**5. Conclusions**

#### *5.1. Divergences Between Policy and Practice*

As seen in many cases in our discussion, good policies do not always translate into good practice or perceptions of those practices on the ground. For example, although there are established guidelines and procedures on the Revenue Sharing Program and Resource Access Program by the UWA, many community members do not believe the processes carried out in the field are transparent, including how they are communicated to community representatives. A process investigating perceptions of policy implementation can reveal weaknesses and strengths and, possibly help improve the governance of these processes and the conservation landscapes themselves.

#### *5.2. The Value of Capturing Perceptions for Decision-Making and Adaptive Management*

Understanding people's perceptions is a significant contribution to inform and improve managemen<sup>t</sup> decisions as it provides insights into perspectives, attitudes, and values of the communities, and more knowledge about the context helps to address more needs and concerns. It is also an opportunity to resolve conflicts and a way to improve how communities are included by facilitating dialogue between di fferent stakeholders in the landscape and by enhancing the relationship and strengthening partnerships between communities and managemen<sup>t</sup> institutions.

Conflicts over resources in landscapes are commonly exacerbated by ignorance or misunderstanding of the perspectives and motivations of other stakeholders. Therefore, the SenseMaker ® approach is a valuable addition allowing voices from the field to spark multi-stakeholder discussions on key elements of programmatic interventions, leading, in theory, to shared analyses that feed joint action plans that engage all stakeholders. Furthermore, the approach enabled people to self-signify the importance and meaning of their stories, and so enable a deeper analysis of the emerging perceptions.

#### *5.3. The Communities Feedback Process and Why It Matters for Improving Protected Area Landscape Governance*

Participatory feedback and sense-making workshops with stakeholders facilitate collaborative analysis and stimulate debate among landscape stakeholders towards actionable insights. Additional perspectives expand options and enhance the value of the ultimate decisions. The more views gathered in the process of making a decision, the more likely the final product will meet the most needs and address the most concerns possible. Public involvement brings more information to the decision, including knowledge about the context where decisions are implemented, and historical and cultural issues.

For the governmental representatives, it enabled communication, through visual aids, such as those presented in this article of stakeholder perceptions, and gave access to many perceptions which had not been heard or documented prior.

The information generated and interpreted by the stakeholders themselves touches upon di fferent aspects of stakeholder inclusion in PA managemen<sup>t</sup> in the landscape. Most importantly, participatory analysis and feedback sessions of perceptions lead to the strengthening of partnerships between local communities and PA managemen<sup>t</sup> institutions. In these processes, community members have an opportunity to put forward proposals from which long-term engagemen<sup>t</sup> strategies of all parties can be built on, so as to overcome hurdles in e ffective partnerships and in e fficient PA management, and to build trust.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualisation, J.O., G.W., J.C.; methodology, J.C., G.W., J.O., F.R., E.A.; validation, J.O.; formal analysis, J.O., G.W., C.S., J.C., C.K., F.R., S.C.; G.E. investigation, J.O., C.S., E.A., G.E., C.D.L., G.K.; data curation, G.W., S.C., F.R.; writing—original draft preparation, G.W., M.C.; writing—review and editing, J.O., G.W., G.E., C.S., E.A., J.C., C.K., F.R., S.C., M.C., and B.N.B.; visualisation, S.C., and M.C.; supervision, J.O. and G.W.; project administration, J.O., C.K., G.W.; funding acquisition, IUCN. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the project entitled "Stabilising Land Use: Protected Areas Categories V and VI as Landscape Mechanisms for Enhancing Biodiversity in Agricultural Land, Ecological Connectivity and REDD+ Implementation" funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).

**Acknowledgments:** The authors are grateful to the enumerators, field support sta ff, and translators for their crucial role piloting and adapting the instrument, implementing the questionnaire, and collecting and translating the data, in particular the students who worked under E. Andama and the extension workers and district local governmen<sup>t</sup> sta ff of Lamwo, Namisindwa and Bududa as well as the field sta ff of NFA and UWA, and Ste ff Deprez and Claudia Van Gool who consulted on the data collection process. We are grateful to the community members who participated in the process. The authors would also like to give special thanks to Jules K. Yim from Cognitive-Edge for her guidance in using SenseMaker ® and to the three anonymous reviewers of this paper.

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