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Using Q-methodology to bridge different understandings on community forest management: lessons from the Peruvian Amazon

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Title Using Q-methodology to bridge different understandings on community forest management: lessons from the Peruvian Amazon
 
Creator Sarmiento Barletti, J.P.
Cronkleton, P.
Heise Vigil, N.
 
Subject community forestry
forest management
conservation
indigenous people
ecology
 
Description Community forest management (CFM) is promoted as a strategy to reach multiple development outcomes including the sustainable use of forest resources, forest conservation, poverty alleviation, and social equity through the devolution of rights to forest-dependent communities. Developing effective and equitable strategies to promote CFM requires consensus on its goals and the approaches for reaching those goals. Finding common ground among diverse actors involved in the promotion of CFM can be a challenge when their multifaceted expectations and beliefs are not explicitly enunciated or consciously expressed, obscuring contradictions, conflicting objectives, or even shared agendas. An initial step to reaching consensus would be to clarify the range of perspectives that exist to identify common ground and areas of divergent opinion. We report on an initiative applying Q-methodology as a means of identifying differing perspectives on CFM through interviews with 34 informants representing 6 stakeholder groups involved in the promotion of CFM in the Peruvian Amazon: Indigenous leaders, government policymakers, technicians from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), university professors, forestry students, and representatives of donor agencies. We found four different perspectives on what CFM should do: balance conservation with community rights, encourage capacity and enterprise development, technical oversight to protect forests on behalf of Indigenous communities, and support for grassroots Indigenous autonomy. These perspectives revealed differences in how conservation should be achieved and where balance between technical requirements, Indigenous environmental management, and stewardship practices should be favored. Despite different viewpoints, the perspectives also revealed shared understanding of CFM as a mechanism that could emphasize both supporting community rights and conservation goals. This example illustrates how Q-methodology can generate information on the range of perceptions underlying broad strategies such as the promotion of CFM that can facilitate dialogue around shared pathways and agendas.
 
Date 2022-11-15
2023-01-24T08:14:33Z
2023-01-24T08:14:33Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Sarmiento Barletti, J., P. Cronkleton, and N. M. Heise Vigil. 2022. Using Q-methodology to bridge different understandings on community forest management: lessons from the Peruvian Amazon. Ecology and Society 27(4):12. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13524-270412
1708-3087
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/127974
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13524-270412
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Format 12
 
Publisher Resilience Alliance, Inc.
 
Source Ecology And Society