Applying a participatory methodology to evaluate ecosystem services in the Pampa biome: lessons learned from the Tessa methodology in Uruguay

Identifying and measuring ecosystem services involving local stakeholders has been characterised as a novel approach in the literature. This article describes the methodology used in the participatory workshops, the lessons learned, and the specific results of applying the Tessa method. The methodology was piloted with 56 researchers and technicians, more than 22 institutions, and 54 livestock producers involved with the grassland conservation initiative, Alianza del Pastizal. Identified change agents with the most significant impact include the absence of a rural workforce, the lack of family succession, and weeding and overgrazing of grasslands. The primary ecosystem services identified included the production of fodder, meat/wool, wildlife forage, way of life/culture, and medicinal plants. The methodology presented here is replicable, capable of expansion to more groups, contributes to a better understanding, by the producers, of their problems and points to the need for the development of public incentive policies.

Local Governance Platforms: Roles and Relations of City Governments, Citizens, and Businesses

This article analyses the dynamics of local platform governance with special regard to the roles and relations of city governments, citizens, and local businesses. We approach the subject through five Finnish platforms in which city governments are actively involved. This multiple case study shows that city governments tend to adopt a facilitative and enabling role on the platforms. They seek to create value by utilizing skills, knowledge, and resources of local communities in different kinds of co-creation processes. Local platform governance brings added value to innovation and urban vitality by utilizing multiple roles of citizens, businesses, and other local stakeholders.

Bringing “Climate-Smart Forestry” Down to the Local Level—Identifying Barriers, Pathways and Indicators for Its Implementation in Practice

The theoretical concept of “climate-smart forestry” aims to integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation to maintain and enhance forests’ contributions to people and global agendas. We carried out two local transdisciplinary collaboration processes with the aim of developing local articulations of climate-smart forestry and to identify barriers, pathways and indicators to applying it in practice. During workshops in northern and southern Sweden, local stakeholders described how they would like forests to be managed, considering their past experiences, future visions and climate change. As a result, the stakeholders framed climate-smart forestry as active and diverse management towards multiple goals. They identified several conditions that could act both as barriers and pathways for its implementation in practice, such as value chains for forest products and services, local knowledge and experiences of different management alternatives, and the management of ungulates. Based on the workshop material, a total of 39 indicators for climate-smart forestry were identified, of which six were novel indicators adding to the existing literature. Our results emphasize the importance of understanding the local perspectives to promote climate-smart forestry practices across Europe. We also suggest how the concept of climate-smart forestry can be further developed, through the interplay between theory and practice.

The application of ethnographic methods to engineering for global development: the case of the Improvised Betel Nut Cutter

This technical brief is an attempt to report a case analysis of Engineering for Global Development (EGD) research from India. As a part of the engineering design and research project, two models of Improvised Betel Nut Cutter (IBNC) are designed, manufactured and field-tested. Engineering ethnography is adopted as a research tool during the design process of IBCN. It facilitated the participation of local stakeholders in the design process which is found to be effective for contextual understandings of the target community's needs, aspirations, constraints and socio-cultural norms and values. The technological intervention is expected to solve the problems like finger cuts, health drudgery (musculoskeletal pain, back pain, etc.) of the women involved in the supari business in Assam, India. It will also improve productivity and efficiency in the supari cutting practices of women. This case analysis depicts the effectiveness of trans-disciplinary effort in solving complex engineering problems at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). Evidence gathered from this study is expected to be a useful resource for future endeavours in EGD research.

The ambiguous impacts of alternative livelihoods on fisher wellbeing in a closed access fish sanctuary in Port Antonio, Jamaica

Alternative livelihood programs are a central feature of contemporary conservation planning that aim to aid efforts to reduce pressure on natural resources and avoid, minimize, or mitigate the impacts of conservation on the wellbeing of local stakeholders. Evidence of the effectiveness of these programs is, however, decidedly mixed. This research examines the relationship between livelihoods, conservation, and wellbeing among nearshore fishers in Port Antonio, Jamaica, in the context of a recently established marine no-take area. The East Portland Fish Sanctuary was established in 2016 with the aim of supporting the recovery of depleted nearshore fish stocks, marine habitats, and mitigating impacts on local communities and fishers through a range of activities. Mitigation of impacts included efforts to shift pressure from overexploited nearshore fish stocks to offshore resources and to provide support to fishers for training and opportunities to earn income in the tourism sector. The results suggest that additional sources of income tended to enhance the wellbeing of fishers across several dimensions but that it also contributed to additional pressure on nearshore resources. Furthermore, neither tourism nor offshore fishing appear to be particularly promising in terms of their ability to deliver “win-win” outcomes for conservation and wellbeing. Instead, the results suggest that the impacts of different types of alternative livelihoods on conservation and wellbeing are highly variable and perhaps that efforts should be redirected to supporting efforts to provide suitable and acceptable alternatives to spearfishing which appears to have one of the largest overall impacts on individual harvest rates.

Beyond “Doing as the Romans Do”: A review of research on countercultural business practices

There has long been a dominant logic in the international business literature that multinational corporations should adapt business practices to “fit” host cultures. Business practices that are congruent with local cultural norms have been advocated as effective and desirable, while practices that are incongruent have been deemed problematic. We examine and challenge this persistent assumption by reviewing the literature showing evidence for both benefits and acceptance of countercultural practices (i.e., practices that are seemingly incongruent with local cultural norms or values), and disadvantages and rejection of local practices. Drawing on the literature reviewed, we offer four types of theoretical (ontological, epistemological, causal, and functional) explanations as to why and when countercultural business practices might be preferred. Finally, we provide a springboard for a future research agenda on countercultural practices, centered around understanding the circumstances under which businesses and local stakeholders might benefit from the use of countercultural practices based on such factors as strategic intent, local preferences, institutional drivers, and social responsibility.

Participatory Action Research for Conservation and Development: Experiences from the Amazon

Research that features participation and action orientation, such as participatory action research (PAR), is especially valuable in contexts where there is rapid change, high social inequality, and great uncertainty about the future, which drives stakeholder demands for information to support their goals. The Amazon offers such a context, for it is a region where diverse stakeholders engage in contestation over environmental governance to address issues such as climate change to achieve conservation and sustainable development. Stakeholder mobilization has changed the terms by which research is conducted, from the definition of priority topics to the application of findings. Due to stakeholder mobilization, more and more research in the Amazon is now necessarily participatory, for stakeholders routinely issue demands about how the research will be conducted and for what purpose. In this paper, we provide an overview of several experiences of implementing methods such as PAR by different teams or networks, focusing on the complementary contributions of outside researchers and local stakeholders. The heart of the paper reports on three broad types of experiences focusing on conservation and development in the Amazon: (1) participatory data collection for co-production of knowledge for environmental governance, (2) inclusive environmental monitoring systems, and (3) innovative models of knowledge exchange to facilitate collective action. Within each type, we report multiple experiences with distinct approaches to participation and action in research. These experiences constitute models that can be replicated in other places for broader impact to support conservation and development.

Possibilities for Decentralisation in Thailand: A View from Chiang Mai

In this article we examine radical proposals for political, administrative and fiscal decentralisation in Thailand which were developed for Chiang Mai as a potential model for Thailand as a whole. They lay emphasis on local self-government and citizen participation. We argue that these proposals offer a way forward for a Thai decentralisation process that has yet to proceed to the extent envisaged when it was commenced in the 1990s as part of democratisation, embraced most notably in the 1997 Constitution. Moreover, this process, we argue, offers a way out of the extreme confrontation between the yellow and red factions that has troubled Thailand since 2005. As Thailand returns to civilian rule after five years of military government, and local and provincial government comes once more to the fore, we argue that the Chiang Mai Metropolitan Administration Bill of 2013 offer more local democracy as well as imaginative ways of recruiting the enthusiasm of local stakeholders in a system designed to link provincial and local authorities, and the citizenry, in a virtuous circle of democracy and development.

The Rock Art in Kinta Valley, West Malaysia: A synthesis Lukisan Gua di Lembah Kinta, Semenanjung Malaysia: Satu sintesis

This paper presents a synthesis of the new rock art mapping project in the Kinta Valley of West Malaysia. Through our collaboration with Kinta Valley Watch, we have successfully located more than 30 new rock art sites between 2019 and June 2021. The rock art is represented by both red and black paintings, with a wide variety of motifs including anthropomorph, zoomorph, botanic, watercraft, weapon, animal rider, handprint, geometric shape, line art, and other abstract design. This discovery is instrumental to the contemporary rock art research in Malaysia and demonstrated a collective effort in rock art research through long-term collaboration with the local stakeholders. Kertas kerja ini merupakan satu sintesis hasil daripada projek pemetaan lukisan gua di Lembah Kinta, Semenanjung Malaysia. Melalui kolaborasi dengan organisasi tempatan iaitu Kinta Valley Watch, kami telah mengenalpasti lebih daripada 30 lokasi lukisan gua antara tahun 2019 dan 2021. Antara bentuk lukisan gua yang dijumpai termasuklah antropomor ik ( igura manusia), zoomor ik ( igura haiwan), tumbuh-tumbuhan, perahu, senjata, penunggang haiwan, gambar tangan, geometrik, seni garisan dan simbol abstrak. Jumpaan ini amat berharga untuk kajian lukisan gua di Malaysia dan memaparkan satu usaha bersama demi kajian lukisan gua melalui kolaborasi jangka panjang dengan komuniti tempatan.