptation to new conditions, dealing with surprises, and reconciling collective agendas and expectations [8,74]. In a context of climate change, governance determines how we respond to new and uncertain climate impacts, and influences whether and how strategies are implemented [75]. Considering the challenges posed by climate change, and other drivers, we need more flexible management of biodiversity and ecosystem services while incorporating multiple visions, temporalities, processes, and interpretations of the world. The concept of timescapes [30], can help managers to understand time related processes in their areas, rethink assumptions, and explicitly consider and integrate multidimensional knowledge-based processes in mental models and practice. For example, because timescapes encompass seasons, natural rhythms and cycles, and memories of natural events, they can be used in TPC thinking and SAM by paying greater attention to changes in the return interval and seasonal shifts in events related to drivers of change, such as bushfires, floods, droughts, and cyclones. The effects of such changes on the integrity of protected areas and surrounding landscapes, and the consequences for achievability of management objectives then form a basis for a more reflexive approach to management.

Reconciling calendar management times with reflexive practice is possible, as we have presented here. South Africa National Parks is working on it, while Colombian protected areas have been accommodating diverse knowledge systems to complement technical knowledge and transitioning to adjust practices and rules. Although we probably will not find an ultimate suitable and cost-effective solution to deal with complex problems in a rapidly changing world, as Fernández [11] (p. 172) points out, we need to remember "new circumstances and context, including past solutions, require ongoing work because we are dealing with co-evolving systems". Accepting this challenge requires for us to stop, contemplate, and understand the moment, as well as to be conscious about how our actions and knowledge are connected and can impact future social, political, and ecological outcomes. Embracing a bit of slowness is important to better identify, evaluate, and deploy the knowledge required to deal with future changes, beyond just responding to "efficient" calendar times. We finish quoting an old Italian proverb: *chi va piano, va sano e va lontano* (whoever goes slowly, goes safely and goes far).

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, C.M.-R., M.J.C., D.J.R., L.v.K.; investigation C.M.-R., D.J.R., L.v.K.; formal analysis: C.M.-R.; writing, review and editing, C.M.-R., D.J.R, M.J.C, L.v.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** Some of the information presented here was collected during the Future-Proofing Conservation project where C.M. and L.v.K. where involved, funded by Luc Hoffmann Institute and with collaboration from Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia-PNN and WWF Colombia. C.M has a scholarship from the Endeavour Leadership Program. We thank Carina Wyborn (Luc Hoffmann Institute) for reviewing the manuscript and her valuable comments.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Appendix A**

**Table A1.** Guiding questions for protected area managers to facilitate the reflexivity process in multidimensional knowledge-based processes, and options to consider for the *day-to-day practice* level. **Words highlighted in bold** represent some key ideas and issues to consider.


**Table A2.** Guiding questions for protected area managers to facilitate the reflexivity process in multidimensional knowledge-based processes at the *reflexive practice* level. **Words highlighted in bold** represent some key ideas and issues to consider.



**Table A3.** Guiding questions for protected area managers to facilitate the reflexivity process in multidimensional knowledge-based processes at the *strategic planning* level. **Words highlighted in bold** represent some key ideas and issues to consider.

#### **References**


© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

#### *Article*

## **Pastoral Stone Enclosures as Biological Cultural Heritage: Galician and Cornish Examples of Community Conservation**

#### **Richard Grove 1, Joám Evans Pim 2, Miguel Serrano 3, Diego Cidrás 4, Heather Viles <sup>1</sup> and Patricia Sanmartín 1,5,\***


Received: 25 November 2019; Accepted: 23 December 2019; Published: 2 January 2020

**Abstract:** The role and importance of a built structure are closely related to the surrounding area, with interest in a given area having a concomitant effect on the relevance given to the constructions it may hold. Heritage interest in landscape areas has grown in recent times leading to a sound valorisation process. This connects with the recent concept of biological cultural heritage (BCH), or biocultural heritage (definition still in process), that can be understood as domesticated landscapes resulting from long-term biological and social relationships. Although pastoral enclosures (in large part dry-stone walling, whose construction has been recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2018) arise as traditional rural constructions linked with a way of life already disappearing, engaged local communities are recovering their biocultural value in terms of identity and positive conservation outcomes. In this sense, this article focuses on valuing traditional stone-built pastoral enclosures in two locations on the Atlantic coast of western Europe: Frojám (NW Iberian Peninsula) and Ladydown Moor (SW England). Findings concerning plant communities related to current or ancient pastoralism, and artefacts of built heritage are described, and an emphasis is placed on community engagement as a mechanism for conservation. The resilience of species-rich grassland communities is identified as a manifestation of biocultural heritage and an opportunity for habitat restoration. Finally, current trends and improvements in understanding of biological heritage and community conservation are addressed.

**Keywords:** pastoral enclosures; vernacular architecture; minor rural buildings; art of dry-stone walling; indigenous and community conserved areas; Galicia; Cornwall; forestry heritage; heathland and grassland conservation; plant biodiversity

#### **1. Introduction**

This study examines two areas where long-established land management practices have been disrupted during the last century as a result of technological or demographic change, bringing to an end, long histories of pastoralism. These changes are typified by agricultural mechanisation and its associated rural depopulation in Cornwall, and by a population shift to urbanised industrial employment in Frojám (Galicia), following government-led land seizures, and a fast rise and decline of mining in the area. However, the 'flight to the city' has recently reversed with increasing movement to a rural lifestyle under the guise of sustainability and quality of life, thus imposing renewed changes on abandoned landscapes [1]. In this sense, there is an increasing recognition of cultural values when discussing wellbeing in rural areas [2].

The concept of biological cultural heritage (or biocultural heritage), sometimes shortened to BCH, is a very recent development. Ove Eriksson [3] raised a tentative definition of it in 2018 as the "biological manifestations of culture, reflecting indirect or intentional effects, or domesticated landscapes, resulting from historical human niche construction". In 2019, Lindholm and Ekblom [4] framed the concept as one that allows new approaches to heritage, nature conservation, landscape planning and management, thus defined as "an understanding of cultural landscapes as the result of long-term biological and social relationships, shaping the biological and material features of the landscape and also memory, experience, and knowledge". In practice, this can manifest in a variety of landscape features and ecological systems; each with distinct indicator species, archaeological deposits, and cultural associations.

The BCH concept is a relatively new and developing framework, where the biological makeup of the heritage site exists as a cultural indicator in its own right, in addition to the structures and deposits of archaeology and heritage. It originated from human intervention and endures beyond the life and preservation of any structures and activities linked to their origin. In this way, BCH represents a heritage perspective that specifically and uniquely attests to living artefacts as a complex system.

This article introduces a type of BCH overlooked so far, viz. stone-built pastoral enclosures, and introduces case studies in two territories on the Atlantic coast of western Europe (Figure 1) currently involved in endogenous processes of biological conservation and investigates parallels between the two. Using historical parallels of mixed pastoralism as a starting point, the study focuses on two zones of archaeological interest, assessing the establishment of functional stone-built livestock enclosures as indicators of local tradition. The paper goes on to look at how long-established and recently abandoned pastoral activities in these enclosures have manifested specific changes in local plant communities, leaving an adapted and indicative biological culture in their place. The first site, Frojám (or Froxán, Figure 1) is an Indigenous and Community Conserved Area (ICCA) in Galicia (Spain, NW Iberian Peninsula). In contrast with state-driven protected areas that often marginalised human communities living and interacting with rural spaces in traditional forms, ICCAs have emphasised the relevance of indigenous communities in the management and conservation of biodiversity [5] and biocultural heritage. Thus, this represents a paradigm shift from conventional approaches to the conservation of protected areas by recognising customary practices in the conservation of biological and cultural diversity [6]. The second case study, Ladydown Moor, St. Breward (or St. Bruwerd, Figure 1), in Cornwall (SW England), is also conserved by community and voluntary groups under the provisions of the Commons Act (2006) and the Countryside Rights of Way Act (2000), though ownership of parts of the area are now unclear [7]. Under this joint legislative protection, locals are granted rights of grazing and access to the traditional land holdings on the moor and are encouraged to be part of the decision-making process for aesthetic and management changes via local government-led initiatives [8]. Frojám and Ladydown areas share relatively similar ecological conditions, which make them comparable systems from the environmental perspective. The geological substrate in both cases is granite, over which siliceous acidic soils have developed [9,10]. Coastal Galicia and Cornwall belong to the same biogeographical unit, the European Atlantic province [11]; a wide region including the western European regions from northern Portugal to southern Norway and encompassing the entire British Isles.

More apposite however, the temperate hyperoceanic bioclimate existing in the areas of study has a reduced distribution in Europe, restricted to Ireland and narrow Atlantic fringes in north-western Iberian Peninsula, Brittany, and Great Britain [12]. This bioclimate is characterized by constant moisture and mild temperature, with a short annual thermic interval (<11 ◦C) [13,14]. In the case of Galicia, the hyperoceanic climate is represented by a Submediterranean variant, with a perceptible fall in precipitation during the summer. The area of the Frojám enclosure lies in the Barbança mountain range at 500 m AOD (above ordnance datum), and summer drought is mitigated due to altitudinal compensation of water inputs [15]. This pattern of dry summers is historically reflected in Cornwall, although in recent years there has been a noticeable increase in summer rainfall, leading to a disruption in traditional farming practices on the peninsula [16].

In addition to historic cultural practices, the combination of climate and soil is a key determining factor for vegetation, being similar in lowland and submontane areas of the north-western Iberian Peninsula and south-western Great Britain. Forests are dominated by Oak woodlands (*Quercus robur*) with birch (*Betula alba*) and other acidophile species [17,18]. Interestingly, the grassland vegetation of pastureland in submontane-montane coastal Galicia (mesotemperate and lower supratemperate belts) and Cornwall have been grouped in the *Violion caninae* phytosociological alliance [19]. It is classified in the Class Nardetea, and so it is considered a priority for conservation European habitat (European code \*6230) [20], in spite of the reduced occurrence of *Nardus stricta* in both areas [19]. This community was named *Agrostis curtisii* grasslands by Rodwell [21] and is dominated by *Agrostis capillaris*, *Agrostis curtisii*, *Danthonia decumbens*, and *Avenula sulcata.*

**Figure 1.** Location of the case-study areas.

In moist, acidic peaty soils in both regions, vegetation originally developed as wet heaths and bogs with *Calluna vulgaris*, *Erica tetralix*, and *Erica ciliaris*, in a mosaic with *Sphagnum* and Cyperaceae/Poaceae wet grassland communities. This type of mixed formation has been reconstructed through the Holocene with pollen data and plant macrofossils in peatlands of north-western Iberia and south-western Great Britain [22,23]. Plant macrofossils allow a good reconstruction of the local vegetation at different temporal layers, and when this information is combined with information from charcoal remains the prevailing communities can be identified in relation to putatively anthropic burning [24]. Although the resulting vegetation is a product of complex interactions dependent on local historic processes, continued grazing in enclosures should have led to the replacement of healthy vegetation and the expansion of pre-existing grassland communities, dominated by *Molinia caerulea* in the wettest parts [25]. Nevertheless, the process of vegetation turnover in heathlands is complex and can differ significantly between regions. Whereas in Galicia, *Molinia caerulea*, and *Agrostis curstisii* grassland have been historically a relevant constituent of peatland and wet heath systems [23], vegetation reconstruction in some British moors do not follow this pattern and peatlands have revealed a late relevance of *Molinia caerulea*, with a clear prevalence only after the industrial revolution [26]. Therefore, agents other than traditional grazing and burning have to be invoked as responsible, like increased atmospheric input and/or changes in grazing pressure [25]. However, vegetation in historical pastoral enclosures is inferred to have arisen from the effects of routine domestic herbivory over centuries, coupled with practices historically associated with pastures, moorland, and heathlands to maintain these ecosystems, such as burning [27]. Species turnover due to customary grazing and mechanisms of the new dominant species to endure after grazing abandonment has been described in the acidic grassland species *Brachypodium pinnatum* in Western Pyrenees [28]. In the same way, an analysis of British grasslands showed that the seed bank was dominated by propagules of species associated with eutrophic grasslands, so vegetation change would prove difficult to reverse [29]; however, this pasture endurance through seed bank dominance seems more related to improved grasslands than to unimproved grasslands. These descriptions of historical and environmental processes affecting the Ladydown and Frojám enclosures, as well as the composition of plant communities currently occurring, therefore allows for the determination of biocultural heritage artefacts within these zones as indicators of traditional activity in their own right. The further impact of community engagement as a mechanism for conservation of these rural assets in Galicia and Cornwall was analysed and compared in this study.

The main purpose of this article is to value the stone-built pastoral enclosures, analysing dimensions, materials, and construction technologies, and their influence in the current habitats and plant biodiversity, and the image of landscape, this analysis will occur within a framework of nature conservation, landscape planning, and management and heritage preservation on the basis of long-term biological and cultural relationships between people and their surroundings.

#### **2. Pastoral Stone Enclosures: A Biological Cultural Heritage**

Pastoral stone enclosures in Atlantic Europe were already common in the Bronze Age. Although many such enclosures served the immediate agropastoral needs of a given community, others likely had additional functions as central facilities for surrounding communities both for tending and controlling livestock (e.g., culling, marking, shearing, and safeguarding from predators) and as places of ritualized gatherings, public hearings common ceremonies, and trade [30]. Being coeval with Bronze and Iron Age hilltop enclosures in Galicia and Britain, some early enclosures possibly served simultaneous or shifting agropastoral-defensive functions while other were obviously too large (i.e., >40 ha) to perform military functions [31] but occasionally included hillfort features such as ditches and present evidence of human occupation such as small huts or *chouços* (where shepherds or cattle could shelter) or permanent settlements as in the 'banjo' type enclosures of the British Middle Iron Age [32,33].

In Cornwall and neighbouring Devon, Iron Age pastoral enclosures are exemplified by those of the Dartmoor area (30U 436281 5602042, datum WGS84) concentrated on the south side of the moor, usually on south-facing slopes above river valleys close to a water supply, according to Cunliffe [34]. In this area, Shaugh Moor (30U 426212 5588925, datum WGS84) is an interesting example that includes pastoral enclosures, burial cairns, and stone-walled huts, with evidence of continuous use from the second millennium BCE to the 9th century CE [35].

In more general terms, the settlement and enclosure of the Cornish peninsula are in contrast to the counties of Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. The pattern of grouped field systems with scattered farmsteads has endured in this region to a greater extent, where inland (in more intensively farmed and populated areas) the village became the de-facto settlement type [36]. Post-medieval enclosure in Cornwall can also have been said to progress at a reduced rate and lesser extent to other areas of England and Wales, with a significant percentage of tillable land structured and enclosed by the 17th Century [37] with the retention of these forms to a greater extent than counties to the east, where later parliamentary enclosure is the dominant driver of extant agricultural landscape formation.

In Galicia, although agropastoral structures (e.g., enclosures, walls, and huts) have received little archaeological attention, recent finds in the Barbança mountain range [38–40], in the proximities of the Frojám site, have revealed not only their abundance but also their continued use over millennia. As in Cornwall, the spatial distribution of these structures is often conditioned by existing sources of fresh water and adequate orography [40]. Erected through dry stone gathered in the surroundings, enclosures often feature remains of huts or other types of shelters within their perimeter or built into the outer walls, built to the height of a person [39].

#### *2.1. The Frojám Enclosure as a Case Study in Galicia*

Located in the proximity of the Barbança mountain range where similar structures have already been documented [38–40], the Frojám enclosure stands out for its large dimensions. The granite dry-stone walls (whose construction is UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2018) are at the top of the Gironha mountain (29T 515908 4733504, datum WGS84) at altitudes ranging between 450 and 500 m, and have two discernible sections (Figure 2). The first and larger section has a perimeter of approximately 1 km enclosing 5 ha of land while a second smaller enclosure is formed through an additional 500 m stretch of wall encircles an additional 2.5 ha. The enclosure lies within the customary lands of the Frojám Commons ('*monte vizinhal em mão comum*') that currently stretch over 100 ha, not serving as a boundary demarcation of any kind, with only the southern tip of the perimeter touching the community boundary at a vertex.

The larger and perhaps older enclosure has a slightly triangular shape with rounded edges, following the natural orography, with a spring ('*Fonte de Ramo Curvo')* at its northern tip that was likely modified to serve as a watering hole for livestock (Figure 2). The smaller enclosed area to the south (Figure 2) surrounds a peat wetland called '*Campo de Lamas*' (literally, 'mud field'). Although signs of collapse and buried sections indicate a greater original height, most sections currently above ground do not exceed 0.5 m from the surrounding ground surface, making it difficult to discern from the taller scrub. Compared to its immediate surroundings abundant in granite outcrops, the enclosed area presents deeper soils which, together with access to water supply, seems to be the rationale behind the choice of the perimeter. This could relate to the availability of pastures during the drier seasons but perhaps also to the use of the area as a '*seara*' (communal open field, used for the cultivation of rye or wheat in winter and spring) which kept livestock *out* of the enclosed area.

Several hypotheses have been raised [15] to account for the enclosure's unusually large dimensions compared to other known Galician examples. Placed at the watershed divide between the Ulha and Tambre river basins, the site could have hosted a seasonal inter-community livestock fair, a possibility hinted by existing oral lore that identifies Gironha as a place of annual assembly for supernatural beings. Alternatively, as suggested, the enclosure could have served to keep the community flock concentrated *in* the area with the most abundant pastures during the summer while keeping them *out* during the period of cultivation of winter grains.

**Figure 2.** Orthoimage highlighting visible and probable sections of the Frojám enclosure. Based on IGN PNOA (*Plan Nacional de Ortofotografía Aérea*) 2008 images taken after the 2006 forest fires.

In spite of its dimensions, it was only during mechanical clearance made prior to a tree plantation in 2016 that a section of the enclosure was first noticed by community members (Figure 3). Although the local community is intimately familiar with its ancestral lands in which pastoralism endured until forced common land seizures in the 1940s, the structure had gone unnoticed. Orthoimages taken in 2008 (after forest fires in 2006) revealed the extent of the enclosure (Figure 2) and in 2017, after a preliminary archaeological field visit, a request was made for listing the site as protected heritage. Since its discovery, the local community has remained committed to preserving the site as part of its larger conservation efforts. This commitment has materialized through the natural beaconing of cleared wall sections and the incorporation of the enclosure in a conservation plan issued to restore the adjacent peat wetland [15]. While the ongoing wetland restoration process serves both biodiversity targets and community adaptation to climate change (by regulating water supply), the recovery of the enclosure is part of the community's reconnection with its pastoralist past.

Although the village itself is certainly older, Frojám appears for the first time in written records in a 1409 manorial agreement that set a rent to be paid in bread. The importance of pastoralism is evidenced in a 1527 manorial deed, were the annual collective rent to be paid to the feudal lord includes 'a good ram and two goat kids' ("*un buen carnero et dos cabritos*"), in addition to a rent to be paid in rye. Two centuries later, a renovated 1709 manorial deed established the obligation to serve two rams and three goat kids to the Marquises of Mos together with other goods that continued to be delivered annually by the commoners in Pedra d'Ouro, Noia. This deed also described the precise perimeter of the community's territory through various landmarks, including the '*Lage da Pedra Vigia*', a large granite outcrop by the '*Campo de Lamas*' peat area that also serves as a southern vertex for the enclosure. This microtoponym (literally 'Watchers Stone') at a place that would allow for the control of the enclosed area perhaps refers to its ancestral pastoral use.

As presented in Table 1, in the 1753 Marquis of Ensenada census, conducted across the Crown of Castille, Frojám appears with eight households, all of which kept livestock that included sheep, rams, goats, bucks, cows (2 or 3 per household and a similar number of calves), mares, mules, and pigs

(either exclusively owned or in a form of joint ownership called '*parceria*'). A total of 1753 livestock (188 heads, excluding stabled cattle and mules) are reflected illustrating the community's pastoral load at a time in which the enclosure may have still been in use; lack of living memory and state of conservation indicate abandonment prior to the 20th century.


**Table 1.** Livestock per household in Frojám according to the 1753 census 1.

<sup>1</sup> Arquivo do Reino de Galicia 2881 and 2882 Expediente do Catastro de Ensenada de Santa Eulalia de Vilacoba.

Manorial obligations (codified through '*foros*') were sustained in Frojám until 1928 when villagers extinguished feudal ties with the Viscounts of São Alberto in exchange for a monetary payment of 6049 pesetas [41]. This meant that for the first time in centuries, villagers fully owned their smallholdings and common lands, but for the latter, ownership would prove to be short-lived. In fact, traditional pastoralist practices ended abruptly in Frojám in the 1940s with the usurpation of the village's common lands by the State forest services (*Patrimonio Forestal del Estado*), a phenomenon occurring throughout Galicia at the time.

The oldest villagers, now almost in their 100s, recall how before land seizures each of the village's households (four at the time) had a flock of 30 to 60 sheep and goats—mostly sheep—that were taken up to graze year-round in the commons. In 1940, the joint flock numbers essentially match the recorded 18th century load, perhaps indicating an ecological equilibrium. Oral memory matches existing 20th century records, as in the 1905 partition deed of Pedro Cau Boullón (a descendant of Thomas Cao) that left 15 sheep (valued 60 pesetas) and 20 goats (valued 100 pesetas) to his heir, the exact same number of heads his ancestor had in 1753.

The flock was shepherded up in the mornings and brought back at night—a task usually undertaken by children and adolescents—but remained to its own avail during the day as wolves and other predators did not appear to represent a significant threat. As the joint flock of roughly 200 head would stay together, and every village house had its own earmark that served to identify ownership of individual animals in case of doubt—although sheep are said to have headed back to their respective 'homes' without guidance.

Franco's regime forcibly turned the Galician village commons into productive forest monocultures, ending this age-old agropastoral system [42]. The first pine plantations were carried out in Frojám and neighbouring commons in 1947 in spite of fierce opposition and contestation—a total 389 ha of Maritime Pine (*Pinus pinaster*) and Monterey Pine (*Pinus radiata*) were planted in the late 1940s. Heavy fines were levied to those caught taking their flock to mountain pastures now riddled with newly planted pine trees. Although forest services designated a steep and poor area in the Eastern mountain slope as '*zona de pastoreo*' ('grazing area') villagers were forced to sell their flocks lacking their indispensable land base.

Sheep and goats were the main source of meat for year-round consumption and also generated monetary revenue by periodical sales in markets, particularly to pay '*foros*' and land taxes ('*contribuição*'). Usurpation represented a severe blow for the community during the famine brought by the 1936–1939 Civil War. From the 1950s onward, each house kept no more than five sheep (vs. 30–60), in addition to six cows and oxen, a few feral horses ('*bestas*' or '*garranos*', a breed similar to the Cornish Dartmoor

Pony) and other house animals such as pigs or donkeys. Today only two of the now five commoner houses still keep sheep for self-consumption. Although cows and feral horses were taken to fields and nearby common land areas that were not planted, the almost total suppression of herbivore pressure in the old mountain pastures together with the introduction of pine monocultures and other measures such as wetland drainage represented a significant change in landscape and a disturbance of existing habitats.

In 1975 villagers initiated the process to reclaim ownership of the commons in spite of strong opposition from the municipality, and legally achieved recognition as a '*monte vizinhal em mão comum*' in 1977. State management of communal lands continued until the last ties with the administration were broken in 2002, signalling full community control and self-management. However, the landscape handed over in 2002 had little in common with the one seized by the state 60 years earlier. Pastoralism had virtually stopped with the exception of some feral horses that still roamed around and the land presented deep scars left by tin and tungsten mining, forced drainage of peatlands, introduction of pyrophyte tree species (*Eucalyptus* sp., *Acacia* sp.*,* and *Pinus* sp.), and subsequent waves of forest fires.

In spite of the daunting scenario, Frojám, with just 20 inhabitants, has become an example of how community-based projects can make a difference in restoring biocultural heritage [43–45] and even reformulating hegemonic top-down conservation projects in Western societies [46]. A management plan drafted in 2018 to restore the '*Campo de Lamas*' wetland within the enclosed area was selected as one of four pilot case studies in Spain of climate change adaptation of natural management initiatives [15]. Lack of resources to implement restoration work has been met through volunteer initiatives (such as the '*Brigadas deseucaliptizadoras*') mobilizing hundreds of individuals to remove invasive exotic tree species and restore native habitats. This has led to swift changes in the landscape moving away from the previously dominant Eucalyptus plantations to a mosaic of recovering natural habitats. Besides being among the first UN acknowledged Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas in Europe, Frojám is also within a Special Landscape Interest Site (LEIP) and has been designated as a Natural Site of Educational Interest. It is also one of the first self-declared 'No-go areas' for mining as part of the community's struggle to end environmentally degrading activities [47].

While the community sustains the return of mountain pastoralism as an aspirational goal that would see the area of the enclosure back to its ancestral use, the '*Campo de Lamas*' management plan incorporated a solution conceived by the community itself: 'natural beaconing' or 'biobeaconing'. When the first section of wall (Figure 3) was noticed in 2016 during scrub clearing works, the community decided to place a 3 metre strip at each side of the enclosure followed by a row of *Castanea sativa* that, being a relatively fast-growing species, would function as a 'barricade tape' to avoid future damage due to mechanical clearing. Chestnut trees (*Castanea sativa*) also provide cover to control undergrowth that would eventually allow the appreciation of the structure with little or no maintenance. For '*Campo de Lamas*', the management plan suggested using *Salix atrocinerea* and other hydrophilic species already present.

Natural habitats in Frojám have suffered dramatic alterations since the forced abandonment of pastoralist practices in the 1940s. The potential vegetation would be a silicicolous deciduous broad-leaved oak (*Quercus robur*) forest, with birch (*Betula alba*), alder buckthorn (*Frangula alnus*), and willow (*Salix atrocinerea*) as pre-climax stages. The vegetal formation is in the altitudinal interface of two Galician-North Portuguese oak woodland types, defined by the submontane/montane *Vaccinio-Quercetum roboris* and the lowland *Rusco-Quercetum roboris* associations [48]. However, current vegetation is composed of gorse-heath shrubland, degraded pine, and eucalyptus plantations and grassland in a few areas.

**Figure 3.** Dry stone sections of the Frojám enclosure (Photographs: Joám Evans Pim).

The whole zone has suffered repeated burns during the last decades (1975, 1993, 2000, 2006, and 2016), affecting the productivity of pine and eucalyptus forest plantations. Interestingly, the deeper soils of the enclosure have allowed faster recovery of plantations compared with the more degraded soils in surrounding areas.

*Ulex europaeus*, *Calluna vulgaris*, and *Erica cinerea* are the dominant species in the shrubland, with significant coverage of *Erica umbellata* in areas with shallower soils. This shrubland vegetation is classified in Annex I of the 92/43/CEE European Habitats Directive [20] as 'European dry heaths', habitat of community interest (code 4030). Other gorse-heath formations occur in the Frojám enclosure, yet restricted to '*Campo de Lamas*' peatland, dominated by a different gorse species, the Western gorse (*Ulex gallii*) and two hygrophilous heath species (*Erica ciliaris* and *Erica tetralix*), although *Calluna vularis* is also abundant. Two subtypes can be identified, with the Western gorse-wet heath community occupying the external parts of the wetland, and purer ericoid formations in the areas with a higher water table. This habitat is classified in Annex I of the 92/43/CEE European Habitats Directive [20] as a priority habitat under the name 'Temperate Atlantic wet heaths with *Erica ciliaris* and *Erica tetralix*' (code \*4020).

Grassland should have occupied the main part of the Frojám enclosure when pastoral practices were active, as images from the 1945–1946 American Series A Photogrammetric flight seem to suggest. As a serial formation, grasslands tend to be replaced by scrub plant communities once grazing and trampling have finished. These practices have been mostly absent in Frojám during the last 70 years, so we expect grassland to be decreasing in the area.

However, two hygrophilous grassland types are currently inside the Frojám enclosure. The most abundant is represented by wet meadows dominated by *Molinia caerulea*, accompanied by tall-growing herbs, mostly *Deschampsia flexuosa* and *Agrostis hesperica* and some rushes and sedges and smaller herbs, and *Sphagnum subsecundum*. This habitat could be included in the habitat of community interest '*Molinia* meadows on calcareous, peaty, or clayey-silt-laden soils (*Molinion caeruleae*) (code 6410)' in Annex I of the 92/43/CEE European Habitats Directive [20]. Although species-poor *Molinia* grasslands on acidic soils are generally excluded from the 6410 habitat definition of Annex I, analyses of organic carbon content in the soil of '*Campo de Lamas*' identify this wetland as a minerogenic bog with peat accumulation (Serrano et al., unpublished data).

The other community is a hygrophilous species-rich caespitose acidophilous grassland dominated by *Agrostis* species, including grasses and herbs as *Agrostis capillaris*, *Agrostis curtisii*, *Agrostis hesperica*, *Avenula sulcata*, *Potentilla erecta*, *Carum verticillatum*, *Danthonia decumbens*, *Pseudarrenatherum longifolium*, *Gentiana pneumonanthe*, *Serratula tinctorea*, *Carex binervis*, and *Galium saxatile*, with some presence of *Molinia caerulea* and *Agrostis stolonifera*, among others. This type of community has been included in

the association *Galio-Danthonietum decumbentis* [19] in the *Violion caninae* alliance of pasturelands in extremely oceanic environments in the European Atlantic Arc. Thus, the so-called '*Agrostis curtisii* grasslands' community [21] from the south-west has been considered ascribable to this alliance [19]. Despite the scarcity of *Nardus stricta* in these communities, they belong to the *Nardetea* phytosociological class and consequently have been classified under the priority habitat 'Species-rich *Nardus* grasslands on siliceous substrates' (\*6230 code) [19].

Wet heaths and *Molinia* grassland communities appear intermingled in '*Campo de Lamas*' in the areas with a higher water table, with the *Agrostis* hygrophilous grassland occupying some parts of the outer rim of the wetland. Under Frojám environmental conditions, the wet heath vegetal community should prevail in the wetland; however, it covers only 17% of the area, while *Molinia* grassland covers 70% of the area, having the peripheral *Agrostis* hygrophilous grassland the lesser extent, with 13% coverage of the wetland remnant.

#### *2.2. The Ladydown Moor Common as a Case Study in Cornwall*

Situated 9 km south-east of the north Cornwall coast at Port Isaac Bay, and 5 km south-west of the regional high point on Bodmin Moor, Ladydown Common (sometimes 'Lady Down', Figure 4) is an area of mixed heathland and 'in-bye' grassland at 233 m above sea level (30U 381192 5601778, datum WGS84). The area falls within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and comprises approximately 49 ha of common grazing land. It is listed in the national register of Common Lands—entry 124—as part of a larger grouping totalling 162 ha, of which Ladydown forms the south-western tip [49]. The immediate area features a minimum of six stone cairns; some of which appear to be clearance cairns, though at least two are likely to have been sepulchral [50,51]. There are further partially buried remains of a settlement including hut circles and associated field systems, most likely to be late Iron Age in establishment [50].

To the immediate west of the survey area is the village of St. Breward ('St. Bruwerd' in Cornish), which comprises three adjoining linear settlement zones known as Row, Churchtown, and St. Breward; each situated on the upper slope of the Camel river valley, which runs NE–SW to the west of both the village and the moorland zone. St. Breward itself is not listed in the Domesday Book, though the nearby settlements of Blisland and Hamatethy are, indicating continued settlement in the region of the moor. The 2011 national census recorded 919 residents within the parish, which also includes the Hamlet of Fentonadle, which lies around 1 km to the north-west of Churchtown, within the valley.

Granite extraction has formed the major economic activity in the area for much of the history of the settlement, with the high-quality building stone being exported nationally (including for the construction of London's Tower Bridge and Thames Embankment) [52]. More generally, the area comprised small groups of farmsteads (typically between 5 and 20 ha) of stone-enclosed mixed grazing and arable land with shared commons. The local economy also supported other extraction operations (some predating the industrial period), China Clay quarrying, and coastal fishing.

Population and settlement fluctuations within the area are linked to the operation of these extraction operations and are evidenced by the partially-buried settlement remains on and around the common, and by the patterns of enclosed 'in-bye' field systems without attendant homesteads. Earlier habitation and land use are indicated by the hut circles and megalithic monuments that are found across the area, which include the Fenacre stone circle, five standing marker stones, and a stone cross, of which only the base now remains in place [53]. Further prehistoric features have been recorded at nearby Stannon Quarry, most notably burials dating to the Bronze Age [54].

Significant demographic change took place across the region during the mid-part of the 20th century, driven by international conflict and the mechanization of agriculture and extraction operations. Farming became economically unviable on the traditional small scale and resulted in many landholdings becoming conglomerated into the larger commercial operations more recognisable today. This led to the near abandonment of unproductive or difficult to manage areas in upland zones such as Bodmin Moor, including the adjoining commons of Ladydown (Figure 4) and Emblance Down.

Whilst industrialised agriculture now envelops the area with post-medieval enclosures of sub-rectangular fields and centralized farmsteads, the isolated nature of the common and proximity to both mineral extraction zones and archaeological features have meant that full encroachment of grassland 'improvement' has been limited. Ladydown Common is therefore a representative area of the at-risk heritage of the characteristic Cornish Killas landscape zone, comprising areas of unimproved grassland and traditional vernacular stone-built livestock and land management structures [55]. It is formed of upland heath (also known as moorland) plant communities, a semi-natural habitat with long histories of seasonal land management with livestock and mixed cropping.

Bodmin Moor as a whole constitutes the most south-westerly upland zone in England and is a key component of both the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The region is included in the Cornish County Conservation Area on account of the mix of cultural and natural heritage preserved within it and is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981. Ladydown forms a component of this landscape joined to the local peak of Brownwilly Tor (Cornish: *Bronn Ewhella*) through a series of linear common land links which include the neighbouring Emblance and Treswallock Downs. The grouping falls under the joint protection of the Commons Act (2006), and the Countryside Rights of Way Act (2000) through the mechanism of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty designation. In practice this designation enables locals to access grazing areas for livestock in traditional open field management practices despite much of the land now being in private ownership, and also places land management and planning decision-making in the hands of local stakeholders (not exclusively landowners). This dual-level of protection ensures heritage, aesthetic, and habitat conservation measures are given due consideration within any application to build, demolish, or change land-use patterns.

Habitats related to the heritage land use of the Common are reliant on the continued management of landscapes, as the natural climax communities are a mix of Oak–Birch woodland and blanket bog. Within the common itself there are two distinct plant communities linked to former livestock enclosures and land management within the common. Adjacent to the modern stone-walled field enclosures there are the recognizable mix of Bent (*Agrostis capillaris*) and Rye (*Lolium perenne*) grasses, with a deep Moss thatch. Away from the recognizable grazing zone, onto the greater area of the Moor, the Grass sward includes Common Cotton (*Eriophorum augustifolium*) with a predominant coverage of Bent species (*Agrostis curtisii*, *Agrostis capillaris*), with Sheep's Fescue (*Festuca ovina*) and Purple Moor Grass (*Molina caerulea*) also present. This so-called species-rich '*Agrostis curtisii* grasslands' community [21] from south-west Great Britain has been considered ascribable to the *Violion caninae* phytosociological alliance [19] and therefore to the *Nardetea* class, what leads to its classification in the priority habitat \*6230 [56]. Herbaceous hygrophilous species of the Moor are typical of the upland moorland habitat and include *Molinia caerulea*, Tormentil (*Potentilla erecta*), and Heather (*Calluna vulgaris*), with Common Bramble (*Rubus ulmifolius*), Hawthorn (*Crataegus monogyna*), and Blackthorn (*Prunus spinosa*) at the margins, principally as plant populations on and adjacent to the dry stone walls (whose construction is UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2018, Figure 5); forming the common 'Cornish Hedge'. This formation dominated by Purple Moor Grass can be included in the *Molinia caerulea-Potentilla erecta* association [21]. This is a species-poor community that develops on acidic substrates under intensely oceanic climates, and it is not included in Annex I of the Habitat Directive, corresponding to the British National Vegetation Classification (NVC) M25 *Molinia caerulea-Pontetilla erecta* mire.

The stone enclosures of the study zone are multi-phase in construction and differ in condition and preservation today (Figure 4). The area contains a section of a mixed Cornish hedge and a dry-stone wall (Figure 5) along its north-west edge, forming the boundary to the adjoining modern field systems. This is the best-preserved feature of the area, in excess of 2 metres in height, made of alternating lodged stone in a herringbone pattern, with soil infill and a combination of grasses, moss, and herbaceous plants along its length, including Hawthorn (*Crataegus monogyna*) and Bramble (*Rubus* ssp.). Immediately adjacent to the hedge, to the south-eastern side, runs a grassed ditch almost a metre

deep in places. The lack of terminal outlets for this ditch suggests it is generated by sheltering animals moving along the boundary, and not as a drainage feature.

Within the area of the moor to the south-east of this boundary, there lies partially buried remains of enclosure wall (Figure 6), adjacent to the similarly buried remains of a former settlement [57]. In addition, approximately 200 m to the north-east of these features are the earthwork remains of a further livestock enclosure of indeterminate age. The extent and nature of these features have not been investigated through excavation, though habitual close grazing has resulted in some areas of both these features becoming exposed. The southernmost linear enclosure feature measures 1 to 1.5 m in width, but is almost entirely buried, apparent for the most part as a result of the different vegetation that grows over the feature. At no point along its length is the structure any greater than 0.5 m higher than the ground surface around it. This form is echoed in the adjacent cairns (both clearance and funerary), and the archaeological remains of the former settlement. The northernmost enclosure features are more prominent in the landscape, possibly as a result of its proximity to a modern gateway, where the collection and feeding of cattle take place at times of the year, causing increased erosion of soil around the features. The buried linear feature here is in excess of 2 m in width near to its NE terminal end and is in excess of 1 m in height for much of its length. The feature effectively merges with the landform after a length of around 20 m (running NE–W).

**Figure 4.** Orthoimage highlighting Ladydown Moor and its introduced structures. Source: ESRI World Imagery (Esri, DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, i-cubed, USDA FSA, USGS, AEX, Getmapping, Aerogrid, IGN, IGP, swisstopo, and the GIS User Community).

**Figure 5.** Dry stone sections of the Ladydown Common enclosures, in the form of a traditional Cornish Hedge. Scale 50 cm (Photograph: Richard Grove).

**Figure 6.** Partially buried stone sections of the Ladydown Common enclosures. Scale 50 cm (Photograph: Richard Grove).

#### **3. Discussion: Biocultural Heritage Manifestations and the Role of Community-Based Conservation**

Frojám and Ladydown enclosure areas share comparable environmental conditions in terms of climatic and edaphic variables. However, they represent different stages regarding the traditional pastoral activities that justified their ancient construction. While Ladydown is still open to grazing, Frojám has suffered a severe process of disturbance of the traditional biocultural environment by drainage and forestry plantations of pyrophyte tree species [15]. Thus, Ladydown has an important coverage of grassland habitats evidencing the long-term continuity of pastoral uses, with a hygrophilous species-rich *Agrostis curtissi* grassland as a predominant community, in a mosaic with *Molinia* acid grassland and other hygrophilous formations in the wettest places. The *Agrostis curtissi* grassland is a hyperoceanic community only occurring in Great Britain in Cornwall, SW England and far South Wales [25], being classified under the priority for European conservation 6320\* grassland habitat type [19].

Conversely, the absence of pastoralism would have made Frojám unsuitable for the development of grassland habitats, which should have existed in the past. Serial gorse-heath shrubland is expected to predominate under current conditions, with climatic wet heaths of *Erica ciliaris, Erica tetralix*, and *Calluna vulgaris* (4020\* Habitat directive code) in mosaic with *Sphagnum* bog in the peaty wetland. Although the grassland representation in Frojám is quite inferior in land coverage than in Ladydown, it is greater than would be expected. The *Molinia* peaty grassland (6410 Habitat directive code) and Agrostis grassland (\*6320 Habitat directive code) are still found in Frojám, albeit confined to the peaty wetland of '*Campo de Lamas*', where the former is overwhelmingly dominant.

This endurance of grassland after decades of grazing interruption can be interpreted as a marker of past traditional practises and, therefore, a manifestation of biocultural heritage [3,4]. *Molinia* grassland predominance over *Erica ciliaris* and *Erica tetralix* wet heaths on acidic/oligotrophic wet environments are interpreted as the result of historical processes, including traditional practices, which increase the soil nutrient content and promote vegetation replacement. Traditional pastoralism produces eutrophication by combining recurrent burning and grazing [58,59]. The Atlantic wet heath habitat is extremely dependant on oligotrophic conditions, and organic matter and nutrient changes in soil derived from burning result in substitution by *Molinia* grassland [60]. The concentration of grazing livestock is a driving factor for increasing soil nitrogen content, eventually leading to the predominance of *Molinia* grassland over wet heath communities [61]. Once established under conditions of increased nitrogen availability, the competitiveness of *Molinia* will be kept through efficient mechanisms of nitrogen sequestration [62] that could result in a durable vegetation shift.

In Ladydown, the wet heath community is currently absent, as would be expected under the long-term active pastoral practises. This habitat occurs in nearby areas of Bodmin Moor, although the community is impoverished since *Erica ciliaris*, an endangered species in Great Britain, shows a gap in its distribution range in the region [17]. In Frojám, the wet heath community shows some recovery, intermingled with the relatively species-poor *Molinia* grassland. Interestingly, in Frojám remnants of the hyperoceanic hygrophilous species-rich *Agrostis* grassland of the Nardetea class (habitat directive code \*6230) can still be found. This interesting vegetal community is well distributed in other areas with strong grazing pressure in the Barbança mountain range. Under hyperoceanic climate conditions, this community covers the pasture uplands that otherwise would be covered for more dry grasslands [19].

The peaty wetland associated with the Frojám enclosure has worked as an unexpected refuge for this hygrophilous community in the absence of grazing, preserving both the grassland as a biocultural heritage marker and a reservoir for species recovery. In fact, since the activities of environmental restoration initiated in Frojám, this habitat, previously confined to a rim bordering '*Campo de Lamas*' wetland, has expanded to cover the surroundings forestall trails. The reasons why the grassland community was not ousted by gorse scrub formation since the abrupt stop in the traditional practices remain unclear, although annual water level oscillations and possible herbivory from wild animals could have had some role favouring grassland habitat resilience. Remnants of habitat heterogeneity

still existing both in Ladydown and Frojám enclosures represent an opportunity for conservation in the context of reactivating common land practices.

The designation of Frojám as an ICCA has implied, besides the international recognition of such territory and their custodian people, a significant shift in the management of hegemonic protected areas in Europe. Whereas state-driven parks have often marginalised human communities traditionally living and interacting with such spaces [46], the Frojám Commons has reversed this paradigm [47,63] by internally defining restoration projects and conservation goals [6] and thus facilitating the identification and restoration of one stone-built pastoral enclosure among other elements of biocultural heritage. This change links to the idea of non-institutional governance [64] and the higher engagement of local stakeholders in restoration projects in rural areas, which often imply the long-term involvement that is required to effectively address the challenge of certain invasive exotic species (in this case, Eucalyptus and Acacia) and integral landscape restoration.

Around <sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup> of Galicia's total landmass (29,574 km2) is officially classified as Common Land that belongs to 3300 Common Land Communities (*Comunidades de Montes Vecinhais*) like Frojám. Commons vary in size from a few to several thousand hectares—the average being around 200 ha—and village commons communities being anywhere from just one or two 'open houses ('*casa aberta*')—with people living in them—to hundreds or even thousands, the average being around 40 houses. All in all, approximately 15% of the Galician population lives in commons 'open houses'. While many of these commons are still managed directly by the government that has historically prioritized forest monocultures disregarding conservation and traditional uses, a growing number of self-managed commons in Galicia are giving greater emphasis to the preservation and restoration of biocultural heritage. Five such communities have already been acknowledged as ICCAs by the UN Environmental programme (Frojám, Covelo, Teis, Vilar, and Couso) while many others would likely qualify. In all these cases, communities have implicitly or explicitly assumed a biocultural approach to conservation and have become the main actors in the preservation, restoration and protection of closely interconnected elements natural and cultural heritage (e.g., burial mounds, petroglyphs, water mills, enclosures, and trails).

In England, common land formed a central part of the collectively farmed open field tradition of the medieval period. The rise of absentee landlordism in the immediate post-medieval and reformation years saw large areas enclosed for private grazing, and then relatively few common lands survived the process of 18–19th century land reforms as typified by the parliamentary Enclosure Acts. Today registered Commons (under the 1965 Commons Act) cover approximately 3% of the landmass in England (some 4000 km2). These are often areas of high conservation value, including 40% of all existing heathland [65,66]. The same percentage applies to Cornwall that currently holds approximately 100 km<sup>2</sup> of common lands divided across almost 300 units. Most Cornish commons, however, are of relatively small size (40% are under 1 ha) with only 10 Commons larger than 200 ha [67]. As early as 1956, the Natural Conservancy stressed in a report to the Royal Commission on Common Land that commons were "wildlife sanctuaries", "reservoirs for species", "islands of semi-natural vegetation", and "disproportionately rich in examples of plant and animal communities which have largely been eliminated from surrounding localities" [68]. While the separation of formal land ownership and 'rights of common', in contrast with common land communities in Galicia, has sometimes lead to conflict, local communities continue to display "an impressive level of initiative and activity (...) in working to establish and maintain wildlife-rich green spaces in their local environment" [64]. An example of this proactive community conservation can be seen in the Cornwall AONB Peatland Restoration Project, a collaboration between local owners and interest groups with a private water supply company and government agencies, with the aim of halting the loss of biodiversity and habitat within the moor [5,8].

In spite of growing evidence of how indigenous peoples and local communities, through their knowledge and traditional management practices, play an active and effective role in ecosystem restoration, carbon sequestration, and prevention of environmental degradation [67], such groups continue to be considered mostly as passive recipients of restoration work while their cultural practices remain ignored in spite of being crucial to the preservation of biocultural heritage [69,70]. The findings presented in this article stress the leadership and engagement potential of local communities in bringing about effective conservation initiatives that bridge nature conservation, landscape planning and management, and heritage preservation on the basis of long-term biological and cultural relationships between people and their surroundings. From this point on, it is crucial that these relationships—both historical and contemporary—are studied and understood as drivers for both conservation and change.

#### **4. Conclusions**

As is shown in these case studies, there is a direct link between historic cultural activities and the establishment and survival of habitats and ecosystems within stone-built heritage structures. Several hygrophilous hyperoceanic grassland habitats, related to current grazing in Ladydown and historical grazing in Frojám, have been identified in both enclosures despite the cessation of pastoral practices in the latter for more than seven decades. Not only do these areas demonstrate the anthropogenic origins for what are often seen as natural habitats by the layperson, but the complex ecosystems within them are also the result of long histories of symbiotic human–livestock–landscape interrelationships. Their conservation relies upon the continuation of these long-established practices.

Taking the example of the Cornish type-site at Ladydown, the chronology for habitation and management extends back to the Iron Age at least, with archaeological deposits demonstrating local activity back to the Bronze Age. The immediate surroundings of Frojám are also home to numerous Neolithic burial mounds—including a tumulus in Frojám itself called '*Casa Velha*', 'old house', destroyed during open cast mining operations in the 1940s—similarly indicate continuous habitation for millennia. In both cases, as woodland and mire represent the potential natural successional climax for the zone, early activity must have taken the form of clearance, first of vegetation, then of surface stone, resulting in the creation of cairns that remain in situ today (in Frojám these cairns are called '*meroças*', akin to Portuguese '*maroiços*'). The unique orography of the enclosed areas in both sites relative to lowland farmlands, coupled with demographic, political, and economic changes in the area over time, led to the preservation of Ladydown Moor and certain parts of the Frojám Commons as outliers of historic habitats in areas of encroaching modernization related to mining, forestry, and industrial agriculture.

Whilst sharing a range of characteristics, the stone enclosures Ladydown and Frojám are divergent in some key aspects with regard to their conservation and management today. The moorland site in Cornwall presents some areas of exceptionally well-preserved stonework in the Cornish Hedge forming the western boundary of the moor, as well as a range of buried and partially-buried ruins within the moor itself. In contrast, Frojám presents a more uniformly ruinous structure, resulting from the woodland plantation and its management. Whilst these differences prevent direct comparison regarding the conservation management and use of the areas discussed here, the link between historic use and existing heritage endures in both the stone structures and their associated habitats, as evidenced by both the built and biological cultural heritage extant today. Whilst this study has sought to draw on a range of source materials to create this study, questions inevitably arise from the drawing of conclusions from incomplete datasets. In addressing these, a more comprehensive study would be advisable which would include palynological assessment of soil cores and geophysical survey. The addition of these tasks would provide a detailed chronology of the plant communities specific to the area, and potentially a record of cultural activity related to the creation and development of stone enclosures.

**Author Contributions:** First idealization, J.E.P. and P.S.; conceptualization, R.G., J.E.P., M.S., and P.S.; writing—original draft preparation, R.G. and J.E.P.; preparation of maps and images, D.C.; writing—review, R.G., J.E.P., M.S., D.C., H.V., and P.S.; editing, H.V.; supervision, P.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** Fieldwork in Frojám is being supported by Fundação Montescola and the Frojám Community Conserved Area which in turn are grateful for support received from the European Outdoor Conservation Association. In this framework, this work was partially financial supported by a research contract with Fundação Montescola, entitled: *Estudo para o restauro da zona húmida de Campo de Lamas (Frojám, Lousame)* (2018-CL065). M.S. and P.S. thank the financial support of Xunta de Galicia grants ED431B 2018/36 and ED431C 2018/32. D.C. acknowledges receipt of the PhD scholarship "Programa de axudas á etapa predoutoral" (ref. ED481A-2018/263) financed by the Xunta de Galicia.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors thank Fundação Montescola and the Frojám Community Conserved Area for their interest in the project, collaboration, and valuable assistance, and Javier Amigo (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain) for a fruitful discussion regarding habitats.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

### *Review* **Fostering Evidence-Informed Decision-Making for Protected Areas through the Alberta Parks Social Science Working Group**

**Lars K. Hallstrom <sup>1</sup> and Glen T. Hvenegaard 2,\***


**Abstract:** Since 2012, the Alberta Parks division in the Province of Alberta, Canada has been engaged in a process of building scientific, research, and evidence-informed capacity and practices across the parks system. Following a series of priority-setting workshops and agreements with the research, Parks management, and local communities, Alberta Parks has adopted a working group approach and subsequent framework, to support the research and decision-making goals of parks and protected areas management, and the research communities. This Social Science Framework is an innovative way to support evidence-informed decision-making in the public sphere by explicitly linking dataspecific needs (benchmark data in social, natural, and applied sciences) with both established and emerging policy and research priorities. It is also a way to situate those needs within a broader goal of inter-organizational collaboration. This paper presents the background and developmental context to the framework, and its structure and desired functionality. The paper concludes with an assessment of the anticipated benefits and potential liabilities of this direction for linking academic and policy agents and organizations in a more formalized structure for environmental policy.

**Keywords:** decision-making; evidence-informed policy; social science; protected areas; Alberta Parks; research

#### **1. Introduction**

Aichi Biodiversity Target 19 [1] calls for states to improve, share, transfer, and apply knowledge, science, and technologies to provide more and better information to support decision-making. In the realm of parks, such evidence-informed decision-making can help to improve areas such as management effectiveness, planning, and visitor experiences [2]. Commonly understood as grounded in scientifically valid and reliable research, evidence for decision-making includes not just the use of data, but also aggregation, synthesis, assessment, and analyses of those data (and their individual or collective analyses) to identify potential solutions to a broader question of "What should be done" and the complementary "How should it be done?" The choice of when, how, and how much to access evidence in management decisions is, therefore, influenced by individual judgments, an organization's culture, and an organization's rules, structures, and procedures [2,3]. Our study focuses on one agency, Alberta Parks (the provincial agency responsible for parks), to explore a process and framework developed to promote evidence-informed decision-making focused upon socially-based, and derived problems, and thus calling upon knowledge and evidence from the social sciences. For the purposes of this paper, we differentiate natural science (primarily concerned with natural events in the natural world) from social science (concerned with people and their behaviors, impacts, attitudes, and uses of parks and protected areas [4]).

Recently, Alberta Parks sought to enhance community engagement, scientific collaboration, and longer-term mechanisms to build upon its existing Plan for Parks and Alberta Parks Science Strategy (see below). Similarly, the results of an earlier prioritization

**Citation:** Hallstrom, L.K.; Hvenegaard, G.T. Fostering Evidence-Informed Decision-Making for Protected Areas through the Alberta Parks Social Science Working Group. *Land* **2021**, *10*, 224. https:// doi.org/10.3390/land10020224

Academic Editor: Andrew Millington

Received: 25 September 2020 Accepted: 20 February 2021 Published: 23 February 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

process [5] illustrated that while the visitor experience is indeed important to Alberta Parks, visitor-based methodologies required a complement to support a response to the range of questions identified. These goals were countered by concerns about the scientific literacy and interest of the provincial public and elected officials, the viability of evidence-informed policy-making at different levels of the bureaucracy, and the low availability of data and or synthesis work to inform decision-making. This tension demonstrated the need to develop and validate a multi-faceted and multi-functional structure, and process, to support evidence-informed decision-making [6] within the Province. In 2016, a framework was developed for Alberta Parks to facilitate the generation of knowledge through collaborative and applied research (in the natural, social, or health sciences), and to identify mechanisms that support and facilitate the translation, synthesis, and exchange of knowledge between scientific and decision-making communities.

Principles of evidence-informed practice and decision-making originated in the sphere of public health [6–11] beginning in the early 2000s. Discussions of evidence-informed decision-making have also occurred in the spheres of social services [12,13] and education [14,15]. In general terms, evidence-informed practices and decisions hinge upon the intention to "make well-informed decisions about policies, programs, and projects by putting the best available evidence from research at the heart of policy development and implementation. This approach stands in contrast to opinion-based policy-making, which relies heavily on either the selective use of evidence (for example, on single studies irrespective of quality) or on the untested views of individuals or groups, often inspired by ideological standpoints, prejudices, or speculative conjecture" (p. 3 in [16]). Evidenceinformed perspectives are not grounded upon simply the provision or use of data—rather, they are focused upon the use of data, knowledge synthesis methodologies, experiential expertise, and the inclusion of contextual factors to determine solutions to specific issues or problems. However, evidence-informed decision-making models are often more difficult to conceptualize in the fields of social and applied sciences due to the context-dependent nature of social science data. Nonetheless, the use of evidence decision-making is critical in a variety of social and applied sciences, including protected area management, the focus of this study [1,17,18].

This paper presents the framework as an innovative synthesis of models in a way that resonates with the provincial context and shifting mandate for Alberta Parks. The ensuing discussion of the structure and functionality of this framework makes the following contributions: (1) it resulted from a formal collaboration between academic and management practitioners with a specific eye to research, knowledge mobilization of that research, and decision-support for Parks management; (2) it expands the stakeholder base for such work from park visitation to a broader context of both potential participants and audiences for evidence-informed decisions; (3) it was developed in response to not only academic and management needs, but a participatory and validated research and policy prioritization process; (4) it presents a relatively generic template that is (by definition) both adaptive and responsive to local/regionalized and stakeholder contexts; and (5) it seeks to counter common assumptions about the uptake of evidence [19] by the scientific community. To do so, we position the functionality of the framework within a 'policy design' approach [20], as well as an examination of some of the limitations and challenges faced in adoption and implementation. Our broader goal is to facilitate the use of evidence in Parks and similar management environment, provide insights for other park agencies across the country and around the world to enhance their evidence-informed decision-making efforts, and to support Aichi Biodiversity Target 19 that emphasizes improvements in knowledge and science to support biodiversity [2].

#### **2. Alberta Parks—Linking Parks, Research, and Decisions**

*2.1. Creating a Framework for Knowledge Mobilization in Social Science*

Many models and frameworks have outlined procedures for evidence-informed decision-making, including Impact Assessments [6], the ROAMEF model (Rationale, objectives, appraisal, monitoring, evaluation, feedback) [6], Evidence-informed Medicine [10], Realist Synthesis [21], and the Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice Model [15]. Other models explicitly incorporate the unique social context of an area into management actions and decisions. However, the models describing the processes of evidence-informed policy-making commonly fail to address how individuals and organizations generate evidence and conduct research that connects to policy actors. Evidence-informed practice and decisions (which call upon, but are not synonymous with research, nor "just" data—see Carnwell [22]) and research often remain separate from policy generation and governance (see for example [1,23–25]). The literature also fails to illustrate a methodology for how interactions between key stakeholders would be structured or the roles and responsibilities that each actor would hold (methods such as appreciative inquiry or participatory policy analysis tend to be more evaluative or research-oriented, rather than being focused upon supporting decision-making). There is, therefore, both academic and practical demand for increased engagement between decision-makers, practitioners, and researchers [26], particularly for knowledge transfer and capacity-building [6]. The Social Science Framework presented here is intended to fill this gap by explicitly linking researchers and decision-makers throughout the entire process of prioritization, research, knowledge transfer, and networking.

The two key models for the framework are derived from public health and health promotion: (1) the PRECEDE-PROCEED Model, first presented by Green and Kreuter in the 1970s with the most recent edition presented in 2005 [27]; and (2) the AMESH Model (Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health), presented by Waltner-Toews [28]. While neither model was designed to support the specific challenges identified by Alberta Parks, the synthesis of different elements derived from: (a) the identification of both evidence-informed diagnostics (current state) phase as well as both proximal and distal factors influencing successful implementation; and (b) hypothesis-testing embedded in complex social, ecological, and economic systems, leads to a combination of structure and process well-suited to the Parks' context.

The PRECEDE-PROCEED framework was first designed and applied in health promotion in the 1970s to provide a structure for applying theories and concepts in a systematic way to plan and evaluate programs [29,30]. The initial stages of the model are designed to develop a deeper understanding of a community and to better design interventions that strategically and accurately address needs. AMESH is a more recent decision-making model (brought forward in the early 2000s) and focuses on a broader, more ecosystembased form of health that integrates the well-being of people, plants, animals, and the physical integrity of the earth. Historically, the model has been applied to sustainable development and ecosystem management [31] (pp. 317–349) and has been tested in Nepal, Kenya, Canada, and Peru [32]. AMESH acknowledges the high levels of complexity within social systems and seeks to use narratives and other social science-based information as evidence that can inform leaders and policy-makers.

Given some of the challenges for Parks noted above (reluctance to incorporate or draw upon evidence, regional differentiation, changing provincial research priorities, lack of institutional research capacity, and tenuous linkages/funding with the research community), the Parks framework is driven by an explicit demand for research AND knowledge synthesis, translation, and exchange, as well as a need to incorporate multiple stakeholders (including those outside the research process) within the broader function of the model.

The decision-making model for Alberta Parks incorporates the following aspects of the PRECEDE-PROCEED model:


The model also incorporates the following aspects of the AMESH model:


#### *2.2. The Alberta Parks Social Science Framework*

The final framework (Figure 1) combines both models into an integrated and iterative system of decision-making and story-sharing to enhance both research and knowledge mobilization. The model allows managers and planners of Alberta Parks to incorporate both the rigor of the scientific method with the local and contextual creativity of stories and dialogue into their management decisions. Elements derived from PRECEDE-PROCEED provide a strong focus on data, evidence, and measurable goals. In addition, AMESH focuses on the importance of social factors within a system and allows for local citizens, park visitors, and park staff to share their own evidence through stories and narratives. This framework, therefore, provides a structured method for connecting academics, government officials, and community members at every stage of park management. The principles of integration, diverse perspectives, accountability, and adaptive management are explicitly articulated to maintain a strong culture of respect for the scientific process, and as part of a strong sense of community and shared narratives. Research, knowledge synthesis, translation, exchange, and networking are brought together as concurrent and necessary steps for capacity-building and development of best practices and policy. By clearly linking the scientific process with decision-makers and stakeholder groups, the Social Science Framework offers a unique and innovative methodology for supporting evidence-informed decision-making in the public sector.

As can be seen in Figure 1, the synthesis of these two models and processes is broadly consistent with the policy process but more nuanced and linear in function. This framework takes a systems-oriented approach to link research to both the local community and population context, as well as the systemic structures. Specifically, the identification of pre-disposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors (that shape not only the definition and scale of issue identification but also the likelihood of successful interventions) is a key addition to supporting parks' management with evidence and engagement—a key element is an emphasis on the active participation of local stakeholders at different points of both research and knowledge mobilization. In fact, the conception of this framework as a participatory and iterative series of interactions between researchers, decision-makers, and stakeholders is also a key element. While exogenous factors may trigger priorities, the inclusion of an a priori prioritization process means that a range of stakeholders (parks' staff, researchers, and community members) are invited to identify their own priorities, problems, goals, and solutions—such stakeholders are not merely consulted, but actively invited into the process. At the same time, it is important to note that this is not necessarily a community-focused or participatory action research process (although it can be)—the framework is intended to link and support research, engagement, and implementation, but with a particular emphasis upon parks' management. Steps 1–3 of this process, therefore, hinge upon building dialogue from issue or research priority, to local and contextual understanding, to systems-based qualitative and quantitative assessments and interpretations of those issues. This process, given the importance of social and integrative questions for parks' management, helps create shared foundations for solutions, decisions, and implementation.

**Figure 1.** An adaptive framework for evidence-informed parks management and policy.

Having established the contextual and systemic narratives that surround the issue in question, the secondary phase of this framework is oriented toward linking evidence with stakeholder vision, future scenarios, planning, and design. This combination of collaboration, negotiation, design, and evidence "flow" is an important response to the common "uptake" challenge for evidence. As Lawton [19] noted, just because evidence exists does not mean it gains usage or traction in decision-making. As a result, Steps 3–6 are not only based on the foundation of dialogue and interaction but are particularly oriented to acknowledging evidence, setting that evidence within the local or place-based context of the issue. As part of moving from the current state (diagnostic), causal, and contextual factors, the latter stages of this framework recognize that complex eco-social systems are understood best when diverse and different perspectives are brought together. The methodology, therefore, makes explicit the participation of local people and the use of 'nonexperts' to shape a community's understanding of their ecosystem. Drawing explicitly from AMESH, the key elements in this process include:


As might be expected, the conclusion of this process (steps 7–8) is, in fact, not an ending. Instead, the assumption is that the combination of engagement, monitoring, indicators, and co-design leads to an on-going process of issue identification, clarification, systems analyses, and adaptation across and within multiple pillars of action (environment, social, economic, cultural, and governance). Not only is this process consistent with the realities of adaptive management and dynamics of change within both ecological and social systems, but it also has the potential to address, or mitigate, a common response from community members and organizations. Rather than situating stakeholders as a source from which solutions or input can be "extracted" or as a subject of study, this process situates engagement, action, and evidence as three pillars of an on-going and long-term framework.

#### *2.3. The Alberta Parks Social Science Working Group*

The call for socially-oriented research and the principles outlined in the Plan for Parks [34] and the Science Strategy [35], sparked the creation of the Alberta Parks Social Science Working Group (SSWG). This group consists of representatives from multiple post-secondary institutions across the province alongside park managers, Alberta Parks executives, and other members of the broader ministry of Environment and Parks. The purpose of the SSWG is to increase the capacity for social science research within Alberta Parks for the benefit of park management. Such groups are not uncommon (e.g., the Conservation Biology Social Science Working Group is one international example), but a scan of comparable efforts conducted in 2014 identified a tendency toward either natural science frameworks (e.g., Ontario, the USA, and Greece) or "integrated" scientific frameworks (such as those identified at the local and provincial levels in Canada, and local, regional and state-level frameworks in the USA, Australia, and South Africa). Socio-cultural aspects can be brought into these conversations but are rarely the sole focus of an initiative [36].

In addition to these frameworks, significant attention has been placed (particularly in the USA) on developing frameworks to measure and manage the scope and impact of the visitor experience [37]. Presented by Manning [38], the Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) framework is a 9-step process intended to link public engagement, resource use, and key assets within management zones, and identifying quality indicators and standards in order to generate long-term monitoring, as well as management strategies. This approach draws from, and aligns with, the Limits to Acceptable Change framework (as used in New Zealand [39] and the USA [40]), as well as frameworks and methods (e.g., Visitor Impact Management (VIM) and Visitor Activities Management Process (VAMP)) created

to inform management, identify recreation and tourism opportunities, and assess the effects of (typically increasing) human use in order to reach desired outcomes [41].

Based on the need to incorporate existing social science research in the decisionmaking process, the need for *new* social science research, and the need to operationalize social science processes and initiatives, the SSWG was the collaborative venue tasked with providing a clear structure for integrating science-based evidence with Park management. Specifically, the projected outcomes of the Social Science Framework incorporate objectives identified by the working group and derived from the Alberta Parks Science Strategy, and the Alberta Plan for Parks. The full list of outcomes includes:


#### **3. From Recreation to Evidence and Community Informed Management**

#### *3.1. Historical Overview*

Alberta's first provincial park legislation—the *Provincial Parks and Protected Areas Act* was enacted in 1930 [42], resulting in Alberta's first provincial park at Aspen Beach in 1932. The original purpose of provincial parks was to provide small recreation sites for Albertans to swim, picnic, and relax. In the subsequent years, the purposes of parks have evolved, reflecting not only public and collective values, but also new perspectives on recreation, tourism, conservation, and the natural world. The Alberta Provincial Parks system is now comprised of a network of protected areas distributed across the province, each with varying levels of visitor facilities and park programming managed by Alberta Parks staff. Alberta now manages 473 provincial parks and other protected areas [43], covering 27,666 km2 [44]. Provincial legislation and regulations provide varying classifications for each park and also provide direction for management of the areas, *including* preserving critical wildlife habitat, recognizing wilderness areas (most strictly protected areas; no development permitted) and natural areas (preserve sites of local significance; allow lowimpact recreation) [45].

#### *3.2. Parks and Protected Areas: Planning Documents*

Released in 2009, Alberta's *Plan for Parks* outlined a 10-year strategic plan to "ensure Alberta's parks and recreation areas remain protected yet accessible to Alberta's growing population" [34] (p. iii). The plan recognizes the increasing tension between a growing population with its resulting demands for accessibility and the need to manage our parks for environmental conservation. To address both needs effectively, the plan outlines priority actions and strategies to enable these actions. To achieve the desired outcomes of peoplefriendly communities, healthy ecosystems, and sustainable prosperity, the plan promoted "knowledge-based decision-making - Decision-making is informed by natural and social science, evidence and experience, which includes traditional knowledge of Aboriginal peoples." [34] (p. 4). Recognizing the importance of evidence in decision-making, the *Plan for Parks* provided a foundation for other initiatives, including the Science Strategy, the development of research priorities, and the nascent Social Science Framework.

The 2010 *Alberta Parks Science Strategy* was born from the Plan for Parks as a key action to fostering evidence-informed decision-making [35]. The Science Strategy's outcomes include increasing scientific information about parks and their visitors, increasing capacity to make informed management decisions, and creating a culture of respect for the value of science in park management. As Lemieux et al. [1] note, the potential benefits of evidenceinformed approaches are not maximized in Canadian protected areas management, even though managers may value and incorporate different forms of evidence in their decisionmaking, information produced by staff, and from within their organizations are given priority. Other forms of evidence, such as Indigenous knowledge and peer-reviewed information, are valued and used less and can reflect a disconnect between managers and the research community.

In order to create a successful platform for incorporating science into park planning, the Strategy outlines specific objectives, including: (1) improving communication with the research community, (2) improving dissemination of information, (3) establishing partnerships, (4) establishing research centers, (5) involving staff in science, and (6) ensuring support for science. In response to the objectives of the Science Strategy—specifically objectives (1) and (3)—the Province and the University of Alberta, Augustana Faculty signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2009 that promoted shared objectives while maximizing the value and effectiveness of each organization. Ultimately, these objectives formed the core of the framework's intended functionality but were operationalized by the results of a province-wide research and policy prioritization process.

#### *3.3. Research Priorities*

One priority action identified in the Science Strategy was to set research priorities for Alberta's provincial parks. Research priority-setting processes have been in use at the international, national, and regional levels [46] to link researchers, the public, managers, and policy-makers in a variety of settings. Some research priority processes are based on assessments by individuals (e.g., Eagles) [47], but our study used a community-ofpractice-based process originating with Sutherland et al. [48–50], and later adapted by Rudd [51,52], Fleischman et al. [53], and Hallstrom et al. [5]. Such work can have both instrumental effects (by directly influencing policy objectives, language, or even policy tools), but also conceptual effects by gradually "infiltrating" public policy and shifting the values, audiences, and contexts that inform policy design [20,52].

The research priority-setting process for Alberta Parks occurred in 2012 and 2013, with the results first disseminated within the agency, and then published in the *Journal of Park and Recreation Administration* (for full details regarding project methodology and results, please see Volume 37, No. 3 [5]). After reviewing the list of top 20 research questions for both regional and provincial parks management, some themes emerged [5]. First, the questions emphasized the struggle between maintaining a balance between conservation and recreation in a province pushing economic growth. Second, 56% of the priority research questions were grounded in the social sciences. The need for social science is supported by recent reviews of research priorities for other park and resource management systems [47,54,55]. These two observations highlighted the need to incorporate both existing and new social science research into park management, and to extend the scope of research for parks management beyond conservation biology to include a broader range of issues that extended across all five pillars of sustainability. Specifically, the prioritized research themes for Alberta Parks include understanding demographic and social changes; visitor experience expectations; benefits of parks and protected areas in the eyes of the populace; understanding the contribution of parks to well-being; how to effectively collaborate (particularly rural and Indigenous partners); and expectations around Parks' role in conservation and recreation.

#### **4. The Alberta Parks Social Science Framework as an Exercise of Policy Design**

Although the framework was the result of a collective process of response (to research and decision-support needs), engagement, and deliberation, it is possible to analyze the emergence of the framework as a result of a design-oriented process. More specifically, using the concept of 'policy design' [6], it is possible to articulate the higher-level factors that shape good design (audience, values, and context). Doing so offers insight into the guiding and driving forces that influence how policy, politics, and practice may intersect (see [5,46]).

#### *4.1. Audience—The Organizational Dimensions*

Several actors are involved in the process of the framework (Figure 2). Working groups operate closest to management actions by identifying knowledge gaps, coordinating research activities, and connecting on-the-ground researchers and decision-makers. A Research Group—comprised of representatives of working groups and chaired by an Alberta Parks Science Coordinator—works on a broader scale to develop research questions, allocate funding, operationalize research priorities, and initiate and support processes of research, knowledge transfer, and networking. Still broader yet, a Research Advisory Group consisting of the Science-Coordinators, Alberta Parks executives, and high-level members of academic institutions provides broad level strategies and linkages on a provincial scale. Various working groups provide focused research efforts on specific topic areas in natural science, social science, and health science.

**Figure 2.** The organizational dimensions and process of the Social Science Framework.

All of these actors engage in a process of KSTE and Networking. Research allows data to be gathered, then KSTE transforms data into useable information and translates it into relevant messages for each stakeholder. Finally, networking allows stakeholders to engage in dialogue and pursue solutions alongside one another. These processes are not a linear progression of steps; rather, social science initiatives may include any combination of research, KSTE, and networking activities. It is crucial for individuals and organizations from all three groups of stakeholders (government, communities, and academia) to engage in these activities, as they embody the principle of partnership and diversity outlined in the framework's conditions for success.

Through the activities of research, KSTE, and networking, social science knowledge and information will increase. This evidence can then be incorporated into management decisions, help create adaptive policies and plans, and support the implementation of onthe-ground best management practices. Once they have been implemented and/or enacted, policies, practices, and management actions become inputs that inform the direction of future initiatives.

#### *4.2. Values—The Conditions for Success*

In order for any of the outcomes listed above to be realized, several conditions must first be in place. These conditions include structural aspects of governance within Alberta Parks as well as relational conditions between stakeholders.


Like many governmental initiatives, such frameworks do not stand alone. In this case, the Parks' framework is complemented by three other relevant frameworks: The Land Use Framework (2008), the Tourism Framework (2013-20), and the Alberta Research and Innovation Platform (2012). As a result, beyond the higher-order values noted above, Alberta Parks and this framework are also embedded in a series of policy and political values identified for land use more generally, including striving for a balance between local investment, economic development, and sustainability of ecological and social assets. The Parks' framework, therefore, provides evidence and engagement across all 3 initiatives, while also speaking explicitly to three Land Use Framework outcomes of:


#### *4.3. Context—Balancing Evidence with Demand in Alberta Parks*

While fields such as medicine, public health, engineering, and planning consistently look to emergent, better, and best practices to inform the decisions, actions, and evaluations conducted as part of their practices, the context for Alberta Parks presents some challenges. In particular, as this framework is intended to reach out to regional offices and supports more centralized provincial decisions, it entails organizational, practitioner, and cultural change at both levels. Particularly in the regional offices, one challenge is the broader limitation of scientific literacy within Parks staff. In many cases, the staff has moved up through the ranks from a time when only a high school diploma was required. While they may have extensive experience in Parks management, conservation, or interpretation, they may not have been organizationally or educationally conditioned to factor research, knowledge synthesis, or the work (applied or theoretical) of the research community to their jobs. This is particularly pronounced within the common characterization of regional parks management, which is a balance between annual cycles and crisis management. This complication presents a common set of challenges for the inclusion of evidence in decision-making. Such challenges include effectively connecting researchers with those in positions of authority, and addressing the common (mis)perception by policy-makers that social science is less rigorous, reliable, or valid than the natural or health sciences.

As Carnwell [22] and others [1,56–58] point out, there is a complex array of barriers to the use of evidence, with most literature pointing to organizational and political barriers as more prevalent, versus issues of personal capacity or ability. In essence, and as Lemieux [1] and Cvitanovic [57] emphasize, organizational and institutional norms of practice, poor alignment between research questions (and methods) and the needs of decision-making, and cultural factors (such as inter-departmental or inter-organizational difference) can be significant.

A similar challenge exists in the perceptions that decision-makers (in Parks and in other jurisdictions—see for example [59]) have regarding research and its desired role in public management, decision-making, and policy-making. As noted above, there is no clear distinction drawn (conceptually or in practice) between social science, applied research, and business analysis, but there is also a broader sense of uncertainty about the implications and obligations of evidence-informed decision-making. Specifically, some participants have noted that decisions need to take place even if there is no evidence and (as was not uncommon under previous governments both nationally and provincially) even if the evidence contradicts the policy (see for example [60–62]).

#### **5. Conclusions**

Along with increasing public pressure to provide parks as purely recreational spaces, Alberta Parks has also seen significant environmental events such as flooding, droughts, fires, and similar naturally occurring events that are exacerbated or even accelerated by human actions. As a result, there is a broader realization and growing openness to linking park management to research, data, and evaluation. At the same time, there is also a realization that, to date, there has been no structure or mechanism beyond personal connections to develop those relationships in practice.

There are significant benefits and opportunities presented by the implementation of the Social Science Framework for government bodies such as Alberta Parks. Specifically, this initiative not only operationalizes earlier and higher-level planning and strategic directions for Alberta Parks, but procedurally it provides an opportunity to link natural and social sciences with both community and management perspectives. The combination of models and processes is intended to foster evidence-informed decision-making and to embed the realities, meanings, and applications of that evidence into local and place-based contexts. Doing so provides regional or eco-systemic variability and is functionally a step toward adaptive decision-making. That form of decision-making is intended to balance the rigor and validity of scientifically derived knowledge within local and regional narratives, experiences, and priorities. Making these links should in turn balance the objectivity of data with the variation of the local and lived experience.

At the same time, there are also exogenous factors that influence the successful implementation of the framework. Political factors (including the reorganization of ministries, changing political, fiscal, and electoral priorities, re-assignments of both ministerial and

operational staff) can have profound (and typically negative) impacts upon uptake. In this case, having both a historical record of collaboration and a process that supported the initiation and creation of the working group and framework were critical conditions that facilitated the role of champions within Alberta Parks at both central and regional levels. This combination also facilitated a clear sense of direction and alignment from earlier planning documents, through to establishing research and knowledge mobilization priorities, to the adoption of the framework itself.

While such champions were clearly major factors in the development of the framework, their presence is also a vulnerability. Personal events, illness, job changes, and shifting leadership can all directly affect the ability of any such champion to advocate for, or use, a framework such as this. Implementing such processes may appear counterintuitive or inefficient to new leadership, and when combined with some of the cultural and organizational dynamics noted above, may result in the decision to proceed as usual (without evidence or collaboration) in order to accelerate the decision-making process.

Similarly, the reality of this (and any policy-making process) is that evidence cannot be the sole input. Beyond the details of the Alberta Parks case, it has long been established that there are significant political dimensions to public policy, and park management is no different. In addition to broader issues of public opinion, attitudes, and behaviors, both party-specific and bureaucratic rationalities also influence uptake, alternatives, and implementation [63,64]. This creates an additional challenge, but also a benefit, for the framework. As Marleau and Girling [18] note, such a process is very much intended and was designed to not only keep science "at the table" but to spark and support cultural shifts toward evidence-informed management and decision-making. However, in the absence of formal institutionalization and adoption, keeping science more generally, but particularly social science, within Parks, decision-making will continue to be faced with political, experiential, and attitudinal barriers.

In conclusion, while the development of the working group and framework are important steps forward for evidence-informed decision-making and collaborative research within Alberta Parks, the real test remains in the implementation and funding of the process. While other provinces in Canada have identified the need for comparable frameworks and approaches, the work undertaken in Alberta is (thus far) largely unique in parks management in Canada, and particularly as a result of its emphasis (and inclusion) of social and applied sciences. As a result, being able to engage not only in a prioritization exercise that demonstrated the validity and importance of social science research to park managers was critical, but so too (we expect) was the capacity to engage a broad spectrum of park staff, administration, and research staff from post-secondary institutions in the formulation and review of the framework. Furthermore, being able to draw from multi- and even transdisciplinary work such as PRECEDE-PROCEED and AMESH were also critical attributes for this project—an earlier scan for comparable initiatives in Canada showed an emphasis upon research or KSTE, but limited evidence of structures or approaches that had any potential to link the two. In the same vein, this framework may provide a set of unanticipated (yet positive) consequences, largely through the potential to engage and collaborate with community-based stakeholders. Given the increasing public and political interest in citizen science, as well as a series of already established relationships with stakeholders, such as conservation and recreational non-governmental organizations, a significant opportunity may lie in the development of scientific capacity and engagement across both parks and stakeholder groups, not only as inputs into research or policy, but also as active participants in both science and parks management and policy (through implementation, enforcement, public engagement, pilot studies, and assessment).

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, L.K.H.; Methodology, L.K.H. and G.T.H.; Formal analysis, L.K.H. and G.T.H.; Investigation, L.K.H. and G.T.H.; Writing-original draft preparation, L.K.H. and G.T.H.; Writing-review and editing, L.K.H. and G.T.H.; Supervision, L.K.H.; Project administration, L.K.H.; Funding acquisition, L.K.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was supported by Alberta Parks.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** We are grateful for the engagement and support of Alberta Parks' staff, along with the administration, leadership, and the faculty members at the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, and Mount Royal University. We thank E. Specht and D. Patriquin for valuable research assistance and K. Corrigan and C. Cook for editing. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association (Las Vegas, NV, USA, 23–26 March).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study, the collection, analyses, interpretation of data, the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

#### **References**


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