Visualizing stakeholders’ willingness for collective action in participatory scenario planning

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • María D. López-Rodríguez
  • Elisa Oteros-Rozas
  • Isabel Ruiz-Mallén
  • Hug March
  • Andra I. Horcea-Milcu
  • Maria Heras
  • Miguel A. Cebrián-Piqueras
  • Riley Andrade
  • Veronica B. P. G. Lo
  • Concepción Piñeiro
Participatory scenario planning is a powerful approach to guide diverse stakeholders in creating and reflecting on visions of plausible and desired futures. However, this process requires tools to guide collective action to implement such visions within management agendas. This study develops, applies, and analyzes a novel visual tool within a virtual participatory scenario planning process about the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park (Madrid, Spain). Building on the identification of stakeholders who might engage in scenario strategies, the visual tool guided them in defining tasks to be developed and envisioning their willingness to collaborate in their implementation. We qualitatively analyzed data from recordings, online field observations, a post-survey from the scenario planning process, and a successive policy workshop. Our findings show that the visual tool fosters dialogue between stakeholders to redistribute tasks for working together on needed strategies in the protected area while promoting reflection on their willingness to collaborate as a group to implement them. The visual tool provided graphic outcomes for nine strategies corresponding to pictures of who may or may not be willing to engage in implementing such strategies. We argue that the visual tool is a robust method that can complement participatory scenario planning processes by providing a useful starting point for creating action networks to incorporate the resulting scenario strategies into management agendas. We deliberate on the nature of the visual tool as a boundary object and discuss its role as a decision-support tool. In particular, we reflect on the potential contributions and limitations of the visual tool to four dimensions of participatory conservation governance during participatory scenario planning processes: inclusivity, integration, adaptation, and pluralism. Our study provides a practical orientation to adapt the tool to other contexts and knowledge co-creation processes.
Original languageEnglish
Article number5
JournalEcology and Society
Volume28
Issue number2
Number of pages23
ISSN1708-3087
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 05.2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are very grateful to the participants involved in the two workshops and surveys. We thank all the collaborators of the online PSP workshop for their valuable time, effort, and support: Cristina Quintas-Soriano, Federica Ravera, and Marina García-Llorente from FRACTAL Collective; Jorge Sánchez-Cruzado, Hugo Navascués, Leticia de Siles, Marien González-Hidalgo, and Olga Millán. Thanks are also extended to the creators of Streamline (Metzger and De Vries 2018) and the ScienSeed for adapting some of the infographic images from Streamline to the SGNP context. This research was supported by the ENVISION project, funded through the 2017-2018 Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivScen ERA-Net COFUND programme, and with the support of the following national funders: Grant PCI2018-092958 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033, Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS), German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grant Number: 01LC18064), Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), National Science Foundation, United States (NSF), and National Park Service, United States (NPS). IRM acknowledges the support of the grant RYC-2015-17676 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by “ESF Investing in your future.” EOR acknowledges the support of the grant IJCI-2017-34334 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. AIHM acknowledges EU funding through the Marie Sklodowska‐ Curie grant number 840207.

Funding Information:
We are very grateful to the participants involved in the two workshops and surveys. We thank all the collaborators of the online PSP workshop for their valuable time, effort, and support: Cristina Quintas-Soriano, Federica Ravera, and Marina García-Llorente from FRACTAL Collective; Jorge Sánchez-Cruzado, Hugo Navascués, Leticia de Siles, Marien González-Hidalgo, and Olga Millán. Thanks are also extended to the creators of Streamline (Metzger and De Vries 2018) and the ScienSeed for adapting some of the infographic images from Streamline to the SGNP context. This research was supported by the ENVISION project, funded through the 2017-2018 Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivScen ERA-Net COFUND programme, and with the support of the following national funders: Grant PCI2018-092958 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033, Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS), German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grant Number: 01LC18064), Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), National Science Foundation, United States (NSF), and National Park Service, United States (NPS). IRM acknowledges the support of the grant RYC-2015-17676 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by “ESF Investing in your future.” EOR acknowledges the support of the grant IJCI-2017-34334 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. AIHM acknowledges EU funding through the Marie Sklodowska Curie grant number 840207.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.

    Research areas

  • action networks, backcasting, decision-support tool, future scenarios, participatory governance, protected areas
  • Biology

DOI