**Toward Sustainability of South African Small-Scale Fisheries Leveraging ICT Transformation Pathways**

#### **Tsele T. Nthane 1,\* , Fred Saunders <sup>2</sup> , Gloria L. Gallardo Fernández <sup>2</sup> and Serge Raemaekers 1,3**


Received: 14 October 2019; Accepted: 7 January 2020; Published: 20 January 2020

**Abstract:** Though Internet and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been employed in small-scale fisheries (SSFs) globally, they are seldom systematically explored for the ways in which they facilitate equality, democracy and sustainability. Our study explored how ICTs in South African small-scale fisheries are leveraged towards value chain upgrading, collective action and institutional sustainability—key issues that influence small-scale fishery contributions to marine resource sustainability. We held a participatory workshop as part of ongoing research in the town of Lambert's Bay, South Africa, in collaboration with small-scale fishers and the Abalobi ICT project. We mapped fisher value chain challenges and explored the role of ICT-driven transformation pathways, adopting Wright's 'Real Utopian' framework as the lens through which to explore equality, democracy and institutional sustainability. We found Abalobi's ICT platform had the potential to facilitate deeper meanings of democracy that incorporate socio-economic reform, collective action and institutional sustainability in South Africa's small-scale fisheries. Where fishers are not engaged beyond passive generators of data, this had the potential to undermine the goals of increasing power parity between small-scale fisheries and other stakeholders.

**Keywords:** small-scale fisheries; sustainability; ICT4F; South Africa; value chains; Real Utopias; technology; co-design

#### **1. Introduction**

Small-scale fisheries are essential to the livelihoods of rural coastal communities by providing both food security and employment [1,2]. Yet, South African small-scale fisheries remain marginalized with the state chronically under-resourced and unable to adequately cater to their needs. Key reasons are that fishers commonly target low value species [3,4], fisher landing sites are remote and spread across multiple actors [5] making them difficult to manage, and South African fisheries is saddled with the legacies of Apartheid in which traditional fishers remain socio-economically marginalized [6–8].

Beyond employment and food security, small-scale fishing activities are deeply interwoven with local cultural practices and traditions [9], where retention of subsistence catch is commonly used in non-profit exchanges for help with landing tasks or shared amongst friends and family members [10]. Fishing practices have historically played a crucial role in the economic and socio-cultural development of rural coastal communities, thus raising important questions of the consequences when these practices are altered through private rights regimes, external actors and marine resource depletion [11]. Small-scale practices have been shown to exhibit traits antithetical to behavioral assumptions of self-interested actors, with actors willing to change the distribution of material outcomes at personal

cost and displaying concern for fairness and reciprocity [12]. For the fishers of Lambert's Bay, South Africa, fishing practices around 'Snoek' (*Thyrites atun*) and other linefish species have shaped the community's livelihood and cultural practices over centuries [13], which thus bear importance on collective action possibilities and the design of interventions [12].

Research has commonly focused on small-scale fishery policy and governance, value chain upgrading and the application of Internet and Communication Technologies (ICTs) [14–18]. Value chain research is primarily interested in revealing dominant power relations between actors, the terms of inclusion and exclusion, and more recently, incorporating 'horizontal' dimensions such as gender, the environment and sustainability [18–21]. Despite the proliferation of ICT for Fisheries (ICT4F) interventions, little work has been conducted on ICT-supported transformation possibilities that shift power relations within existing governance and market structures [22,23] within particular SSF settings or sought closer alignment with the ambitions of fisheries-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including: no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, climate action and sustainability of life below water [24,25].

The urgency for systematically developed and contextually refined small-scale fisher transformation pathways is further apparent when understood in the context of decades of Apartheid and subsequent neoliberal fisheries policy that disenfranchised South African small-scale fishers [6–8,26–28]. We put forward that sustainability of marine resources must be facilitated by the design of institutions and governance arrangements that benefit small-scale fishers. We thus explore how small-scale fishers leverage ICT4F towards more democratic, equal and ultimately sustainable pathways.

#### *1.1. Struggles of the Marginalized in South Africa Post-1994*

South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994, yet despite the promises and expectations of socio-economic redress, and the myriad programs directly and indirectly tethered to ideals of affirmative action, the patterns of inequality inherited from Apartheid remain [6,7,29,30]. Though progressive legislation such as the Bill of Rights and South Africa's much lauded Constitution have been enacted, the dire state of redress has precipitated a 'waiting' where the marginalized continue to wait on the delivery of the promises of socio-economic redress [31]. The majority of South African small-scale fishers live and harvest on rural coasts, while their struggles for access rights are fought in the large metropolis of Cape Town, where the headquarters of the State fisheries department is located.

Fisher protest action over the preceding two decades took place amidst the groundswell of public discontent, with fisher movements aligning themselves with trade unions and the struggles of the urban poor attempting to transform political spaces [32]. At the heart of small-scale fisher protests and broader social movements was dissatisfaction with the lack of socio-economic transformation despite the achievements of post-1994 political democratization [29].

#### *1.2. South African Small-Scale Fisheries*

South African societies are specific in the enormous expectations residents hold of the post-Apartheid state; this includes demands from artisanal fishers for universal access to marine resources [33]. South Africa's first democratic elections ushered in hopes of radical social, political and economic reforms in the fisheries sector. Industrialization of the sector in the 1950s had concentrated fishing rights in the hands of a few large industrial companies whilst systematically excluding artisanal fishers—restricting them to low-wage labor as crew and fish factory workers. Thus, the democratic government's first attempt at transformation of fisheries occurred between 1994–2007 with the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998 (MLRA), that sought to balance the needs of the industrialized commercial fishing sector with broadening access for artisanal fishers [6,34]. To retain their individual transferrable quotas (ITQs) under the MLRA, established companies were required to satisfy diversity requirements with the goal that ITQ redistribution to artisanal fishers would broaden access [8,35].

However, without infrastructural, financial and business skills to manage quota, artisanal fishers were often reduced to catching, processing and marketing agreements with larger industrial companies that reduced artisanal fishers to 'paper' quota holders without any real participation [36]. In addition, the MLRA recognized only a small-scale commercial fishing sector and made no provision for the men and women who derived a subsistence livelihood from marine resources. In effect, this excluded the majority of small-scale fishers who had, for generations, harvested marine resources [7].

Through a coalition of small-scale fishers, NGOs and university researchers, in 2004, the MLRA was challenged in the South African courts in "Kenneth George and Others vs. the Minister" [26]. Before a decision was reached by the Courts in 2007, the Minister settled, out of court, in an agreement that mandated the department to develop a policy, specific to the inclusion of small-scale fishers, in recognition of their historical livelihood dependence on marine resources [6]. Further, interim fishing licenses were immediately established that allowed small-scale fishers to harvest a limited amount of marine resources until the eventual promulgation of a new inclusive policy [37]. The result was the Small-Scale Fisher Policy of 2012 (SSFP) which provided the guidelines for the formal recognition and provision of South Africa's small-scale fishers.

The purpose of the new Small-Scale Fisheries Policy was to provide a framework under which small-scale fishers across all four of South Africa's coastal provinces could be granted collective community fishing rights with access to a 'basket' of resources [38]. As the legislative framework was finalized in 2016, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) spent the intervening period addressing contentious issues across South Africa's small-scale fisher communities, such as which men and women qualified as 'bona fide' fishers and thus could be provided for under the new policy. Simultaneously, this slow process forced small-scale fishers to organize, independently from the state, starting cooperatives and partnering with NGOs. One such NGO was Abalobi: a hallmark project that sought to leverage small-scale fisher data to facilitate value chain upgrading as one of multiple strategies to transform South African small-scale fisheries.

#### *1.3. Value Chains of Small-Scale Fisheries of the Western Cape, South Africa*

With 90% of South Africa's linefish caught within the Western Cape Province, small-scale fishers from Lambert's Bay contribute substantially to linefish harvests both through catches and as fish workers. Low-value species make up the majority of small-scale fisher catches with Snoek (Thyrsites atun), the largest contributor to fisher income and catch volumes [13]. Where Lambert's Bay fishers do harvest high value species such as Lobster (Jasus lalandii), these value chains remain linked to international Asian markets, with fishers unable to renegotiate their terms of incorporation and unable to influence the terms of trade [39].

Despite the importance of value chains to the sustainability of small-scale fisher livelihoods and the marine resource, state fisheries governance has not provided enough support to develop new, more viable small-scale fisher value chains nor the platforms for fishers to participate equitably in their existing value chains. The 2012 Small-Scale Fisher Policy represented the State's latest attempt at providing for small-scale fishers, promising economically viable access rights to all bona fide small-scale fishers. However, by 2019, the state had still not comprehensively provided small-scale fishers with viable access rights nor the platform to advance more equitable value chain participation. Consequently, small-scale fishers explored alternative value chain upgrading pathways with the assistance of non-state actors, an increasingly pivotal trend largely directed at facilitating value chain upgrading through ICTs and direct marketing arrangements.

#### *1.4. Abalobi ICT4F Project*

Through collaboration between small-scale fishers, University of Cape Town researchers, and with support from telecom companies, the Abalobi project initiated an Internet and Communication Technology for Fisheries (ICT4F) platform in 2015. The project sought to address 'social justice and poverty alleviation' in South African small-scale fisheries, aiming to transform fisheries science to include fisher experiential knowledge, develop locally-based systems of marine resource stewardship and build socio-ecological resilience primarily through collecting reliable small-scale fisheries data [40].

ICT4F applications have grown more complex in their aims since the earliest landmark studies showed how mobile phones reduced information search costs and price dispersion for small-scale fishers of Kerala [17,41]. Where ICT applications were implemented, they commonly provided extension services for price, weather, pest and technical information, though they are increasingly offering more complex services linking buyers to sellers and offering financial services [18,42,43]. The rise of more comprehensive ICT offerings for small-scale fishers has occurred simultaneously with the increased focus on ICT applications that better meet the local context of participants [43]. This focus on improving ICT practice is intended to achieve higher success rates by including participants early in the design of the ICT intervention to encourage buy-in, legitimacy of the programs, as well as more accurately directed practice [44,45].

The Abalobi platform consisted of five modules, namely: 'Fisher', 'Monitor', 'Manager', 'Co-op' and 'Marketplace'. Abalobi 'Fisher' was the core module and collected small-scale fisher logbook data. 'Monitor' was utilized by South African fisheries staff for catch monitoring. 'Manager' provided real-time fisheries data communication between small-scale fishers and Abalobi managers. 'Co-op' hosted collective accounting and asset management functions for small-scale fisher cooperatives, and 'Marketplace' captured small-scale fisher socio-cultural 'stories' on a traceability platform where fishers availed their catch for the Restaurant Supported Fishery (RSF). This 'storied' fish was modelled on the rapidly expanding arena of small-scale fisher direct marketing that facilitates shorter value chains between fishers and schools, hospitals, restaurants and homes [46–52]. At the time of writing, the most active modules were the Abalobi 'Fisher' and 'Marketplace' modules, with 'Monitor', 'Manager' and 'Co-op' in development.

Smartphones and ICTs are increasingly recognized as a tool for participatory fisheries data collection with the potential to increase the accuracy of small-scale fisheries data, facilitating communities in achieving sustainable development, an improved quality of life and supporting the poor and excluded [5,53,54]. Where small-scale fisheries data is collected, it is often irregularly so [54] or fails to fully capture the characteristics and essence of small-scale fisheries [55,56]. Whilst collecting reliable small-scale fisheries data remains imperative, the lack of public policies for the sector as well as the lack of skills in collecting this data continue to complicate the task [57,58].

In the absence of reliable small-scale fisher data, researchers risk masking small-scale fisher importance by under- or overreporting resource availability which ultimately influences fisheries legislation [5]. In order to leverage this data effectively in support of transformation pathways, it is imperative that a systematic approach is adopted that examines the potential of ICTs to shift power relations in governance and market structures.

Fisher livelihoods remain intricately connected with the health of the oceans, raising the importance of new approaches that encompass biological stock, socio-economic and socio-cultural assessments, ushering in a renewed focus on participatory and interdisciplinary approaches that incorporate fisher knowledge [58]. While stock assessments retain prime importance in fisheries management, this prominence is being challenged as calls to include social and economic livelihood data increase [59–62]. One avenue to achieving broader indicators of marine resource health is incorporating fisher knowledge [63–66].

Though novel, the Abalobi project is indicative of broader momentum within the field of Internet and Communication Technologies for Fisheries (ICT4F). This includes Fish Trax, an electronic fishery information system for small-scale fisheries; Norpac Fisheries Export, which provides traceability services for small-scale fisheries; ThisFish, which connects small-scale fishers directly to end markets; and Trace Register, which is a web-based traceability application facilitating direct marketing between fishers and their end markets.

#### *1.5. ICT 4 Fisheries*

ICTs were initially heralded as tools to 'leapfrog' underdeveloped communities by bridging the 'digital divide' towards more developed states, primarily through the proliferation of tele-centers located in rural areas. However, it quickly became apparent that tele-centers far underachieved their intended goals, and that ICT access often mirrored and thus, reinforced existing socio-economic inequalities. Yet the potential for ICTs to facilitate more robust rural livelihoods remains apparent, and it is thus critical to systematically investigate how and under what conditions ICTs are leveraged successfully towards the socio-economic development of rural communities, and in particular small-scale fisheries. We further need to build towards developing small-scale fisher criteria for selecting appropriate marine fishery ICT tools [66].

ICT interventions are extending beyond needs based design that focuses on short to medium term necessities, towards designing for long term aspirations [67]. Despite the proliferation of ICT studies, there remains a dearth in ICT research that provides positive evidence of successful outcomes of ICTs for environmental issues such as climate change and socio-ecological resilience [68]. Though collecting small-scale fisher data is a critical global priority, this can also have the effect of increasing the concentration of power in the hands of the few with the resources to access, analyze and extract meaning from it [69], raising questions of power between those who generate the data and those who effectively have control over it.

ICT interventions need to look beyond resolving issues of access and resources to that of wellbeing and fulfilment for the marginalized [70]. This entails defining how projects define development: whether development is defined as increased freedoms in the capabilities tradition, as expanded access to ICT artefacts for the disenfranchised, as increased economic productivity such as business profit through ICT use, or as improved wellbeing measured by satisfaction and fulfilment stemming from an ICT intervention [71]. Alternatively, development can also compellingly be defined as an increase in power parity between the stakeholders and beneficiaries [71], particularly because projects often privilege technical functionality over stakeholder engagement [72].

#### *1.6. Neoliberalism in Small-Scale Fisheries*

Neoliberal policies seek to control access to fisheries resources by strengthening property rights and reducing fishing effort in order to prevent marine resource overexploitation—typically through the introduction of Individual Transferrable Quotas (ITQs) [73]. With 'too many boats chasing too few fish', turning access into private property was intended to induce better stewardship of the resource whilst ensuring rights holders remained commercially vested in the health of the marine resource [74,75]. Though neoliberalism has increased profits generated through ITQs, these tend to remain concentrated in the hands of a few powerful actors at the exclusion of artisanal and indigenous fishers [76–78]. With assumptions rooted in the tragedy of the commons [78], small-scale fisheries were marginalized as industrial fisheries benefitted from the introduction of access rights and large quotas and subsidies [79]. For instance, of \$35 billion worth of subsidies issued globally in 2009, small-scale fisheries received only 16 percent [80].

With the majority of South Africa's small-scale fishers residing along rural coasts, it remains an obvious problem that neoliberalism consolidated wealth and power into urban and industrial fishing operations and away from customarily governed open-access fishing on which small-scale fishers depend. These geographic and economic shifts led to detrimental effects undermining coastal livelihood identities, cultural values and artisanal indigenous fishery practices [12,76,81,82]. Urban concentration of fishing rights tends to empower privileged social groups, further increasing wealth and class disparities [78,83], in addition to the prevalent role of speculative finance in undermining and disrupting sustainable practices in small-scale fisher communities [73].

Inequitably distributed fishing rights have precipitated crises of legitimacy with artisanal fishers contesting the legitimacy of fishing rights bureaucracies [76,78] and their rights holders, particularly where these rights holders had no historical stake in the marine resource [83]; or when

women have not been included [84]. Those impacted are commonly fishers closest to the resource such as small-scale fisher skipper-operators, their crew and those further along the fisheries value chain [76]. This dispossession can lead to a unique form of wildlife crime where previously accepted SSF subsistence practices become illegal in the absence of legislation that supports their livelihoods and cultural practices [85].

In response to these problems, new forms of fisheries governance emerged that encouraged sustaining marine resource diversity and coastal livelihoods by exploring indigenous modes of custodianship [86], or by institutionalizing collective management and action; for example, through territorial use rights for fisheries (TURFs) [87,88]. Inspired by indigenous small-scale fisher movements resisting overfishing, development projects in their territories and exploring pathways that bypass corporate fish processors [73], alternative pathways to capital intensive fisheries have sought to reposition fisherfolk as community actors integral to rural economies [89,90]. In addition, non-state actors are continually emerging as key partners of small-scale fisher resistance [90], as well as facilitators in the development of transformative fisher pathways. By undermining small-scale fisher livelihoods, neoliberalism jeopardizes the sustainability of community livelihoods and the resources on which they depend.

#### *1.7. 'Real Utopias'*

In order to explore the potentiality of a pathways approach to transformation for South African SSFs, here we engage with Wright's 'Real Utopias' framework as a means to support progressive social change. Wright argues that states have grown complex and incapable of addressing novel problems of contemporary society [91], and by considering alternative economic and social systems, utopian alternatives create better conditions for human flourishing than those under capitalism [92]. Using utopian framing, we can begin to imagine how things could be when the problems in contemporary society are resolved, thus providing us with immediate actionable tasks in pursuit of a better future [93]. At the heart of Wright's 'Real Utopias' is the fundamental goal to transform power relations and encourage equality, democracy and sustainability in the establishment of alternative transformation pathways.

Equality equates with living a 'flourishing life' through grass-roots political mobilization and collective action; democracy demands meaningful participation in decision making structures; and sustainability is ensured when future generations have access to the social and material conditions, at least at the same level as the present generation [94,95]. Utopian principles allow us to understand whether we are moving in the right direction, as well as the opportunity to determine how to increase the capacity for transformation towards our desired direction [96,97].

'Real Utopian' approaches consist of strategic alternatives existing within capitalism's niches from which varieties of non-market relations, egalitarian participation, democratic governance and collective action can take hold. Contemporary examples include Wikipedia, where anonymous collaborators contribute to the world's largest encyclopedia without compensation; the Quebec Social Economy, where day-care, elder-care and social housing services exist to meet community needs after deliberation through democratically elected councils; and Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposals that give every legal citizen income sufficient to live above the poverty line without any requirements related to work. Wright argues these strategies can be considered a broad socialist challenge to capitalism [97].

Under this framework, socialist inspired alternatives to capitalism, which adhere to Wright's three strategic 'logics of transformation', are shown in Table 1 below. 'Ruptural' transformations occur through a sharp break with existing institutions and social structures, 'interstitial' transformations build new modes of social empowerment in capitalist society's niches and peripheries, where they often do not seem to present an immediate threat to prevailing power structures, and 'symbiotic' pathways deepen and extend institutional forms of social empowerment that involve the state and civil society simultaneously, whilst solving practical challenges aligned with the interests of the powerful. Where 'ruptural' transformations reflect dramatic revolutionary coups, 'interstitial' and 'symbiotic' pathways facilitate growth that remains unmolested by powerful actors and thus, opportunities to successfully grow for the benefit of those who have produced them [94].



Rather than defined steps, utopian thinking encourages mechanisms that facilitate a move toward the desired direction, spurred on by incremental everyday actions that allow for adaptation, improvisation, and amendment [94,99]. In this study, we draw on Wright's (2013) 'Real Utopias' framework for (1) methodological guidance in developing and assessing the viability of desired pathways with small-scale fishers, and (2) to analyze and evaluate the pathways against the moral principles of equality, democracy and sustainability.

#### *1.8. Lambert's Bay Case*

Lambert's Bay is situated along South Africa's Cape coast (Figure 1) and remains a prominent fishing community due to the variety of commercially viable species including Snoek, Southern Mullet (*Liza richardsonnii*), Cape Bream (*Pachymetopon blochii*), White Steenbras (*Lithognathus lithognathus*), Galjoen (*Dichitius capenis*) and Dusky Kob (*Argyrosomus japonicas*) [13]. Artisanal fishers of Lambert's Bay mostly belong to the population group designated as Colored, (the South African state's racial stratification recognizes four racial classifications: African/Black, Indian/Asian, Colored and White. This reflects the racial stratification of colonial South Africa, allowing the state to marginalize those designated as Black, Indian and Colored. The State has continued with these classifications in order to redress past injustices perpetrated during colonialism and continued under Apartheid) [99], speak Afrikaans, and make up 74.53% of the town's population. Lambert's Bay, as nearly all South African towns, remains geographically split along Apartheid's historic racial zoning, with the White population living in the town, and the Colored and Black populations in the surrounding lower income areas. Overall, 76.5% of households are without home internet access, and only 26.4% of adults had graduated from secondary school [100].

Inconsistent application of fisher rights have led to divisions where ITQs have created differences in income, asset ownership and household food security [101] amongst artisanal fishers. Further, ITQs were allocated to a more educated elite as well as those in faraway metropoles—neither of whom had any historic dependence on marine resource harvesting. Artisanal fishers excluded from rights allocations thus had their livelihoods effectively criminalized [102].

**Figure 1.** Lambert's Bay, South Africa (adapted from [103]).

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

This present study represents the ongoing research amongst the Lambert's Bay fisher community since 2013. Initial investigations focused on establishing household livelihood profiles of Lambert's Bay small-scale fisher families, exploring the role of quota allocations and the implications for small-scale fisher community dynamics [102]. Subsequent research (September 2014–March 2015) focused on co-design work conducted with support of the JUSTMAR Network (Global Marine Governance Network—Co-constructing a Sustainable Fisheries Future), financed both by the International Social Science Council, ISSC, and the Swedish Research Council/Swedish Research Links (VR/SR). JUSTMAR researchers delineated [104] fisher transformation pathways from Poland, Chile, South Africa and Vietnam. Whereas the JUSTMAR research mapped historical and current problems in the small-scale fisheries of the respective countries, as well as identifying possible pathways, the purpose of this workshop was to deepen the co-design of ICTs, where ICTs were increasingly seen as potential transformation pathways based on the future visioning of South African small-scale fishers. The intention was, moreover, not to envision and realize the 'ideal' but to work towards and facilitate conditions more in line with desired futures.

We held an evaluation and planning session in a community conferencing facility in Lambert's Bay, South Africa. We recruited participants through purposive sampling selection of Lambert's Bay fishers actively participating on the Abalobi platform, with a particular focus on skipper-boat owners, who were approached through telephone without the assistance of state agents or fisher associations. The focus on skipper-boat owners meant most participants were male and represented a relatively privileged group within the community both in terms of ownership over means of production and with regards to their association with the Abalobi project. While this represented a limitation to understanding power between diverse actors within the Lambert's Bay fishing community, our focus was primarily to explore the power dynamics between this particular group of fishers, middlemen and the State.

Though a larger number of fishers were expected to attend the workshop, some could not attend because the workshop coincided with particularly good fishing days. In total, six skipper-boat owners, 1 skipper, 1 fisherwoman and a local domestic violence counsellor participated. Our workshop was facilitated by two Abalobi project directors and four University researchers, of which two came from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and the remainder from Södertörn University,

Sweden, and primarily affiliated with JUSTMAR. All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the workshop. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Informed by the knowledge from prior JUSTMAR work, the researchers, fishers and NPO staff agreed in advance to exploring themes related to how ICTs can play a role in value chain participation, the associated challenges, opportunities and related governance concerns. Our format followed a mixed approach of plenary sessions and small group work where problems were presented with open discussion about solutions through presentations from fishers [105]. Our workshop's introduction highlighted how TURFS are widely seen as pathways for sustainable small-scale futures prominent in the fisheries of Vietnam and Chile. Our purpose was, thus, for South African small-scale fisheries to develop their own pathways, bearing in mind conflict, power and research constraints with a view to ultimately develop and enact selected ICT-based transformation strategies.

Though Lambert's Bay small-scale fishers primarily speak Afrikaans, our workshop was conducted in English, with translation assistance through a long term Lambert's Bay community member who was also an initiator of the Abalobi project. We conducted self-reporting strength and weakness exercises in order to understand a fisher's perceptions of challenges and opportunities within their practice. We subsequently explored future strategies, referencing how in Chile, fisherwomen developed a book as a means to raise their profile.

After mapping fisher problems in detail, participants were tasked with drawing up transformation pathways that would enable them to meet their value chain, upgrading goals through the ICT platform. This also required elucidating the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders towards fulfilling these opportunities, ensuring the viability, desirability and sustainability of a tangible action plan. In addition, our workshop sought to identify unintended consequences on both participating fishers and other actors. We took detailed field notes during the workshop and drew up fisher pathways on white boards in order to facilitate agreement on common issues. The outputs generated through the sessions directly informed the design of the Abalobi 'Marketplace' ICT module, which we subsequently piloted in two fishing communities.

Our data were coded for dominant themes continuously and iteratively [106,107] over a period of months, primarily guided by Real Utopian and Value Chain frameworks. Some constraints included the reality that fishers in different roles were not used to discussing issues openly together, for instance, crew and skippers, women amongst the men, and youth in front of their elders. The low scientific literacy levels may have led fishers to easily defer to those perceived to hold greater power or knowledge such as NPO staff and the researchers. However, the workshop approach facilitated in-depth discussion because of the relatively loose structure that left room for participants to grow in confidence.

#### **3. Discussion**

Through the workshop, fishers identified multiple short and longer term strategies to pursue, using the Abalobi ICT platform as presented in Table 2. It was apparent fishers connected the success of the Abalobi platform with the future subscription of all fishers in the Lambert's Bay community. Association with the Abalobi project represented a relatively privileged position amongst local fishers. This was evidenced through discussions on recruitment, where fishers involved with Abalobi saw themselves as singularly committed to fisher issues, and setting the terms of engagement for other fishers to join the platform:


**Table 2.** Fisher Strategy Workshop Outputs.

*"* . . . *our fishers are also divided, the clique who are here [working with Abalobi] is [sic] very committed* . . . *but when we go to sea, there are no enemies."* (FP1, young skipper, male, 03/10/2017)

*"We want every fisher to be a part of Abalobi under our terms* . . . *if you don't want to listen to us then you must go."* (FG1, skipper group, 03/10/2017)

Fishers further expressed the desire for the ICT platform to resolve issues related to eliminating the middleman in their value chains and developing local markets, participating effectively in fisheries management by leveraging indigenous knowledge, increased fisher self-organization, the establishment of an accident insurance fund, formal recognition by the banks, protecting their inshore fishing areas from commercial fleets, and learning from case studies in different country contexts.

The overarching challenge to the Lambert's Bay fishers was the ways in which their participation in value chains reinforced asymmetric power relations from which small-scale fishers derived little benefit. With fishers unable to renegotiate their terms of inclusion [39], deriving better returns from their value chains through strengthened bargaining positions thus guided our discussions around transformation pathways. Specifically, small-scale fishers identified the adverse nature of patron-client relationships as a key hindrance to receiving greater value for their harvests. In both their low value Snoek and high value Lobster chains, small-scale fishers derived the least benefit [13,39,108].

*"* . . . *the main point is marketing, that's our biggest weakness in our fishing sector. With marketing, some middleman take our catch and go to Cape Town and spend its money there. And as I told you this type of period they come and let [sic] us some money and we must sign our debt by them [sic] and so it go."* (FG1, skipper group, 03/10/2017)

*"We are not organized, there is no organization to organize us. There is a caretaker who must speak with government for us* . . . *but the caretaker is also the marketing 'ou se boy' [sic]. There are no person to talk for us."* (FG1, skipper group, 03/10/2017)

Although patron–client relationships have been noted to mediate fisher access in small-scale fisheries worldwide and though much derided, research is increasingly recognizing the ways in which middlemen in dense fisher networks may hold close kinship relationships with fishers and provide the operational capital for fishers to mobilize for the start of a new season [109–114]. Whilst this trend is observed across small-scale fisheries globally, fishers felt the South African state had effectively absolved themselves of the responsibility of supporting fisher marketing functions. While 'caretaker–marketers', as they are known in South Africa, provide loans to small-scale fishers, they also act with an impunity that may be detrimental to the economic welfare of fishers [39].

*"Our relationship with the government, there are no relationship—the only relationship is with the caretaker and the caretaker take care of all of us."* (FG1, skipper group, 03/10/2017)

Adversely included small-scale fisher value chain actors have overcome exploitation through the rise of local food movements that shorten small-scale fisher value chains by sourcing directly from fishers, bypassing the middleman and encouraging fisher post-harvest processing [48,49,115,116]. Despite the importance of effective governance to small-scale fisher value chains [13,117–120], small-scale fishers further bemoaned the lack of effective co-management structures through which they could exercise influence on policy.

Together with the Abalobi NPO, small-scale fishers synthesized three priority transformation pathways to pursue over the five-year period. First, fishers desired to strengthen independent fisher organizations to address the government's delay in implementing state supported fisher cooperatives and allocating their respective fishing rights. This was primarily in response to the delays in the implementation of the Small-scale Fisher Policy. Second, small-scale fishers desired to develop an alternative value chain that allowed fishers to participate more equitably by overcoming the asymmetric power relationships with other actors. Thirdly, fishers desired to collect fishing trip data through the Abalobi ICT platform in order to demonstrate their largely unrecognized contribution to South Africa's fishery sector, whilst also leveraging the data to advocate for greater participation in fisheries co-management.

*"Abalobi gave us a much more way [sic] of thinking with what we are doing because now we can start monitoring our fishing, everything like that, and get it in the database* . . . *that is one of our strengths."* (skipper, male, 03/10/2017)

*"The indigenous knowledge is also a great strength because now we can use our knowledge, indigenous knowledge, somehow to be a part of Abalobi and there are some hope there* . . . *that's our strength in the room, we have a lot of knowledge here by us [sic]."* (FG1, skipper group, 03/10/2017)

In order to support them more effectively, we examined these strategies through ICT and 'Real Utopian' lenses, relating them to other fisheries contexts in order to connect these actions of local fishers to global processes of anti-capitalist social change in small-scale fisheries.

#### **4. ICTs, Real Utopias and Social Change in Small-Scale Fisheries**

#### *4.1. Addressing State Incapacity*

Wright's definition of equality involves living a 'flourishing life' supported by grass-roots political mobilization and collective action [94]. Yet Lambert's Bay fishers endured a period of waiting due to State incapacity that only exacerbated their vulnerability from inequitable rights allocations. For instance, State-run fisher organization remained a laborious process, hamstrung by the necessity to ensure integrity of the verification and appeals process. Despite devolving verification to fisher communities, the extended delays and mistakes from the premature roll out of earlier years misallocated resources, and the subsequent delays continued to deny fishers access to state resources [7]. In this vacancy, fishers established formal and informal cooperatives to pursue alternatives to the state's incessant delays as a strategy of overcoming State incapacity

Fishers understood the potential of leveraging the Abalobi ICT platform towards greater independent mobilization, particularly in light of the perception the state had left them to the mercy of unscrupulous marketers. While the workshop represented one such arena to facilitate the actions of local fishers towards collective action, Abalobi-affiliated fishers further frequently met to resolve value chain challenges such as at whose house post-harvest processing should occur, how to compensate fish cleaners, as well as resolving perceptions of favoritism between fishers. In addition, the delays of the small-scale fisher policy implementation of community cooperatives left room for the growth of independent fisher organization, with the Abalobi platform operating as a de facto fisher cooperative, looking after the economic and political interests of small-scale fishers.

The wait of small-scale fishers for a policy that recognized them drew parallels with the wait for housing in South African urban spaces. In the urban space, this waiting shaped a politics of finding solutions in the grey spaces of informality and illegality [31]. Here, housing activists had sought sustainable alternatives to the hegemonic state discourse and housing policy towards inclusiveness for the homeless. While in the fisheries sector, the development of the policy marked citizens as legitimate wards of the state, their precarious existence throughout the policy's development and over the long term also required subversion of fisher regulations by poaching to support their livelihoods. Though South African state fisheries governance had scheduled completion of the verification process in 2020, this waiting had led fishers to start their own cooperatives.

In the urban housing literature, capacity was built through mobilizing local communities and demonstrating results through an alternative housing model [32], which highlights the importance for fishers of the viability of Abalobi's alternative value chain model. For small-scale fisher transformation pathways to embody equality, they will need to deliver on their promises promptly, where the perennial experiences of waiting result in exacerbated livelihood vulnerability.

The Abalobi ICT project facilitates collective action and mobilization by congregating small-scale fisher action toward value chain upgrading. Apart from the above 'co-design' workshops, Abalobiaffiliated small-scale fishers share marketplace information over 'Whatsapp' skipper groups, where this sort of collaborative skipper action is rare in Lambert's Bay. The Abalobi 'Fisher' module that captures logbook data from participating small-scale fisher trips further has the potential to be used for political mobilization through collective analysis of the data. Where development is understood as the increase in power parity [71], accurate small-scale fisheries data facilitates a pathway for fishers to leverage this important data towards gaining greater influence in fisheries management.

Collective action can enhance equality through the joint effort of pursuing political goals [91]. The Abalobi platform offers a space through which continued fisher cooperation can be leveraged towards achieving their political goals. A study in Nepal, linking ICT to fostering collective action, highlights the facilitative role of ICTs in generating and maintaining trust, acceptance, and alignment essential to cooperation through improved transparency and participation—where this collective action ultimately facilitates the expansion of individual freedoms [119].

#### *4.2. Linking Actions of Local Fishers to Socio-Economic Outcomes*

Post-Apartheid South Africa is marked by an increase in social inequality, particularly in the context of neo-liberal macroeconomic policies. Contesting neoliberalism has occurred across multiple civil society groups—here, we adopt understandings from South Africa's housing movement that draws important parallels for fisher struggles. Where Wright defines 'democracy' as meaningful participation, lessons from South African housing social movements highlight the inadequacy of basing democracy on free and fair elections, for example, mistaking institutional instruments with their democratic purpose [120]. The relationship between democracy and socio-economic rights remains complex, where too often liberal democracy is projected to lead to increased socio-economic rights, yet macroeconomic inequality has shown this to not be the case [29].

Participation processes need to result in real change. This includes more direct lines of accountability from local outcomes to local decision makers, as well as increased spaces from informal discussion concerning management issues [121]. These transformation pathways must, therefore, embody more than participation and transparency to also include socio-economic redress and gain in order to satisfy more comprehensive goals of democracy, especially in light of the ways in which democracy has not provided fishers with transformative socio-economic possibilities in post-Apartheid South Africa [8]. Though fisher rights are enshrined in a much-lauded Constitution, our experience in South African fisheries, as well as the literature, show they remain impoverished and marginalized with a significant schism between democracy and socio-economic redress.

One strategy to directly link democratic processes to socio-economic outcomes involved the Abalobi ICT platform facilitating local festivals and markets around their fish and developing a Restaurant Supported Fishery (RSF). While local fish markets are ubiquitous in fisheries globally, Apartheid laws denied small-scale fishers the opportunity to develop their own, creating highly centralized value chains under the control of a few large companies. Subsequent to the workshop, we thus established a small-scale fisher processing facility using the rudimentary facilities of a participating skipper. This processing facility conducted all the post-harvest fish processing of the new Abalobi-facilitated value chain, with fishers utilizing their traditional gutting methods and expertise. This decentralization of processing functions represented an example of increasing democratic freedoms with positive implications for socio-economic redress, as fishers were able to charge higher prices for their fish. Further, by facilitating small-scale fisher control of processing, fishers had the ability to bring to bear their local knowledge and cultural traditions in the post-harvest process. This further serves as a platform for fishers to leverage increased control of the post-harvesting process towards establishing independent local fish markets.

Transformative pathways linking democratic principles with real socio-economic benefits have been implemented in global fisher contexts, where in 2014, Scottish government reforms of Fixed Quota Allocations posited future scenarios for addressing moral economy issues in their fisheries. The Scottish government considered wellbeing above market precepts through six proposals: reducing fees on quota leases, facilitating youth entry in to fisheries, restricting quota allocation to active fishers, keeping quotas under Scottish ownership, keeping quotas within coastal communities, and supporting the traditions and practices of artisanal fishers [122]. These reforms can further serve as learnings and possibilities for South African fisher democratic ideals that place social and distributional objectives on equal importance as economic ones whilst recognizing coastal fishing communities, small-scale fisheries and communal traditions.

In considering transformation pathways, it is critical that small-scale fishers reflect on whether their existing practices contribute to economic welfare through operating in a democratic manner, allowing access and distributing that access justly. This is particularly important where communities have historically seen fractures brought on by the inequitable distribution of fishing rights. Fishers and the Abalobi staff will thus need to continuously reflect on how decisions are made and their implications—locating the processing facility in a particular skipper's home, for instance, resulted in perceptions of favoritism (pers. comm) requiring careful conflict management. Successful small-scale fisher-run processing facilities can serve as a rallying call for public support of their transformation pathways that demonstrate how fishers serve the public good by offering value and employment out of a publicly-owned resource, whilst also highlighting self-directed and self-supported fisher initiatives [123].

Case studies of Canadian Yukatat and Metlakatla fishing villages show how artisanal fisheries can be rebuilt on local and traditional knowledge, as well as incumbent subsistence technologies that open new opportunities within the existing neoliberal framework that retain local cultural traditions and support artisanal fisher identities. One of these strategies involves transferal of fish processing plant ownership rights to artisanal fishers who can then lease or operate the plant [123], which requires governments to provide subsidies towards value, adding capacity amongst artisanal fishers. These reforms also point to the importance of place-based identity and occupational stability, which South African fishers have struggled for through adhering to ideals of democracy and equality. Nonetheless, whether democracy and equality are conceptualized apart or highly integrated, fisheries governance needs to prioritize how fishers conceptualize traditional, moral and economic understandings of these ideals [124].

For small-scale fishers, democracy extends particularly to greater participation in the decisions that affect their livelihoods, such as state fisheries management decisions and policy prescriptions. Yet, democracy that has no direct benefit to the socio-economic improvement of livelihoods is inadequate. For South Africans and small-scale fishers for our purposes, the new democratic dispensation in 1994 and subsequent fisheries reform yielded no direct socio-economic benefit for small-scale fisheries. Rather, small-scale fishers remained marginalized and excluded from fisheries access under the neoliberalism-guided Marine Living Resource Act of 1998.

ICTs have the potential to facilitate democratic practice and improved socio-economic outcomes. By understanding development as increased economic productivity and power parity [71], ICT interventions should increasingly strive to pursue a welfare and fulfilment agenda beyond issues of access and resources [70]. Significantly, Abalobi's Marketplace platform offered fishers the opportunity to shorten their value chains by bypassing middlemen and selling directly to restaurants whilst receiving a higher price. Direct marketing programs in small-scale fisheries have shown to facilitate increased economic returns whilst increasing power parity between small-scale fishers and other value chain actors [46,49,115]. As demands on democracy are extended to meaningful participation in decision making, the urgency of concomitant economic benefits remain essential, particularly for fishers experiencing continued and historical marginalization.

#### *4.3. Scaling Local Fisher Institutions*

Reference [94] considers sustainability related to securing consumption of resources, as well as environmental conditions for future generations, at least at the same level as present, with scalable utopian institutions key to a sustainable future. Lessons from the alternative food movement highlight the importance of considering how transformation pathways can scale, as a key component of ensuring this sustainability. This involves exploring two related issues: the first concerns the capability for potential merging of multiple transformation pathways to facilitate innovative spillover and cross-fertilization—where one pathway may yield learnings for the growth of others. The second concerns the potential for transformation pathways to facilitate more interstitial space in which new pathways can grow, ultimately creating 'safe havens' of empowerment within existing institutional structures [125].

Fisher transformation pathways, such as Abalobi's Restaurant Supported Fishery value chain, needs to be flexible enough to navigate through the ways in which fishers will face resistance while leveraging the options to exploit resources within incumbent value chains. Transformation pathways begin with the risk of remaining just reactive alternatives to the mainstream, owing their dynamism to the 'oppositional status' created by the hegemonic neoliberal regime [126]. Fishers thus need to be careful to establish their transformation pathways beyond oppositional entities towards developing new governance modes based upon public priorities and fisher sovereignty [125].

Fisher desires to use the platform to engage with distant fishing communities was an example in which the ICT platform was leveraged to scale towards greater fisher collective action. Further, the 'Marketplace' module was piloted in two communities on opposite coasts of the Western Province of South Africa. Fishers used this collaboration to plan to offer diverse species on their future local markets, because certain species were exclusive to particular fishing areas. The increasing roll-out of the Abalobi platform across multiple communities, thus facilitates scaling of the platform with great potential for increasing the opportunities for the convergence of local movements, initiatives, ideas, and sustainable fishing practices.

In the alternative food movement, the twin crises of consumption and production and their impact on the urban consumer led to conditions that opened up more voids and spaces for new post-neoliberal institutional alternatives [126]. However, this conceptualization privileges the crisis of a wealthier consumer as the catalyst for change over that of the marginalized small producer who remains in a perennial state of vulnerability. Nonetheless, it is a useful way to understand how transformation pathways might develop; in South African small-scale fisheries the crisis amongst small-scale fishers has precipitated the development of alternative pathways more than a crisis of actors further along the value chain.

Convergence of food movements had been the key driver of food movements becoming major socio-political avenues for embedding and facilitating the transition to a post-neoliberal economy [126]. To leverage convergence, small-scale fishers of Lambert's Bay will need to develop closer relationships with other fisher communities and activities, a task made harder by the destructive role of ITQs. However, in seeking convergence, fisher movements will need to be wary of appropriation and co-option, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate potentials for convergence [126,127]

Even where ICT projects are initially successful, when donor and state support is reduced or terminated, projects are prone to failure as demonstrated through a large study in India [71]. ICT- supported alternative pathways thus remain fundamentally tethered to the existence and scalability of the supporting ICT platform. Lessons from organizing within the social food movements show how convergence with other social movements may help solve the intractable existential crises of ICT projects whilst facilitating the maintenance of utopian alternatives [95,128]. ICT projects are commonly initiated by external partners with donor funding rather than by community members where the intervention occurs, reflecting power asymmetries related to resources. Consequently, money allotted to ICT projects seldom includes scope for exploring avenues for convergence with other ICT and analogue projects, which is crucial for sustainability, as lessons from alternative food movements indicate. Thus, explicitly pursuing areas of convergence with initiatives with similar aims might enhance the sustainability of utopian alternatives and ICT projects themselves.

#### **5. Limitations**

For small-scale fishers, individual access and subsequent use of marine resources is embedded in social relationships where neither 'property' nor 'rights' bear meaning other than as conditions imposed by external authorities [112], and where fishing practices continue to contribute to the unique cultural landscape of Lambert's Bay [13]. Thus, understanding their character and dynamics remains imperative for uncovering what matters to and for fishers, towards facilitating collective action [12], and the meanings of equality, democracy and sustainability as conceptualized by fishers.

These exchange relationships embedded in social and political conditions also determine the extent to which fishers capture a fair share of economic value of their resources which highlights the role of these relationships in disempowerment, exploitation and power inequalities [127]. Whilst emphasizing customary practices and traditions is essential for fisher transformation strategies, these practices may also represent and enable a tyranny of collective self-interest that encourage nepotism, ethnocentricity and gender inequalities—ultimately compromising the principles of transformative fisher pathways [128].

Though collecting small-scale fisheries data is critical to small-scale fisheries across the socio-ecological spectrum, it is often collected by non-state actors—raising questions of who generates the data, owns it, and has the skills and resources to analyze and use it. Power asymmetries exist inherently when non-state actors intervene in small-scale fisher communities. It is imperative ICT projects mitigate the ways in which power asymmetries within their projects undermine their stated goals. Small-scale fishers should not remain mere passive producers of data [69].

With co-design approaches at the forefront of greater stakeholder inclusion in ICT projects, project initiators must reflect on and actively mitigate the data inequalities present in their projects. This requires embedding participants in processes along the data chain beyond data generation, recognizing there are often different roles in different phases of ICT [129,130]. In pursuing greater power parity through ICT-based value chain upgrading, it would be a critical oversight if the Abalobi project were to neglect the power asymmetries embedded in ICT data chains.

For small-scale fishers, exploring new value chains supported through the Abalobi ICT platform necessarily requires redirecting catches that would ordinarily flow to the incumbent value chain and its associated actors. Where the strength of social networks are important determinants of benefit and credit flows in fisher communities [111,113], severing or even weakening the strength of these relationships may hold dire livelihood consequences, should the sustainability of the ICT-supported value chain be in financial peril.

Finally, Apartheid remains the central determinant of the life opportunities of South Africans from birth to death. The Apartheid government's inequitable distribution of resources remains stubbornly entrenched, affecting where people live, their education and subsequent career prospects, access to

basic services and dignity. Lambert's Bay small-scale fishers remain marginalized, burdened with significant constraints for opportunities to lead flourishing lives. Directing social change where the trauma of the past continues to define the experiences of small-scale fishers poses complex and uncertain challenges for transformation pathways. It is imperative that fisher interventions remain attuned to this complexity where the real needs of fishers, including dignity, identity and cultural practice are not overlooked in favor of mainstream economic upgrading initiatives.

#### **6. Conclusions**

Whilst fisher participation is critical to ICT-related transformative small-scale fisheries interventions, it is imperative these pathways embody enhanced notions of democracy, equality and institutional and environmental sustainability. Through alternative small-scale fisher value chains, ICTs offered real material benefit for fishers whilst also facilitating democratic practices by leveraging fisher data towards increased power parity in management decisions. Early successes may help build confidence among fishers, authorities and market actors. This may be important to engender recognition that alternative pathways are indeed able to deliver on their promises. Lastly, sustaining transformative institutions requires ICTs to explore areas of convergence with other local fisher communities, particularly where fisher participation in transformation pathways necessitates a weakening of their long-held relationships with local stakeholders.

**Author Contributions:** S.R., F.S. and G.L.G.F. conceived and designed the project. F.S., G.L.G.F. and T.T.N. performed the analysis. T.T.N. wrote the paper with input from all authors. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was supported by the JUSTMAR Network (Global Marine Governance Network—Co-constructing a Sustainable Fisheries Future), financed both by the International Social Science Council, ISSC, and the Swedish Research Council/Swedish Research Links (VR/SR); and the APC was funded by the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

**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.

#### **References**


130. Sein, M.K.; Thapa, D.; Hatakka, M.; Saebo, O. *What Theories do We Need to Know to Conduct ICT4D Research?* SIG GlobDev: Dublin, Ireland, 2016.

© 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/).

*Brief Report*

## **Spatial Distribution Patterns and Ethnobotanical Knowledge of Farmland Demarcation Tree Species: A Case Study in the Niyodo River Area, Japan**

#### **Yoshinori Tokuoka 1,\*, Fukuhiro Yamasaki <sup>2</sup> , Kenichiro Kimura <sup>3</sup> , Kiyokazu Hashigoe <sup>4</sup> and Mitsunori Oka <sup>5</sup>**


Received: 28 November 2019; Accepted: 27 December 2019; Published: 1 January 2020

**Abstract:** Isolated trees in farmlands serve various ecological functions, but their distribution patterns and planting history are often unknown. Here, we examined the spatial distribution, uses, and folk nomenclature of farmland demarcation trees planted in the Niyodo River area in Japan. Hierarchical clustering using the data from 33 locations distinguished four tree composition groups characterized by the combination of *Euonymus japonicus*, *Ligustrum obtusifolium*, *Deutzia crenata*, and *Celtis sinensis*. Near the upper to middle reaches of the river, the group characterized by *E. japonicus* dominated. Near the middle to lower reaches, the group characterized by *L. obtusifolium* occurred relatively frequently. The other two groups were found sporadically near the upper to lower reaches. The locally unique plant name *nezu*, used for *L. obtusifolium*, seems to have originated from a word meaning "the tree does not sleep and keeps the watch" in Japanese. In the study area, *D. crenata* was one of the plant species utilized for the sticks (*magozue*) used in traditional funeral ceremonies, which might help to explain why local people maintain *D. crenata* around homesteads as a demarcation tree. These findings highlight both the commonalities and uniqueness of demarcation tree culture in different regions of Japan and contribute to deepening our understanding of agricultural heritage.

**Keywords:** agricultural heritage; cultural landscape; folk nomenclature; floristic composition; traditional knowledge

#### **1. Introduction**

The expansion of intensive agriculture and farmland abandonment threatens traditional agricultural landscapes and the intangible knowledge assets supporting such landscapes [1,2]. The utilization of traditional landscapes and local knowledge in other forms, for instance, as a destination for tourists seeking traditional agricultural experiences, has been proposed as a means for their conservation. Identifying the indigenous cultural values in traditional agricultural landscapes is often difficult, however, because written historical documents are insufficient or lacking and no comparison among similar production landscapes has been performed.

Isolated trees in farmland serve multiple functions. For example, they support faunal biodiversity [3] and local food security [4], provide various collective goods [5], and maintain farmland demarcation. However, how the locally specific composition of isolated trees was historically shaped remains unknown in most regions, because of the lack of historical information. Under such limitations, ethnobiological approaches that analyze the ecological, botanical, and linguistic perceptions of local people can provide clues to the history of isolated trees in farmland landscapes.

In the Musashino region of eastern Japan, isolated *Deutzia crenata* shrubs were originally planted for farmland demarcation before the 17th century, and the species began to be used as a windbreak after settlement expansion [6]. Since then, *D. crenata* demarcation trees and windbreaks in the region were replaced with various beneficial plants used for hedgerow windbreaks, reflecting the changing needs of the local economy and the horticultural preferences of the local people. For example, the tea plant *Camellia sinensis* was planted from the mid-19th to early 20th century, and many gardening plants such as *Rhododendron* spp., *Euonymus japonicus*, and *Juniperus chinensis* were planted from the early to mid-20th century, accompanying the increasing number of florists in rural areas. In recent years, spatial distribution patterns and some planting background information on demarcation tree species were reported for upland fields in eastern Japan [7] and areas along the Hijikawa River in southwestern Japan [8]. However, because of the lack of comparison studies on farmland demarcation trees, how the findings from these localities are common or unique remains difficult to evaluate.

In this study, we investigated the spatial distribution patterns, folk nomenclature, and uses of farmland demarcation trees on the alluvial plains along the Niyodo River in the Kochi Prefecture of Shikoku Island, southwestern Japan. Based on the results, we discuss the commonality and uniqueness of demarcation tree culture at different localities and share ethnobotanical knowledge of specific tree species maintained around homesteads in Japan.

#### **2. Material and Methods**

#### *2.1. Study Area*

Farmland demarcation trees were investigated in areas along the Niyodo River in Kochi Prefecture (Figure 1). In the present and our past studies [7,8], "demarcation" was visually assessed at each study site depending on the kind of crops and the differences in soil and weed management conditions of adjacent farm parcels with isolated trees along their boundaries. Therefore, demarcation may not be directly relevant to the land ownership.

According to the climate data obtained at the Susaki weather station (1981–2010), the mean annual temperature was 16.7 ◦C and mean annual rainfall was 2604.3 mm. Upland fields and paddy fields predominate the alluvial plains, and steep mountains surround the river basin. Therefore, flooding has repeatedly damaged the farmland and residential areas for centuries [9].

#### *2.2. Marker Sampling*

We mostly followed the protocol of our previous study [8] for marker sampling and interviews. We recorded the demarcation trees on the alluvial plains between the Yokobatake area at the upper reach and the Harunochou Saibata area at the lower reach of the Niyodo River. The names of all of the districts investigated here were recorded in farm production statistics collected in the 16th century [10]. Depending on the size of the farmland area and the abundance of demarcation trees remaining at each village, we randomly selected one to three sampling points in each small village area. As an exception, however, the sampling point including densely resprouted and possibly older *D. crenata* individuals at the Imanari district was arbitrarily added, because we considered it important to discuss the diversity and traditional state of tree composition. At each selected sampling point, up to five farmland boundaries marked with isolated woody plants were explored and the species of each marker plant was identified. At a location in the Oochi area, only one individual of *Ligustrum obtusifolium* on a farmland boundary was recorded. This datum was omitted from the following analysis on

tree composition. For the other sampling points, at least two farmland boundaries marked with demarcation trees were included in the analysis. Consequently, a total of 33 locations were surveyed from 22 August to 12 September 2019. In this paper, the plant nomenclature follows the YList [11] and the plant species origin and leaf types follow Miyawaki et al. [12].

**Figure 1.** Study site location, scenery, and examples of four demarcation trees. (**a**) Maps of the study site. (**b**) Demarcation trees in upland fields in the Imanari area, Ochi town. (**c**) *Euonymus japonicus*, (**d**) *Ligustrum obtusifolium*, (**e**) *Deutzia crenata*, and (**f**) *Celtis sinensis.*

The longitude and latitude of the boundary markers were recorded by comparing their positions in the farmland with that on photographs available on the internet (cyberjapandata.gsi.go.jp) taken by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan [13]. For the map created using Quantum GIS software version 2.18.16 [14], the mean longitude and latitude of surveyed markers around each chosen point were used as the representative point. The village section data were obtained from [15].

#### *2.3. Interviews*

Semi-structured interviews were conducted at 32 locations close to the marker sampling points. The informants were composed of 22 males, 8 females, and two couples in the following age groups: 50 s (*n* = 1), 60 s (*n* = 6), 70 s (*n* = 17), 80 s (*n* = 6), 90 s (*n* = 1), unknown (*n* = 1). Because the collection of information on the demarcation tree history was our priority, when we met several family members at a focal field, we chose the oldest informant (s) for interviewing. In each interview, we asked about the following items: the local name of the marker species that was present at the informant's or neighboring fields, the reason that species was chosen, multiple uses of plants, introducer and introduction period, means of planting, and management method. We also recorded the additional information provided during the interviews. Hereafter, the local plant names and folk habit are written in italic type.

#### **3. Statistical Analysis**

The compositional similarities of demarcation tree species among the 33 locations were compared by hierarchical clustering [16]. The matrix used in this analysis consists of 33 rows (locations) and 11 columns (marker species), and each cell is filled with the presence/absence of each species at each study location. Using this matrix, dissimilarity indices based on the Jaccard index were calculated and hierarchical clustering was performed with complete linkage. In this study area, the number of *E. japonicus* individuals was especially high from the upper to middle reaches, which made it difficult to examine the compositional variation characterized by some minor accompanying species when the abundance-based distance measures were used. Therefore, the Jaccard index was adopted. This analysis was conducted with the *vegan* and *gplots* packages using R software version 3.3.3 [17].

#### **4. Results**

#### *4.1. Spatial Distribution of the Marker Plants*

As shown in Table 1, we recorded a total of 250 individuals of 11 woody species (including formerly cultivated crop tree varieties of *Morus* sp.). The cluster analysis distinguished four marker composition groups at the minimum level of pruning of the dendrogram (Figure 2). Group 1 (*n* = 5) was characterized by the presence of *L. obtusifolium* and partly *Ce. sinensis* and the absence of *E. japonicus*. Group 2 (*n* = 5) was characterized by the presence of *D. crenata*. Group 3 (*n* = 4) was characterized by the co-presence of *L. obtusifolium*, *Ce. sinensis*, and *E. japonicus*. Group 4 (*n* = 19) was characterized by the presence of *E. japonicus* and the absence of most other species. Group 1 was located in areas along the right bank of the middle to lower reaches (Figure 3). Groups 2 and 3 occurred sporadically between the upper and lower reaches. Group 4 was located at the upper reaches and in areas along the left bank of the middle reaches.


**Table 1.** Observed number of individuals, local name, species origin, and morphology of demarcation tree species in areas along the Niyodo River.

<sup>a</sup> Asterisk indicates the standard Japanese name of the plant species. DN indicates that the informant did not know the plant name. F indicates that the informant forgot the plant name; <sup>b</sup> A, alien species; *N*, native species; <sup>c</sup> *D*, deciduous; *E*, evergreen.

**Figure 2.** Dendrogram of woody plant species planted as demarcation trees at 33 survey locations along the Niyodo River, Kochi Prefecture. The four marker composition groups, which were determined by pruning this dendrogram at the minimum level of branching, correspond to the labeled numbers in Figure 3.

–

– **Figure 3.** Distribution of the four marker composition groups along the Niyodo River, Kochi Prefecture. In the surveyed area, the Niyodo River follows a southeastern course. The numbers (1–4, highlighted in cyan) indicate the marker composition groups shown in Figure 2. Village names are highlighted in yellow. The dash-dotted yellow lines show the village boundaries. The recent aerial photograph was obtained from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (Chiriin-chizu; https://maps.gsi.go.jp/).

#### *4.2. Folk Nomenclature*

The folk nomenclature recorded for the four dominant species indicated simple naming systems, and for the most part scientific names of trees correspond well to a specific local name (e.g., *masaki* used for *E. japonicus*, *enoki* used for *Ce. sinensis*) or similar local names (e.g., *nezu* and *nezunoki* [-*noki* means tree in Japanese] used for *L. obtusifolium*). The origin and meaning of the name *tsuge* for *D. crenata* was unknown, but it may be a slight modification or misremembering of *utsuge*. According to a male informant at Takaokachou, the Japanese word *nezu* means "do not sleep and keep the watch" (*nezu-ni-ban-wo-suru*). Another male informant at Nagoya stated that there were at least two other species named *nezu*. These statements indicate that the planting practices for demarcation trees are linked strongly to the folk generic name *nezu* in some localities.

#### *4.3. Introduction, Management, and Multiple Usage*

According to the interviews, nine informants planted their demarcation trees using cuttings of *E. japonicus*. One informant at Nagahata planted *Eurya emarginata*, the source of which was unknown. A male informant at Takaokachou stated that the *Morus* individuals remaining on his neighboring farmland boundaries were left after the cessation of silkworm raising in the area and may not be demarcation trees. In the study region, sericulture drastically declined during WWII [18]. Except for these answers, 31 informants stated that they did not know the origin of old demarcation trees, because most of them were planted before they were born.

Some informants proposed the reason of species choice as the durability of trees against repetitive cutting in the cropping environments for *E. japonicus* (*n* = 3) and *L. obtusifolium* (*n* = 1). Another reason given was the ease of management because of slow growth and the size at maturity for *D. crenata* (*n* = 1) and *L. obtusifolium* (n = 1) and the rigorous resprouting ability of *D. crenata* (*n* = 1). The informants reported no strict season or way of cutting for the marker individuals of *E. japonicus* (*n* = 16), *D. crenata* (*n* = 8), *L. obtusifolium* (*n* = 5), *Ce. sinensis* (*n* = 2), *Euonymus sieboldianus* (*n* = 1), or *E. emarginata* (*n* = 1).

The shaded areas around *E. japonicus* (*n* = 2), *Ce. sinensis*, and *E. sieboldianus* (*n* = 1) trees were used for resting places. After WWII, local florists collected the branches of *E. japonicus* in the Imanari area (*n* = 1). Although not always acquired from demarcation trees, long and straight stems of *D. crenata* were used for the sticks, called *magozue,* which were used in traditional funeral ceremonies in the Nagahata area (*n* = 1). Bamboo species (*n* = 2, in the Nagahata and Minamikataoka areas) and the stems of a fern locally called *onishida* (*n* = 1 in the Miyaji area) were also used as *magozue*.

#### *4.4. Marker Replacement and Removal*

One informant in the Miyaji area stated that although, at present, many tree individuals used for demarcation are *E. japonicus*, there were more *D. crenata* individuals in the past. Some informants stated that some trees were removed because they became obstacles for machine plowing or agricultural production in the Imanari area (*n* = 2). Others noted that there used to be more individual demarcation trees in the past in the Yananose Honmura and Takaokachou areas (*n* = 2). Moreover, another informant in the Kada area stated that after public farmland surveys were conducted and artificial pillar markers were placed, there was no need to maintain the traditional tree markers.

#### **5. Discussion**

#### *5.1. Commonality and Uniqueness of Tree Species Choice*

A comparison of the present study with previous reports [6–8] shows that the dominance of *E. japonicus* and *D. crenata* in some districts and *Morus* individuals, perhaps left after their use for commercial sericulture, were common in those places. In contrast, the dominance or sub-dominance of *L. obtusifolium* was unique in the study region. Moreover, the dominance of *Chaenomeles speciosa* and the relatively frequent *Salix* usage (including a fiber crop variety *Salix koriyanagi* and wild species *Salix pierotii* and *Salix chaenomeloides*) along the Hijikawa River areas in Ozu city [8] and the dominance of *D. crenata* accompanying sub-dominant *Pourthiaea villosa* and the tea plant Ca. *sinensis* in some parts of the Ibaraki Prefecture, Eastern Japan [7] were also respectively unique. Although the reason why such distinct variation of dominant tree abundance was observed among those places remains unclear, the use of *Morus*, *S. koriyanagi*, and Ca. *sinensis* highlights that maintaining the former crops for demarcation is a common behavior of local farmers.

#### *5.2. Implications from Folk Nomenclature*

The local name *nezu* or *nezunoki* and its etymological meaning ("the trees do not sleep and keep the watch") for *L. obtusifolium* seem indigenous. The statement of folk generic use of *nezu* for several different species also highlights that the wording reflects the importance of demarcation tree planting along the right bank of the middle to lower reaches of the Niyodo River. In this study region, many local people (12 out of 18 informants, Table 1) recognized the name of *E. japonicus* as *masaki*, which is also the scientific name in Japanese. In contrast, the local people living along the Hijikawa River hardly recognized the correct plant name and often called *E. japonicus boke*, which is the local and scientific name of another dominant demarcation tree species, *C. speciosa* [8]. These differing degrees of recognition of *E. japonicus* in the two relatively close localities indicate that, although the species used and landscapes are similar, their planting background seems independent of each other. As noted in previous ethnobiological research [19–22], the comparison of the folk nomenclature gathered in this

study with that from previous works, such as [8], can deepen the ethnobiological understanding of local plant use.

#### *5.3. Folk Plant Usages*

Although the demarcation trees were seldom used for multiple purposes, some statements provided important insights. These examples were the use of *D. crenata* sticks at home funerals and the historical commercial use of *E. japonicus* in the florist trade. A previous report from Hidaka village in Kochi Prefecture [23] and our results show that using small sticks made of various plant materials, known as *magozue*, at home funerals was part of the traditional ritual in at least several villages in the Niyodo River basin. Similarly, a single stick of *D. crenata* was laid beside the dead body at home funerals in central Japan [24] and eastern Japan [7]. As frequently mentioned in the old Waka poems [25] and represented in the naming of the month *uzuki* in the Japanese calendar, *D. crenata* is a symbolic plant in Japanese culture. In addition to these features, the use of *D. crenata* sticks at home funerals may be another motivation for local people to maintain this species around their homesteads in wide areas across Japan. The use of *E. japonicus* by florists was also recorded in the Hijikawa area after WWII [8] and in eastern Japan before the war [6]. These ornamental needs in the early to mid-20th century and the ease of planting by cuttings may be additional reasons for the increase of *E. japonicus* markers in recent decades in different rural areas.

#### **6. Conclusions**

This study elucidated the unique tree composition and some background of the trees' planting based on folk nomenclature and usage in areas along the Niyodo River. Our findings shed light on the commonalities and uniqueness of demarcation tree culture across various landscapes. Moreover, this study provides insight into the ritual importance of *D. crenata* at home funerals across Japan, perhaps since olden times. However, local people in the study region have been gradually removing the demarcation trees because they are becoming obstacles as agricultural practices are modernized and the trees are being replaced with artificial pillars after public land surveying. Although the trees may have few practical merits in present-day food production and land management systems, the different composition of demarcation tree species and local peoples' intangible ethnobotanical knowledge of these trees in each landscape represent an invaluable cultural heritage and should be conserved. In further research, the regional variation of demarcation tree landscapes and their ethnobotanical history should be examined using similar multidisciplinary approaches. In such projects, the collection of information from local elderly informants must be prioritized, because such information is irretrievable after generational change in rural communities.

**Author Contributions:** Y.T. conceived of and designed the study and K.H. supported data collection. F.Y., K.K., and M.O. provided comments on local plant use and folk habits. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

**Funding:** This study was supported by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant (18K05696).

**Acknowledgments:** We thank all the villagers who consented to be interviewed.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

#### **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*

### **What Di**ff**erence Does Public Participation Make? An Alternative Futures Assessment Based on the Development Preferences for Cultural Landscape Corridor Planning in the Silk Roads Area, China**

### **Haiyun Xu 1,\*, Tobias Plieninger 2,3 , Guohan Zhao <sup>1</sup> and Jørgen Primdahl <sup>1</sup>**


Received: 12 October 2019; Accepted: 12 November 2019; Published: 19 November 2019 -

**Abstract:** Landscape corridor planning (LCP) has become a widespread practice for promoting sustainable regional development. This highly complex planning process covers many policy and planning issues concerning the local landscape, and ideally involves the people who live in the area to be developed. In China, regional planners and administrators encourage the development of landscape corridor planning. However, the current LCP process rarely considers ideas from local residents, and public participation is not recognized as beneficial to planning outcomes. We use a specific Chinese case of LCP to analyze how citizen involvement may enrich sustainable spatial planning in respect to ideas considered and solutions developed. To this end, we compare a recently approved landscape corridor plan that was created without public participation with alternative solutions for the same landscape corridor, developed with the involvement of local residents. These alternatives were then evaluated by professional planners who had been involved in the initial planning process. We demonstrate concrete differences between planning solutions developed with and without public participation. Further, we show that collaborative processes can minimize spatial conflicts. Finally, we demonstrate that public participation does indeed contribute to innovations that could enrich the corridor plan that had been produced exclusively by the decision-makers. The paper closes with a discussion of difficulties that might accompany the involvement of local residents during sustainable LCP in China.

**Keywords:** cultural landscape corridor planning; participation; conflicts; development preferences; alternative future assessments; scenario planning

#### **1. Introduction**

Landscape corridor planning (LCP) has become a widespread practice in recent decades, partly driven by a collective shift toward protecting against fragmentation caused by infrastructure and other urban and agricultural development, and partly as a way to promote regional sustainable development and to enhance ecological and cultural values. LCP typically includes traditional approaches to landscape planning including surveys and an analysis of spatial patterns, functions, and changes, combined with various forms of stakeholder involvement in the plan-making process [1]. Throughout the paper, LCP is understood to be a form of spatial planning through which future developments

of the landscape corridor in question are both envisioned and controlled through different measures. Land use regulations, management incentives, habitat restoration and tourist facility investments are examples of such measures. In the next section, we discuss the field of planning with reference to a traditional definition of planning and a more strategic form of spatial planning.

Landscape corridors, or "greenways" [2], are linear patterns that provide connectivity across landscapes and regions and are thus subject to public spatial planning processes. LCP represents a complex form of planning that includes an array of policy and planning issues and involves many types of expertise decision-makers [3,4]. Whereas early approaches to landscape corridor planning were based almost exclusively on landscape analysis and judgements made by planning experts [5,6], these planning processes have become common practice in many countries.

Although the value and role of public participation in spatial planning have been discussed for a long time, the development and the current state of the art in terms of participatory approaches to planning vary significantly from country to country. In the West, there is a long tradition for public participation, whereas developing countries like China, participation represents a relatively new dimension of planning.

For instance, as early as the 1960s, Davidoff claimed that an inclusive planning process encourages a more democratic form of urban planning and management [7]. Since then, planning scholars have emphasized the increasing importance of public participation during regional plan-making. Over time, public participation came to be regarded as a means of reflecting democratic ideals within local planning and development [8–10], and multiple case studies have since indicated that broader public participation and collaboration can improve the process of planning and managing landscapes [11,12]. Despite these benefits, there are to our knowledge no studies of the concrete differences in planning solutions between planning with or without participation to indicate potential enrichments through participation, and there surely are no such studies with reference to China. From a planning solution point of view, participation appears to under-researched.

Despite this scholarly shortcoming, there been a long-standing debate about the value of public participation, including whether it is necessary or worthwhile to incorporate public input into decision-making [13]. For example, the process of collecting local resident feedback requires more resources because municipalities have to satisfy more stakeholders, resulting in more lengthy and costly planning and construction processes [14], or because the collaborative process sometimes could be deliberately designed to slow down environmental decision-making to favour the status quo instead of promoting the new project [15].

On this background, we will be focusing on how public participation may contribute to planning solutions in LCP using one specific case study: the landscape corridor plan in Zhangye Municipality located within the historic Silk Roads region in Western China. Our focus was the potential for the participation of local residents to enrich the overall planning content.

Landscape corridor planning in China has received increased policy attention, especially after the Silk Roads areas and the Great Canal were included as cultural routes in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites [16,17]. Several local and regional corridors have been or currently are being planned along these sites, and the typical planning approach is mainly based on expert analysis and judgement, supplemented only with the preferences of high-level municipal decision-makers. Here, public participation in the planning process has not been recognized as beneficial to planning outcomes in LCP.

Given this background, and with reference to the Zhangye planning case, we thus addressed the following questions: (1) To what extent does the planning content related to land use zoning and proposed major landscape projects differ from local stakeholder development preferences? and (2) What differences would have been made to the planning content if the planning process had included participation from local residents? (3) How do professional planners involved in the current plan perceive alternative plan solutions based on after-the-fact inputs from local residents?

#### **2. Landscape Corridor Planning—Approaches to Analysis and Public Participation**

Upon review of the dominant definitions of planning in the 1970s, Lundquist [18] suggested the following (translated from Swedish): "Planning is a future-oriented process through which the actor seeks control over the environment in order to be able to pursue his intentions." This definition is about pursuing the intentions of an "actor", and gaining control to make the future more certain. Landscape planning at that time was about surveying and analyzing the conditions and potential of a given landscape based on proposed planning solutions, which basically were about protecting what should not be changed, and locating new developments based on the best available areas and sites outside these protected areas. In Ian McHarg's book Design with Nature, such an approach formed the backbone of these highly innovative examples, showing how to integrate ecological dimensions into spatial planning for different types of landscapes and planning problems, and on different scales [5].

Since those early interpretations, this approach to spatial planning developed further in Europe and North America and has become a practice that includes stakeholders of various kinds. There are several reasons for this, including some related to politics and economics, but the bottom line is that over time, it has simply become increasingly clear that spatial planning and subsequent implementation does not function well without the involvement of key stakeholders [19,20]. Collaborations, co-design, and co-creations have become common terms for such approaches. According to Healey [21], strategic spatial planning may be understood as "a self-conscious collective effort to re-imagine a city, urban region or wider territory, and to translate the result into priorities for the area and strategic infrastructure investments, conservation measures, and principles of land use regulation."

Public participation and stakeholder involvement has also gained importance in landscape planning [22], including LCP [2]. It may, however, still be an exaggeration to claim that public participation is mainstream in LCP practice. In a review of LCP cases in Europe, it was found that public stakeholders and their approaches to involving public participation were rarely considered in current landscape corridor planning practices [1]. In traditional landscape planning, including LCP, various surveys and analyses of the landscape in question are carried out to support the implementation of the plan. Such work includes historical map-based analyses, sustainability analyses of various kinds, ecological analyses, several analyses of climate conditions, visual analyses, and many others [23]. Turner [24,25] has, for instance, criticized this Survey-Analysis-Design approach for being too mechanistic, and for being based on the assumption that, if done properly, such surveys and analyses may, more or less automatically, lead to complete planning solutions. Turner terms it the SAD approach because it often leads to "sad results". Stiles [26], on the other hand, disagrees with this view, arguing instead that the SAD approach should not be abandoned because, despite its limitations, it nonetheless supports rational solutions and remains open to criticism.

Whereas it is difficult to imagine that an LCP process can be carried out without surveys and analyses, we can nevertheless agree with Turner that in practice, the SAD method may not be sufficient to deal efficiently or effectively with most landscape planning problems. It is basically based on expert judgements alone and, as such, may hamper collaboration on priority tasks and in creating design solutions.

#### **3. Public Participation in Planning Process in China**

Spatial planning in China has developed mainly as an expert-driven technical process that focuses on social, economic, and environment objectives formulated in advance by governmental bodies, as well as on the physical organization of space as understood and designed mainly by professional planners [27]. Even though balancing different demands of public and private interests is a key element in spatial planning process [28], the current top-down planning process in China has a large effect on which public interests are given a voice in spatial planning, including LCP.

In China, although public participation in spatial planning is far from widespread, it is evolving, and a fast-growing body of literature arguing for more participation in Chinese planning is emerging. Still, more research about the effects of community participation, public hearings, social impact

assessments, and user discussions in regional sustainable development are needed [29–31], as Chinese political and economic systems are different from some modelled Western capitalist systems. It is therefore likely that including public involvement in Chinese landscape planning practices will evolve in other ways. These differences are due largely to weakly developed state-civil society relationships and environmental legislation [30].

According to Van der Ploeg, ignoring local resident interests on local resources and land use can lead to conflicts around rural development in China [32]. Conflicts in the past decades have been mainly due to the lack of a clear set of common interests among the highly diverse populations of rural China [33]. These conflicts are thus caused by diverse interests among differing groups of people, a classic situation in planning everywhere in the world. For instance, residents, the committees of each village, and the municipality would have different interests in development directions for local land use and rural development planning. In this context, the idea of enabling local populations to present their common interests during planning and decision-making has therefore received increasing attention from Chinese authorities.

Given this history, our study analyzes how the involvement of public citizens in a Chinese context may enrich spatial planning with respect to ideas and solutions. We accomplish this by selecting a recently approved landscape corridor plan, investigating how alternative plan solutions could have been developed through local resident involvement, and further reviewing these alternatives with a group of professional planners who were involved in the original planning process.

#### **4. Material and Methods**

#### *4.1. Study Area and Current Corridor Plan*

A Silk Roads cultural landscape corridor plan in a suburb area of Zhangye Municipality (Figure 1) was used to analyze a local, recently approved landscape corridor plan, and to investigate the implications of public participation for innovating planning content. The corridor plan was first proposed by the local municipality as a part of a conservation project along the Silk Roads region in Western China in 2015. Since the Silk Roads were added onto the list of World Heritage Sites in 2014, the municipalities located in these regions began to promote various local cultural landscape conservation and development projects. There exists as well an overall regional plan that aims to protect local natural resources and heritage sites, improve the local agricultural food production industry system, and promote regional cultural and ecological tourism development. The regional development of the whole Silk Roads cultural landscape corridor will be guided by a number of local corridor plans. The case analyzed in this paper is one such local plan.

**Figure 1.** The location of the Zhangye cultural landscape corridor plan along the Silk Roads in Northwestern China. (**A**). General map of the Silk Roads area; (**B**). Our study area within the Silk Roads region, surrounded by the Badajilin Desert in the north and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the South; (**C**). The current Zhangye cultural landscape corridor plan, including the proposed tourism trail and proposed development package projects (approved by local decision-makers).

Our study area is located in the narrow central part of the Heixi Corridor, historically known as the sole route used by ancient Silk Roads traders to pass between the northern Badajilin Desert and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the South (Figure 1A,B). The existing Silk Roads linear heritage within Zhangye Municipality includes stretches of the Great Wall of China along with numerous temples, heritage trading sites, cave sculptures and other architectural remnants of historical civilizations and their early cultural exchanges with Europe.

In 2015, Zhangye municipality's corridor project started with the idea of building a recreational trail that would revitalize the region by connecting these Silk Roads cultural sites. Prior to plan implementation, pedestrian and tourist access to these cultural sites, or even to the scenic landscapes between them, was characterized by discontinuity. Hence, decision-makers from local municipalities began looking for a way to connect existing Silk Roads cultural resources while also enhancing opportunities for recreational and tourist activities via a connected corridor plan. Developed by China Agricultural University and with the support of local planning departments in 2017, one such corridor plan was then adopted by Zhangye municipality. The aim of that plan was to preserve and strengthen the existing landscape patterns and vegetation, while at the same time emphasizing the aforementioned historical and cultural areas. In short, the plan would combine the local agricultural and ecotourism industries for the betterment of regional sustainable development. With a positive outlook, this proposal for the cultural landscape corridor was approved. Implementation spanning the area between ten different villages began in Summer 2018. The current cultural landscape plan, presented in Figure 1C, includes: (1) a greenway corridor that contains a newly planted vineyard along the river and a recreational trail, as well as plans for a wine cultural resort; (2) a desert sports park; (3) a Chinese medicine garden; (4) a Chinese medicine-focused health and culture resort; (5) a rural recreation system with access to the river tributary, including access to eight tourism service centers, reception centers, and homestay dwellings along the recreation trail; (6) a fruit cultivation area; and (7)

a central Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural tourist area. The tourist area will be built in the pseudo-classic style of a tourism village, with the Silk Roads cultural features being the focus of the outside reception areas and the Danxia landform scenic area visible to the West.

#### *4.2. Methods*

Based on our analysis of the current plan, a two-step framework was designed to study the potential enrichments that could be gained by including local resident participation in building the final plan: (1) Exploring the conflict area through different development preferences between local residents and decision-makers; and (2) Assessing alternative future development through scenario planning. Our final study applied a variety of different methods and research techniques, including local resident participatory mapping surveys, spatial analyses (Kernel Density analysis), semi-structured interviews, group meetings and workshops, and scenario planning.

#### 4.2.1. Conflict Areas with Different Development Preferences Between Local Stakeholders and Decision Makers

Different stakeholders—from farmers, to local tourist operators, village residents, political decision makers, or professional planners—are likely to have different perspectives and preferences concerning spatial development [19]. Conflicts may therefore appear during the planning process, specifically concerning the promotion and development of different land use areas. In this study, we explore such conflict areas by comparing elements of the current plan with the spatial implications we create based on local stakeholder preferences.

#### 4.2.2. Building the Map of Local Resident Preferences

The spatial patterns that arose from an analysis of local resident views were built via a participatory mapping practice using local residents' development preferences. We performed this participatory mapping survey in January 2018, when the research team, with the help of the municipality's planning department, was introduced to the committees of ten villages along the Silk Roads corridor. Our researchers went to these 10 villages and informed local residents about our roles, the surveys, and our main aims thanks to the committees in each village. We then selected our participants randomly and independently from this committee sample. Finally, 20 participants from each village were invited by researchers, through snowball sampling (*n* = 200), to participate in small group interviews. We began these interviews by showing each two- or three-member group a satellite image of the village in question and a paper map covering the ten villages, thereby displaying current land cover, as well as the locations of current residential settlements. These steps were used to help respondents identify the locations of their familiar landmarks, as well as the location of each village within our study area.

Next, we used the corridor planning proposal to explain future area plans to participant-residents. Then, in response to our questions, these individuals were asked to mark which areas they thought were the most suitable toward the future planning of each kind of development preference, using questions like, "Which place do you think is most suitable for planning a desert sports park within this area?." Respondents' development preferences were then mapped using a pencil to draw points on the ten-village paper map mentioned above. To gain a deeper understanding of these preferences, our researchers then asked participants about the reasoning behind their chosen preferences.

From there, we digitalized the mapped points into ArcGIS (version 10.6, ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA) and used a Kernel Density analysis that together produced an accurate spatial distribution of our gathered data. We then applied the Kernel Density analysis again, this time performed by matching each point with its nearest neighbour using hierarchical clustering. Our active variables became those "hotspots" on our spatial pattern showing these participant data-points, revealing which areas attracted the most attention on our Kernel Density heat maps. Using this heat map, our team was thus able to gather a quantitative overview of the development preferences of our local participants.

#### 4.2.3. Overlapping the Spatial Patterns of Local Resident Views with the Current Plan

The current corridor plan also contains a spatial outline that indicates the objectives and development directions of the Silk Roads area based on decision-makers' preferences. By overlapping the spatial patterns we had documented from local resident preferences with those of the current corridor plan, we could discover and further explore potential conflict areas between the two sets of development preferences. The layout of development projects on the current plan (e.g., vineyard corridor, desert sports park, rural tourism greenbelt) reveal the development preferences and patterns of the decision-makers involved in initial corridor planning. As such, overlapping each group's preferences also helped us analyze which areas had similar data stratification, showing us where the development preferences of each party are compatible, or similar. From there, we selected those villages where local residents had few or no development preferences, indicating the most profound conflict areas are between the two groups.

#### 4.2.4. Alternative Futures Assessment Through Scenario Planning for the Conflict Area

Scenario planning is a method used for making long-term plans about the future, with the aim of fair decision and policymaking. This practice is widely used in geography, business, and politics [30] where scenarios are identified as a description of the possible future state of something, including event sequences that could lead from the current state of affairs to (or toward) a preferred future state [31]. We completed several alternative futures assessments through scenario planning for the conflict areas as mentioned in the above overlapping step. Based on the different development preferences of local residents and actual decision-maker, we constructed different scenarios to describe plausible alternative futures of our focus corridor planning area. While there is no single approach to scenario planning, and related literature shows various methodologies for building such scenarios [34,35], scenario planning generally emphasizes the following steps:


In this context, the existing corridor plan—with updated development directions—would be considered to represent the driving force behind changes to the local land. As a consequence, alternative futures based on either resident or decision-maker preferences were used as our scenario guidelines. It turned out that photorealistic visualizations based on land photos comprised an efficient tool for presenting planning metrics [37] (less-effective tools included GIS-based modelled landform surfaces, drawing, figures, etc.) [38,39].

Further exploration of scenario-planning itself showed that this method is especially useful for visualizing smaller-scale projects because it enables the presentation of details that are important for non-expert stakeholders [36,40]. With these considerations in mind, our team selected photorealistic visualizations as our primary tool for explaining and contextualizing our scenario discussions with non-expert, resident stakeholders. Following this visualization process, we then discussed our findings with these stakeholders during group meetings, using these mapped tools to best present the planning, construction, and function issues of each scenario, as well as their impact on local development.

Our study used a single, bird's eye view photograph rendered using Google Earth's satellite imagery, adding to it our data relating to those villages with development planning conflicts between local residents and decision-makers. Using Photoshop CS 6.0 (Adobe, San Jose, CA, USA), we further visualized our given scenarios by adding different layers, each containing different elements of our alternative future assessments to the original bird's-eye photograph.

During the process producing these photographs, significant new landscape elements of each alternative future were turned "on" or "off" depending on responses from the stakeholders' development preferences. Gradually these photographs were supplemented with detailed illustrations describing the full spectrum of activities and infrastructures each scenario represented. All of these

materials helped the stakeholders to better understand the areas. We then used the two bird's eye photographs to discuss the scenario planning with different stakeholder groups, which includes three steps:


First of all, we performed a verification process: each of the two bird's eye photographs presented an alternative future based on separate expressions of the two sets of development preferences (residents and decision-makers; scenarios 1 and 2, respectively). The alternative futures visualized in two additional scenarios were subsequently discussed with decision-makers as well as small groups of residents. Based on feedback from resident groups, we modified the then-current scenario 1 into one that was even more consistent with the residents' development preference. We made a new scenario 2 by performing the same process with decision-makers (Figure 2). All of this is a part of verifying that our constructed scenarios corresponded to the preferences of the two groups.

**Figure 2.** Framework of alternative futures assessment through scenario planning.

For step two, respondents were asked to discuss the differences that arose when combining the development preferences of both residents and decision-makers. We then modified and improved the new scenarios 1 and 2 to become scenarios 3 and 4 by combining these two different group opinions (Figure 2).

For step three, we invited five professionals who participated in the original Silk Roads corridor project to examine our four scenarios, as well as share their views as to the impact of each scenario. These conversations took the form of semi-structured interviews. The five professionals had already worked as a team together for one month on this project. All of them participated during the whole process, from fieldwork to final overall proposal (Figure 1C). However, they were not aware of details within the proposal, or specific impacts on specific villages. In this respect, they could be regarded as the outsiders (third parties) who were familiar enough to the case study are to assess the scenarios. We sent the photos of these scenarios to them one day before the interview and invited them for individual assessment interviews. Each interview lasted from 30–60 min and concerned how the individual professional valued each scenario, including how he or she ranked them in order of suitability degree for local development, and the reasons behind the ranking.

#### **5. Results**

#### *5.1. Areas With Conflicting Development Preferences*

#### 5.1.1. Characteristics of Respondents

Our survey covered full- or part-time local residents from ten villages. In total, 200 respondents participated in the survey (53% male and 47% female). Sixty-nine percent were farmers, with the remaining residents being either technology staff (11%), administrators (6%), tourism service (5%), students (9%) or jobless (1%). Thirty-eight percent of respondents had been to high-school and 32 percent were under 30 years old, while 47 percent were between 30 and 60, and two percent were above 60 years old. The majority of our respondents had been settled in the local area of study for more than 20 years (73%).

The questions we asked directly concerned which land use developments local residents preferred. The most frequently supported development preferences were rural tourism and homestays (27%), followed by fruit cultivation (23%). The desert sports park idea (6%) is less attractive for local residents when compared with other development opportunities.

#### 5.1.2. Spatial Patterns of Development Preferences

A Kernel density analysis of the development preferences of specific sites based on local resident perspectives is shown in Figure 3. Similar preferences for rural tourism and homestays were present across all villages within the corridor proposal coverage. Our heat map shows that the highest degree of clustering for given development preferences pertaining to the vineyard and wine cultural resort were common to the southeast part of the region (village 1, village 2). Support for the Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural heritage tourist sites also clustered in these villages, along with village 3. For the Chinese medicine health resort and the desert sports park, support was relatively limited, and present only in villages 8 and 9.

A summary of the compatibility between the development preferences of local residents and decision-makers is as follows: Concerning rural tourism greenbelt planning, no major conflicts were found in nine of the ten included villages (1–9). Decision-makers and local residents shared a common preference for building a Chinese medicine-focused health resort and medicinal garden in villages 8 and 9, and showed a similar interest in developing a vineyard corridor and wine cultural resort in villages 2, 3, and 4. Based on the consensus of local residents and decision-makers, villages 8 and 9 were also considered as potential areas for the cultivation of fruit.

At the same time, there were a few significant differences between the development preferences of decision-makers and local residents. Most importantly, we found that residents frequently pointed out village 1 as the best area for developing a Danxia Landform and Silk Roads cultural tourism area, as it already had red cliff landforms and some Great Wall historical importance. At the same time, decision-makers in the real plan had considered a bare land south of village 10, because of its existing National Danxia Landform Geopark along the Silk Roads corridor.

**Figure 3.** Kernel density heat maps of development preferences for local residents. (**A**) All kinds of development preferences; (**B**) Chinese medicine health resort; (**C**) Rural tourism; (**D**) Vineyard and wine cultural resort; (**E**) Chinese medicine planting; (**F**) Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural tourism area (as the location of the planned desert sports park); (**G**) Fruit cultivation; and (**H**) Desert sports park. A higher density of points is visualized in dark purple, with lower densities in light purple.

To summarize, we narrowed down the major conflict areas to be within the development preferences of village 1—which included differing local resident preferences for the Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural tourism areas, and different decision-maker preferences for the Desert sports park—and of village 5, which included differences in local preferences for fruit cultivation as well as in decision-makers' preferences limiting the development to a vineyard corridor. In this case, there are no 'hotspots' of development preferences for local residents in village 10, even though decision-makers have in fact planned the Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural tourism areas there.

When we started this research, both the municipality and all local village committees had confirmed the proposed village 1 desert park. Meanwhile, village 5 merged with another village and a new village committee had been elected. To date, the vineyard corridor proposal has not yet been confirmed at the village level, and the new committee is considering changes. On this background we selected village 1, which has an unambiguous conflict between the preferences of local residents and current proposal (Figure 3F), for further analysis and assessment. Our goal was to work toward a better and more focused understanding of possible alternatives (or combinations of alternatives) during the next phase of our study.

#### *5.2. Comparing the Di*ff*erences between Alternative Futures through Scenario Planning*

Within our assigned conflict area, we then made our detail bird's eye view photo of the planned sample area for scenario planning in village1, following different development guidelines (Figure 4A–C). The local original landscape includes cultivated land along the river, artificial surfaces, and bare land with red Danxia landforms (Figure 4B,C). The guidelines for scenario planning included (1) Local resident development preferences: Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural tourism areas, and (2) Decision-makers' development preferences (the current plan): Desert sports park.

**Figure 4.** The four conflicting scenarios for village 1. (**A**) Conflict area in village 1; (**B**) Detailed view of the project area: all circular images in subsequent figures are visualizations of this original landscape; (**C**) The Enlarged area for scenario planning (**D**) Four scenarios based on different development directions.

After a thorough discussion with local residents and decision-makers during our scenario verification and combination process, the following four sections with subtitles describe the scenarios that we finalized as Figure 4. The scenario descriptions are followed by the results we collected based on local resident and decision-maker comments during group meetings. In addition, these scenarios reveal the presence of the planned sample area in relation to the current plan, in the event that one of the four development directions dominates after the Silk Roads cultural landscape corridor plan has been completed (Figure 4).

Finally, we created four scenarios of the future, each guided by a different set of development preferences (see Figures 5–8). For better presenting the differences of different scenarios; we enlarged the landscape change area as Figure 4C. These assumptions are of crucial importance toward an accurate presentation of the complex processes and alternative futures that shape landscapes in general, and this narrow corridor in the specific.

**Figure 5.** Scenario 1, guided by local resident development preferences. (The figure is a detail from the planning area of the scenario 1 poster shown to the local residents.).

**Figure 6.** Scenario 2, guided by decision-maker development preferences based on the current plan (The figure enlarged the planning area of the poster of scenario 2 shown to the decision-makers).

**Figure 7.** Scenario 3, guided by local resident development preferences combined with decision maker ideas (The figure enlarged the planning area of the poster of scenario 3 shown to the local residents).

**Figure 8.** Scenario 4, guided by decision-maker development preferences combined with local resident ideas (The figure enlarged the planning area of the poster of scenario 2 shown to the decision-makers).

#### 5.2.1. Scenario 1—A Scenario Guided by Local Residents' Development Preferences

In our first scenario, we assume that the area has been developed based exclusively on the preferences of local residents, meaning it has become a tourist area focusing on the Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural histories. The plan mainly consists of a large central plaza, a recreational and residential district built in the historical style, and a temple with adequate open space. The entrance plaza includes a folk customs museum, a sculpture of a local legend and hero, and other supporting amenities like parking areas. The folk recreational and residential district includes various recreational and reception facilities such as shopping streets, homestay venues, and distinctive small hotels, restaurants, and bars; the recreational and residential districts are separated by a landscaped artificial water channel. At this future moment, planning continues for a Loong Temple at the end of the channel, complete with open space for local market days and religious festivals. In this scenario, this cultural landscape corridor project provides cultural education, recreation and tourism functions relating to the Silk Roads culture, experiences, and folk customs, all with local Danxia landform scenery as the background.

#### 5.2.2. Scenario 2—The Scenario of Decision-Makers' Development Preferences

In the second scenario, which visualizes decision-makers' development preferences as reflected in the current plan, we see an area that has developed as a desert sports park attractive to tourists. According to the requirements outlined by decision-makers, the desert sports park consists of a main gate (with supporting facilities such as a parking area), a large-scale sandy slope for desert recreation, a large-scale bare land area as the desert sports center, an outward-bound camp, and a small garden to commemorate the ruins of a Silk Roads fire tower. The sandy slope area contains facilities for sandboarding, desert safaris, sand cracking, camel riding and a telpher. The bare land area includes hiking trails that facilitate the exploration of the Danxia landforms (with the roads and spaces also built for cross-country training and other events like mountain biking and off-road vehicle racing), a reception centre for desert sporting events, and an outward-bound camping area for outward-bound and desert adventurers. In this scenario, the desert park has been established as a unique tourist attraction along the regional cultural landscape corridor, and the developed area provides all the functions expected for cultural heritage conservation, desert recreation, hosting sports training and events, and professional outward-bound activities.

5.2.3. Scenario 3—A Scenario Guided By Local Residents' Development Preferences Combined with Decision-Makers' Ideas

In our third scenario, local resident development preferences are combined with existing decision-maker ideas, and we visualize a Danxia landform and Silk Roads cultural tourism area, complete with desert recreation facilities. The layout of the large center plaza, recreational and residential district is built in the historical style, and includes a temple with open space. For this alternative future, facilities have been added to the hillside for desert recreation, such as sandboarding on the sandy slopes, and a telpher connects tourist populations to the Danxia landform. In addition to the main function of cultural education, this scenario focuses on Silk Roads cultural recreation experiences and folk custom tourism, while also providing some desert recreation amenities for more adventurous travellers.

#### 5.2.4. Scenario 4: A Scenario Guided By Decision Makers' Development Preferences Combined with Local Resident Ideas

In the fourth scenario, we assume that identified conflict areas have been developed according to decision-makers' development preferences paired with ideas from local residents. The area has therefore become a desert park with Silk Roads cultural reception areas near the main entrance. This scenario consists of a Silk Roads cultural reception area, an entrance plaza, a large-scale sandy slope area for desert recreation, a large-scale bare land area with an accompanying desert sports centre, an outward-bound camp, and a small garden to commemorate the ruins of a Silk Roads fire tower. The sandy slope and bare land areas provide similar functions as desert recreation amenities, as well as supporting facilities for desert hiking trails and outward-bound centres. The entrance plaza includes a folk customs museum and a main gate as historical features, while the reception area includes specialty restaurants and homestays that are located close to existing villages. In this scenario, this area acts as a functional source for cultural heritage conservation, cultural and folk experience-based tourism, desert recreation, sports training and recreation, and professional outward-bound activities.

#### *5.3. Professionals' Responses to Possible Future Scenarios with and without Local Resident Participation*

After scenario planning, the five professionals involved in the current corridor plan proposal included in our study were interviewed to provide an additional professional assessment of the four scenarios. The five professionals ranged ranging in age from 26 to 41, and two were female while three were male. Each professional came from a different (but relevant) educational background (geography, landscape architecture, urban planning, and architecture), and thus played a different role in developing the current corridor plan.

#### 5.3.1. Differences between Scenarios

When the professionals compared each of the four scenarios, they discovered that any differences between them could be generalized as going in two main directions: on the one hand, scenarios 1 and 3 represented a direction toward cultural tourism, whereas scenarios 2 and 4 focused more on a recreational desert sports park. As a result, the professionals found that scenario 1 was the only of the four to have cultural characteristics mainly consisting of historical buildings. By contrast, these professionals felt scenario 3 included more desert-oriented recreation facilities than scenario 1, owing to the presence of the small-scale desert recreation area planned for that scenario.

Scenario 2, on the other hand, focused on the building of a desert sports park that would contain professional recreation facilities. The reception areas in scenario 2 were planned mainly for cross-country training and camping functions. Out of the four, scenario 4 shows a desert park that integrates characteristics of the Silk Roads culture into supporting facilities that can then be used for the leisurely reception of regular tourists. The professionals also noted differences between scenarios 3 and 4, where each combined the ideas of local residents and related decision-makers:

*"When compared with scenario 3, scenario 4 did not include many of the 'unreasonable' design elements supported by residents. A large-scale shopping street feature, or a canal for water scenes would, for instance, be very di*ffi*cult to maintain, and would a*ff*ect the local environment. As these are both 'unreasonable' design elements for this area, scenario 4 instead developed an industrial output centered on the main desert resource."* (Professional 2)

*"Scenario 4 has better functional zoning than scenario 3. The functions in scenario 4 have a clearer focus on desert recreation, complemented by the supporting facilities containing local features, while the functional zoning in scenario 3 looks more piecemeal."* (Professional 1)

5.3.2. The Most Suitable Scenario for Local Sustainable Development

The professionals were asked to rank the assessed potential alternative futures for local development in the four scenarios, as shown in Table 1 below. Scenario 4, guided by decision-maker development preferences, and combined with the desires and ideas stemming from local residents, was evaluated as the most positive alternative future for local development.



Four of the five listed professionals found scenario 4 to be the most suitable development scenario, while professional 2 preferred scenario 2 and listed scenario 4 as the second-most suitable, in their opinion. From our report, these professionals also thought scenario 4 has the potential to combine local cultural features, folklore characteristics, and desert recreation, all unified by characteristic tourism features that support the main service areas and ultimately enrich the local tourism production chain. It should be noted that this scenario makes full use of local natural resources within a reasonable investment. As one of the professionals explained during the interview, for example:

*"Scenario 4 has the most diverse facilities for regional development. I really like the idea of combining desert sports recreation with local Silk Roads cultural elements for the supporting facilities. For example, I like the idea of involving the 'Journey to the West' myth in the design of local resident* *spaces as well as trails in the desert sports park. This scenario also highlighted the natural features of the desert and Danxia landforms. It could become a unique attraction in this corridor region among other places referred to by the current proposal. Compared with scenario 1 and 3, scenario 4 demands less investment. And I also like that its functional zoning design fully used local resources."* (Professional 3)

#### Another professional found that:

*"Scenario 4 is the most suitable scenario for me. Firstly, it has the most fully developed functionality for both the desert and the local Danxia landscape features. The desert recreation elements could create a unique tourist attraction for the benefit of the corridor region as a whole. In addition, the desert sports area could attract a strong, long-term source of visitors attending sports events such as hiking or cross-country vehicle racing. Moreover, there is a tourism-supporting service area that bears local cultural characteristics, combined with the desert recreation and folklore experience in this area. Tourists might stay longer where the amenities are best, which inflates local consumption growth and thus benefits residents. Last but not the least, this scenario has the most comprehensive functionality for its related economic investment. Compared with scenario 1 and 3, this scenario requires less construction work volume, while also fully covering the recreation amenities for both the cultural tourism and desert sports features at the same time. It also makes full use of local natural resources, for example the desert sports area in the desert landscape and the hiking trails located in the Danxia landform area. This scenario minimizes environmental consequences due to its more economical plan for construction work volume".* (Professional 5)

One professional regarded scenario 2—"guided by decision-maker preferences in the current proposal"—as the most suitable direction for development. He states:

*A desert park with a desert recreation theme as a priority service function could highlight the particular organic qualities of this area. This area has special natural resources, as well as Silk Roads cultural resources that can be found along the whole corridor region. This scenario has an intense purpose.* (Professional 2)

Nevertheless, this professional evaluated scenario 4 positively:

*"Scenario 4 requires the smallest construction work volume when compared with other scenarios, and provides space for potential changes in planning, all at the lowest cost."*

#### 5.3.3. The Scenarios with Negative Comments for Local Development

Overall, none of our professionals found scenario 1 (guided by local resident development preferences) or scenario 3 (guided by local resident development preferences combined with decision-maker ideas) to be very engaging. Each of the professionals mentioned that the high construction investment involved—not to mention the problems of undesirable competition between this proposed Silk Roads tourism town and other villages along the corridor—was the main reason that they ranked these scenarios poorly. As shown from the testimonies below, most felt that these scenarios are not realistic for creating sustainable development. One professional pointed out that a large initial investment in these historical buildings is not wise, as it could decrease much-needed room for future adjustments and thereby affect the flexibility the project has for future improvements.

*"The scenario focusing on the Silk Roads cultural tourism area looks tedious. The scenario that combines elements of the Silk Roads cultural tourism area with some of the desert recreation facilities looks better; however, people would not be able to e*ff*ectively use these facilities as the desert recreation area is quite small compared with other scenarios. In addition, due to the large scale of historical style buildings such as the folklore expo museum and the shopping and recreation streets, there is limited space for future adjustments if new projects demand development in this area.* (Professional 1)

#### Another stated that

*"The scenarios involving the Danxia landform and the Silk Roads cultural tourism area require a large amount of investment for building each block in a historical style. And there will be a Danxia landform-Silk Roads characteristic tourism area planned along the peripheral zones of the national geopark area of the Danxia landform in the current corridor plan anyway. The focus of developing a cultural tourism area in this village has no advantages in relation to the homogenous competition."* (Professional 2)

A third professional summarized his view of scenarios 1 and 3 in this way:

*"These scenarios will tend toward development in the direction of commercialization, and is likely because of other tourism-estate projects. There are already similar projects along the Silk Roads. Thus, these developments would not highlight the local features of the area. Besides, the 'cultural tourism area developing direction' requires more investment for building and maintaining properties and attractions, which places a high risk on the future of the whole operation."* (Professional 5)

The interviews showed that four of the five professionals recognize that scenarios with different degrees of local resident involvement indeed facilitated new and innovative thinking into each applicable area's regional development when compared with the scenario 2 based on the current plan from important decision-makers alone. Each scenario that included the opinions and requests of local residents often brought in new and creative ideas not considered by current decision-maker plans—such as expanding the tourism market and connecting local residents. Our professionals explained this phenomenon as follows:

*"The new scenarios enriched the planning content based on the development directions of the current plan. The current desert park provides recreational opportunities for desert sports and related adventures. It provides professional Outward-Bound facilities and has a clear targeted customer market. However, it does limit the average number of visitors that will explore this region.".* (Professional 1)

*"Compared with the current plan from the decision-makers alone, the other scenarios reminded us to add a theme to the desert sports park that is based on local, cultural resources. I like the idea of this region in village 1 mainly being focused on desert sports and recreation, with an integration of local Silk Roads cultural elements. Then we could make this desert park stand out from other desert recreation areas, using a unique theme. Additionally, the new ideas in other scenarios reminded us to improve the connections between the plan and local village representatives. The supporting area combined with local culture could provide board opportunities involving residents that benefit their life (such as the spaces for village markets and snack streets). This region could not only be a desert recreation destination or an outdoor training camp, but also a rustic luxury resort combining special Silk Roads cultural resources and desert scenery. "* (Professional 4)

In sum, our professional respondents pointed out some general limitations of decision-makers and, as a result, these new scenarios can help related planners incorporate knowledge from all available resources during planning to understand the existing environmental local, and social expectations for land use. As one professional put it:

*"The newer scenarios bring in some elements that might inspire us about the expectations of local residents. A decision maker's knowledge can sometimes be limited in this area, and even an expert's skills can vary. Thus, local resident views can provide a localized, contextual knowledge aiding in long-term development."* (Professional 5)

#### **6. Discussion**

#### *6.1. Scenarios Based on Development Preferences and Professional Planner Assessments of Local Sustainable Development*

Our results indicate that the professional assessments of the different scenarios were largely in favour of combining local resident and decision-maker development preferences. In general, professionals found that many of the suggestions proposed by local residents were unrealistic because of cost—both in construction and in maintenance. As a result, scenario 1 (the scenario primarily guided by local resident preferences) received the lowest score, as ranked by professionals who offered more negative comments about this scenario in general. A major reason was that related facilities such as the artificial canal and the larger-scale historical buildings required correspondingly large investments. That said, four of the five professionals nevertheless found that local resident participation did add new and good ideas to each scenario. Consequently, professional respondents marked scenario 4 (the scenario where decision-makers' development preferences are combined with local ideas) as the most preferred alternative.

The arguments for giving scenario 4 the highest rank can be summarized in three points: (1) Scenario 4 has a more comprehensive functionality that combines both the cultural tourism and desert sports recreation aspects of the possible development plans; (2) Scenario 4 requires moderate investments as well as only limited construction volume; (3) Scenario 4 has better functional zoning solutions and more sustainable use of local natural resources and environmental opportunities.

Together, the four professionals asserted that scenario 1 (the scenario-based exclusively on local resident preferences) required the highest level of investment for building, and would also be the most expensive to maintain. There was an additional worry among the group regarding competition with other similar historical tourism centres already planned along the Silk Roads corridor region. The professionals found that scenario 2 (the scenario-based exclusively on decision-makers' development preferences) had some inherent limitations; in this case, the mono-functional land uses for the desert sports park in scenario 2 would mean more special desert sports functions than general recreation, which would appeal to a more limited group of tourists. For scenario 3, professionals expressed concern that, even though the planning of this scenario (local preferences combined with decision-makers' ideas) did, in fact, consider both the function of cultural tourism and desert recreation, the functional zoning plans in scenario 3 were unfortunately piecemeal and required higher construction investments. In short, the smaller scale of the desert recreation zones compared with scenario 4 would limit desert recreation activities, reduce service functions, and ultimately compromise tourists' overall experience of the town.

In general, scenarios 2 and 4 generally have higher ranks than scenarios 1 and 3. Professionals stated that their rankings were not influenced by their prior knowledge of the direction of desert sport park. In their collective view, a well-designed desert sports park indeed could be an attractive tourism feature. Further, in comparison with cultural tourism, they viewed the desert sport park as a novelty in the local area.

The fourth professional preferred scenario 2 to scenario 4, as he felt resident suggestions did not add value to the development and planning strategies. In the review of the professionals, professional number four also stated that their reason for ranking scenario 4 as the most suitable for sustainable development was because it has a clear focus on desert sports recreation, naturally highlighting the particular organic qualities of unique, local, and natural resources.

To sum up, even though our professional respondents thought that many of the suggestions from local residents were unrealistic, the majority of them nevertheless asserted that local resident participation contributed to a better planning solution when combined with current decision-maker plans (shown in scenario 1). For that reason, local resident participation has the potential to cement the success of an improved corridor-planning proposal for local sustainable development, benefitting both the local residents and the decision-makers involved.

### *6.2. The Di*ffi*culties of Involving Local Residents during Development and Planning Processes in China*

In China, local urban and rural communities have already developed some participatory institutions [41], where currently a range of experiences with local residents' participation has been gained [29,42]. This shift could ultimately develop into an era of increased local resident participation in China.

While researching solutions, scholars have thus concluded that barriers to local residents participation and collaborative planning in China lie not only in its weak framework for environmental legislation, but also in part because of Chinese culture [30], the weakness of its planning system, and limited tradition of incorporating local resident values into planning practice [43,44]. Over the course of our study, we found that the existing gap between the differing views and education levels of our professional respondents, local decision-makers, and local residents also contributed to the difficulties of involving the general population during landscape corridor planning in China. We therefore discuss this condition from both a local resident and planner perspective as follows:

Our study used face-to-face interviews combined with local resident participatory GIS and group meetings for the purpose of communicating with local residents and collecting ideas and preferences concerning the future development of this part of the Silk Roads corridor. When local residents were asked about their preferences, we found that they more often had higher expectations of construction works, and that their development preferences were highly influenced by their general views of modernization and economic development on the whole (i.e., as seen via social media). For instance, the idea of developing a canal to provide artificial water scenery in the historical district from scenario one was an idea local resident participants mentioned they got from another cultural tourism town they saw on television. Clearly, local resident views of future developments cannot replace more trained, professional inputs on development opportunities and limitations.

During our communications process, the professionals saw themselves as key players, essential to the planning process and with the capacity to link existing resources with development opportunities and limitations. They were the experts with the technological skills necessary for the plan-making process and did not really recognize the need to explore, much less incorporate, local preferences and livelihoods during the process. As a result, their spatial and planning processes were viewed more as an exercise in technical engineering, than as a social activity that included collaboration with local stakeholders. This technical view of planning may explain why planners in China currently have such a low motivation to share their values and experiences with local residents.

Our data collection process revealed the current practical difficulties inherent in coordinating the steps it takes to consider local resident opinions during planning processes in China. These difficulties relate to the existing gaps between educated planners and "uneducated" residents, which can reduce a planners' motivation to incorporate local resident participation in their practices. To further develop sustainable participation practices, decision-makers must therefore address this gap, and local residents must on their side accept that not all their ideas and preferences are feasible from economic and technical points of view.

Educating planners, authorities, and residents is a prerequisite to more collaborative planning practices. Local resident participation in China may not only represent a better approach to formally allowing people to express their views, but it is also a process that promotes cooperation between planners and motivating them to share their experiences and knowledge with the local residents. This should also include raising local awareness about sustainable development options, strengths, and limitations. The planning process could then combine local resident opinion and high-level planning to better analyze the conditions of planning areas; better ascertain geological and socioeconomic strengths and weaknesses; and ultimately further explore development factors (i.e., opportunities and threats). The value of local resident participation is thus demonstrated as an enrichment mechanism for the current plan.

#### **7. Conclusions**

Landscape corridor planning is a complex process which requires close collaboration between various stakeholders to be efficient and innovative, concerning both the place-making and conflict-management dimensions of planning practice. In the current state of participatory landscape corridor planning, our study illustrates a practical way to involve public participation in LCP solutions that may also be applicable to other forms of spatial planning. Our study demonstrates the concrete differences that exist between planning solutions with and without local resident participation, thereby revealing how spatial conflicts might be reduced through collaborative processes. In addition, our results highlight the extent to which local resident participation indeed contributes to innovation, and professionals acknowledged that an enriched current corridor plan could contribute to local sustainable development in China. Further research is required to understand—and remove—the barriers to promoting local resident participation in Chinese spatial planning practice, including research on various forms of involvement, combined planning and educational processes, and ways to mobilize local knowledge and ideas during the planning process.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, H.X.; Methodology, J.P., and T.P.; Software, H.X.; G.Z.; Validation, H.X. and J.P.; Investigation, H.X.; Data Curation, H.X.; Writing Original Draft Preparation, H.X. and J.P.; Writing Review & Editing, J.P. and T.P.; Visualization, H.X.; Supervision, J.P. and T.P.; Project Administration, H.X.

**Funding:** This paper is sponsored by the Chinese Scholar Council.

**Acknowledgments:** We are grateful to the great help and support of Prof. Xuesong Xi from China Agricultural University for providing the master plan and supporting the cooperation with the Municipality. The landscape architects and urban planners, Bingbing Zhang, Leng Gang, Xinya Bei, Yanli Tao also provide their input in this paper.

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

#### **References**


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