Identifying and developing effective post-2020 conservation bridging leaders.

Effective bridging leaders interact within and outside their group to facilitate collaboration required in multistakeholder contexts. This is particularly crucial to community-based conservation interventions that strive to achieve both ecological and social objectives by actively engaging or devolving decision-making and management authority to local communities. Although a viable approach in many contexts, achieving "unprecedented collaboration" called for by the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in community-based conservation is problematic given the multiple and diverse actors affecting and affected by these interventions. Therefore, effective leadership becomes crucial to implementing necessary strategies to engage actors and resolve conflict inclusively. Yet, weak leadership commonly constrains these interventions. I reviewed relevant literature and devised a framework of effective bridging leadership characteristics. I then used this framework to appraise bridging leadership in two African coastal-marine community-based conservation cases. I employed social network analysis and semistructured and group interviews in the two cases. Several local leaders emerged as key (potential) bridging leaders. Furthermore, I found that effective bridging leaders require not only legal recognition but also perceived legitimacy resulting from building trust with other actors. Additionally, the inclusive collaboration required multiple sources of emotionally intelligent bridging leaders with the integrity, humility, empathy, and cultural awareness necessary to mitigate elite capture, effectively communicate, and empower and provide support to others. Because emotional intelligence in conservation leadership remains a knowledge gap, particularly in community-based conservation research, insights from this study should be useful to diverse conservation actors.

Los líderes vinculantes efectivos interactúan dentro y fuera de su grupo para facilitar la colaboración requerida en contextos con múltiples actores. Esto es crucial para las intervenciones de conservación basada en la comunidad que buscan alcanzar objetivos ecológicos y sociales mediante la participación y transferencia de la autoridad gestora y la toma de decisiones a la comunidad local. Aunque es una estrategia viable, es problemático lograr la "colaboración sin precedentes" en la conservación basada en la comunidad que exige el Marco Mundial de Biodiversidad Post-2020 debido a los múltiples y diversos actores que afectan y han sido afectados por estas intervenciones. Por lo tanto, el liderazgo efectivo se vuelve crucial para la implementación de las estrategias necesarias para involucrar a los actores y resolver los conflictos de manera inclusiva. Sin embargo, es común que el liderazgo deficiente limite estas intervenciones. Revisé la literatura relevante y diseñé un marco de trabajo de las características del liderazgo vinculante efectivo. Después usé este marco para valorar el liderazgo vinculante en dos casos de conservación costera-marina basada en la comunidad en África. Analicé las redes sociales y realicé entrevistas grupales y semiestructuradas en ambos casos. Además, descubrí que los líderes vinculantes efectivos requieren no sólo de un reconocimiento legal, sino también de la legitimidad resultante de la construcción de la confianza con otros actores. Asimismo, la colaboración inclusiva requirió de líderes vinculantes de múltiples orígenes con inteligencia emocional y con la integridad, humildad, empatía y conciencia cultural para mitigar la captura elite, comunicar efectivamente y empoderar y proporcionarles apoyo a los demás. Ya que la inteligencia emocional todavía es un vacío de conocimiento en el liderazgo de la conservación, particularmente en la investigación sobre la conservación basada en la comunidad, el conocimiento que brinda este estudio debería ser útil para diversificar a los actores de la conservación.

Exploring common dialectical tensions constraining collaborative communication required for post-2020 conservation.

Contemporary conservation requires improved collaboration characterized by greater recognition and incorporation of multiple and diverse actors. Effective communication is central to this endeavour. However, the expression of concerns, perspectives, and the exchange of knowledge between actors and across multiple scales (i.e., collaborative communication), must navigate inevitable competing systems of meaning and motivation (i.e., dialectical tensions). Yet, a lack of understanding of how to improve collaborative communication within conservation interventions persists within the literature. Consequently, this paper reviews relevant literature to propose a framework that identifies common sources of dialectical tensions in collaborative conservation interventions that if managed effectively can improve required collaborative communication. The framework is then revised based on interviews conducted with 277 respondents in three African coastal-marine collaborative conservation interventions. Findings reinforce the effect of continued marginalization of certain actors' 'voices' within governance processes. More specifically, enabling collaborative communication requires managing several identified institutional-, agenda-, cultural-, and perception-based tensions. In particular, tensions emerging from formal-informal institutional interactions; gender-based exclusion; conflicting livelihood-ecological and economic-environmental agendas, and project-funder objectives; between indigenous/local-scientific knowledge and values; and perceived necessary-acceptable change. Furthermore, specific local-scale tensions identified included those associated with local-customary institutions; democratic-meritocratically elected local representatives; and exclusion based on cultural diversity. Consequently, these tensions require the 'co-creation' of communicative strategies amongst all actors to promote greater social equity that better aligns with local priorities to achieve 'positive' post-2020 ecological and social outcomes. Findings should be relevant to diverse conservation actors, and many others working within multi-stakeholder environmental interventions.