Public attitudes and intentions toward engaging in reintroduction of wolves to Japan.

Reintroducing apex predators is an important approach in ecosystem restoration; however, it is challenging. Wolves (Canis lupus) were exterminated in Japan around 1900, and since then, there has been a lack of top predators throughout the country. Currently, the wild ungulate population is increasing, causing agricultural and forest damage. This has triggered an ongoing debate among researchers and nongovernmental organizations on whether wolves should be reintroduced to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems. We conducted a nationwide survey to examine public attitudes toward wolf reintroduction (WR) in Japan. We sent online questionnaires to 88,318 citizens across the country. Among the 12,028 respondents, excluding those with invalid or incomplete answers and unqualified respondents, we obtained and analyzed 7500 responses that were representative of Japanese citizens in terms of some key sociodemographic attributes. More respondents disagreed with WR (39.9%) than agreed (17.1%), and many respondents (43.0%) were undecided. Structural equation modeling revealed that risk perceptions affected public attitudes, implying that the greater the perceived threat of wolf attacks, the less likely people are to support WR. In contrast, attitudes toward wolves (e.g., "I like wolves.") influenced by wildlife value orientation and beliefs about the ecological role of wolves (e.g., controlling deer populations) positively affected public attitudes toward WR. Those who had a positive attitude toward WR showed intentions to engage in behaviors that support WR. Our results suggest that the dissemination of information related to the ecological role of wolves and the development of a more mutualistic mindset in people could positively influence public support for WR in Japan.

Actitudes e intenciones públicas respecto a la reintroducción de lobos en Japón Resumen La reintroducción de superdepredadores es una estrategia importante para la restauración de los ecosistemas; sin embargo, representa muchos retos. Los lobos (Canis lupus) fueron exterminados en Japón alrededor de 1900 y desde entonces no ha habido superdepredadores en el país. Hoy en día, la población silvestre de ungulados está incrementando y ocasionando daño agrícola y forestal. Esto ha detonado un debate entre los investigadores y las organizaciones no gubernamentales sobre si se debiesen reintroducir lobos para promover ecosistemas biodiversos autorregulados. Realizamos una encuesta nacional para analizar las actitudes públicas respecto a la reintroducción de lobos (RL) en Japón. Enviamos 88,318 cuestionarios virtuales a ciudadanos de todo el país. De los 12,028 respondientes, excluyendo a aquellos con respuestas inválidas o incompletas y a los respondientes no calificados, obtuvimos y analizamos 7500 respuestas representativas del ciudadano japonés en términos de algunas características sociodemográficas importantes. Hubo más respondientes en contra (39.9%) que a favor (17.1%) de la RL y todavía más respondientes (43.0%) no estaban decididos. El modelo de ecuación estructural reveló que las percepciones de riesgo impactaron sobre las actitudes públicas, lo que implica que entre mayor sea la amenaza percibida de los ataques de lobos, es menos probable que la gente apoye la RL. Como contraste, la orientación del valor de la fauna que influyó sobre las actitudes (p. ej.: "me gustan los lobos") y las creencias sobre el papel ecológico de los lobos (p. ej.: controlar las poblaciones de venados) tuvieron un impacto positivo en las actitudes respecto a la RL. Quienes tuvieron una actitud positiva respecto a la RL mostraron intenciones de apoyarla. Nuestros resultados sugieren que la divulgación de información relacionada con el papel ecológico de los lobos y el desarrollo de una mentalidad más mutualista en las personas podrían influir positivamente en el apoyo público para la RL en Japón.

What Causes Harmful Algal Blooms? A Case Study of Causal Attributions and Conflict in a Lakeshore Community.

Environmental management involves the complex interaction between identifying the causes of problems and implementing solutions. Our exploratory study draws on attribution theory to analyze the causal attributions among community members experiencing frequent and intensifying harmful algal blooms in a lake of western New York State. Our interviews (n = 21) revealed that causal attributions were grounded in observation but that scientific observations led to very different causal attributions than direct observations among a subset of the lay public. Some community members also developed causal attributions based on their social relationships. Differences in causal attributions became the basis of widespread intracommunity disagreement, which in turn hampered management efforts. Our work demonstrates the need for meaningful public engagement in water management-engagement that addresses causal beliefs within the community, even if those beliefs may not align with scientific understandings.

Thinking Upstream: How Do Landowner Attitudes Affect Forested Riparian Buffer Coverage?

Little is known about the conservation of intermittent and ephemeral streams on private lands despite the importance of these waterways for ecosystem and hydrologic outcomes. Our case study of a watershed of central New York State considers landowners' attitudes toward perennial and intermittent streams on their property. We combine social science survey responses with aerial imagery to assess the underlying drivers of landowners' attitudes about their streams, and the extent to which these attitudes shape riparian conservation behaviors on their properties. We find that stream flow regularity directly and positively shapes landowners' stream attitudes, with landowners of perennially flowing streams holding their streams in higher regard than landowners with streams of intermittent flows. Landowners with forest and wetlands as the primary land cover had more riparian buffer coverage on their properties than agricultural landowners. Landowners with a weaker perceived land use efficacy also had greater buffer coverage. Our findings suggest that landowners in headwater regions do not perceive their influence on downstream water quality, and that outreach efforts should emphasize the importance and conservation of headwater streams and associated water quality outcomes.

Integrating Subjective and Objective Dimensions of Resilience in Fire-Prone Landscapes.

Resilience has become a common goal for science-based natural resource management, particularly in the context of changing climate and disturbance regimes. Integrating varying perspectives and definitions of resilience is a complex and often unrecognized challenge to applying resilience concepts to social-ecological systems (SESs) management. Using wildfire as an example, we develop a framework to expose and separate two important dimensions of resilience: the inherent properties that maintain structure, function, or states of an SES and the human perceptions of desirable or valued components of an SES. In doing so, the framework distinguishes between value-free and human-derived, value-explicit dimensions of resilience. Four archetypal scenarios highlight that ecological resilience and human values do not always align and that recognizing and anticipating potential misalignment is critical for developing effective management goals. Our framework clarifies existing resilience theory, connects literature across disciplines, and facilitates use of the resilience concept in research and land-management applications.

Integration of social and ecological sciences for natural resource decision making: challenges and opportunities.

The last 25 years have witnessed growing recognition that natural resource management decisions depend as much on understanding humans and their social interactions as on understanding the interactions between non-human organisms and their environment. Decision science provides a framework for integrating ecological and social factors into a decision, but challenges to integration remain. The decision-analytic framework elicits values and preferences to help articulate objectives, and then evaluates the outcomes of alternative management actions to achieve these objectives. Integrating social science into these steps can be hindered by failing to include social scientists as more than stakeholder-process facilitators, assuming that specific decision-analytic skills are commonplace for social scientists, misperceptions of social data as inherently qualitative, timescale mismatches for iterating through decision analysis and collecting relevant social data, difficulties in predicting human behavior, and failures of institutions to recognize the importance of this integration. We engage these challenges, and suggest solutions to them, helping move forward the integration of social and biological/ecological knowledge and considerations in decision-making.

The potential impact of aquatic nuisance species on recreational fishing in the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi and Ohio River Basins.

Concern over the potential transfer of aquatic nuisance species (ANS) between the Great Lakes basin and the Upper Mississippi River basin has motivated calls to re-establish hydrologic separation between the two basins. Accomplishing that goal would require significant expenditures to re-engineer waterways in the Chicago, IL area. These costs should be compared to the potential costs resulting from ANS transfer between the basin, a significant portion of which would be costs to recreational fisheries. In this study, a recreational behavior model is developed for sport anglers in an eight-state region. It models how angler behavior would change in response to potential changes in fishing quality resulting from ANS transfer. The model also calculates the potential loss in net economic value that anglers enjoy from the fishery. The model is estimated based on data on trips taken by anglers (travel cost data) and on angler statements about how they would respond to changes in fishing quality (contingent behavior data). The model shows that the benefit to recreational anglers from re-establishing hydrologic separation exceeds the costs only if the anticipated impacts of ANS transfer on sport fish catch rates are large and widespread.

Wildlife Conservation and Private Protected Areas: The Discrepancy Between Land Trust Mission Statements and Their Perceptions.

In 2010, land trusts in the U.S. had protected nearly 50 million acres of land, with much of it providing habitat for wildlife. However, the extent to which land trusts explicitly focus on wildlife conservation remains largely unknown. We used content analysis to assess land trust involvement in wildlife and habitat conservation, as reflected in their mission statements, and compared these findings with an organizational survey of land trusts. In our sample of 1358 mission statements, we found that only 17 % of land trusts mentioned "wildlife," "animal," or types of wildlife, and 35 % mentioned "habitat" or types. Mission statements contrasted sharply with results from a land trust survey, in which land trusts cited wildlife habitat as the most common and significant outcome of their protection efforts. Moreover, 77 % of land trusts reported that at least half of their acreage protected wildlife habitat, though these benefits are likely assumed. Importantly, mission statement content was not associated with the percentage of land reported to benefit wildlife. These inconsistencies suggest that benefits to wildlife habitat of protected land are recognized but may not be purposeful and strategic and, thus, potentially less useful in contributing toward regional wildlife conservation goals. We outline the implications of this disconnect, notably the potential omission of wildlife habitat in prioritization schema for land acquisition and potential missed opportunities to build community support for land trusts among wildlife enthusiasts and to develop partnerships with wildlife conservation organizations.

Anglers as potential vectors of aquatic invasive species: Linking inland water bodies in the Great Lakes region of the US.

Unimpeded transfer and spread of invasive species throughout freshwater systems is of global concern, altering species compositions, disrupting ecosystem processes, and diverting economic resources. The magnitude and complexity of the problem is amplified by the global connectedness of human movements and the multiple modes of inter-basin transport of aquatic invasive species. Our objective was to trace the fishing behavior of anglers delineating potential pathways of transfer of invasive species throughout the vast inland waters of the Great Lakes of North America, which contain more than 21% of the world's surface freshwater and are among the most highly invaded aquatic ecosystems in the world. Combining a comprehensive survey and a spatial analysis of the movements of thousands of anglers in 12 states within the US portion of the Great Lakes Basin and the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River Basins, we estimated that 6.5 million licensed anglers in the study area embarked on an average of 30 fishing trips over the course of the year, and 70% of the individuals fished in more than one county. Geospatial linkages showed direct connections made by individuals traveling between 99% of the 894 counties where fishing occurred, and between 61 of the 66 sub-watersheds in a year. Estimated numbers of fishing trips to individual counties ranged from 1199-1.95 million; generally highest in counties bordering the Great Lakes. Of these, 79 had more than 10,000 estimated fishing trips originating from anglers living in other counties. Although angler movements are one mechanism of invasive species transfer, there likely is a high cumulative probability of invasive species transport by several million people fishing each year throughout this extensive freshwater network. A comprehensive georeferenced survey, coupled with a spatial analysis of fishing destinations, provides a potentially powerful tool to track, predict, curtail and control the transfer and proliferation of invasive species in freshwater.

Climate resilience and risks of rigidity traps in Iceland's fisheries.

Iceland's fisheries system is well-governed, data-rich, and has adapted to past ecological change. It thus provides an opportunity to identify social-ecological attributes of climate resilience and interactions among them. We elicited barriers and enabling conditions for adaptation in Iceland's fisheries from semi-structured expert interviews, using projections of fish habitat shifts by mid-century to guide discussion. Interviewees highlighted flexible management, highly connected institutions that facilitate learning, ample assets to expand adaptive options, and cultural comfort with change. However, examining how these attributes interact in reinforcing feedback loops revealed potential rigidity traps, where optimization for resilience to stock shifts may render the system more vulnerable to extreme environmental change and social backlash. This study articulates resilience attributes that Iceland and other fisheries systems might prioritize as the climate changes. It further explores circumstances in which these same attributes risk forming traps, and potential pathways to escape them.

What's a stream without water? Disproportionality in headwater regions impacting water quality.

Headwater streams are critical components of the stream network, yet landowner perceptions, attitudes, and property management behaviors surrounding these intermittent and ephemeral streams are not well understood. Our research uses the concept of watershed disproportionality, where coupled social-biophysical conditions bear a disproportionate responsibility for harmful water quality outcomes, to analyze the potential influence of riparian landowner perceptions and attitudes on water quality in headwater regions. We combine social science survey data, aerial imagery, and an analysis of spatial point processes to assess the relationship between riparian landowner perceptions and attitudes in relation to stream flow regularity. Stream flow regularity directly and positively shapes landowners' water quality concerns, and also positively influences landowners' attitudes of stream importance-a key determinant of water quality concern as identified in a path analysis. Similarly, riparian landowners who do not notice or perceive a stream on their property are likely located in headwater regions. Our findings indicate that landowners of headwater streams, which are critical areas for watershed-scale water quality, are less likely to manage for water quality than landowners with perennial streams in an obvious, natural channel. We discuss the relationships between streamflow and how landowners develop understandings of their stream, and relate this to the broader water quality implications of headwater stream mismanagement.

Pride and guilt as place-based affective antecedents to pro-environmental behavior.

The interrelated concepts of place attachment and place meaning are antecedents to pro-environmental behavior and essential for supporting decisions that foster relationships between people and places. Previous research has argued that affect is instrumental in conceptualizing place-related phenomena but has not yet been considered in terms of discrete emotions. We disentangled the empirical relationships between concepts of place and the emotions of pride and guilt to understand how they collectively contributed to individuals' decisions about environmental sustainability. Specifically, we conducted an online survey of residents living in the Midwestern US and asked questions about their attachments to places and their place-related behavior. We then tested a latent variable path model with first- and second-order factors that shaped the behavioral intentions of survey respondents, as well as evaluated the psychometric properties of a place meaning scale, to uncover the range of reasons why human-nature relationships were formed. Our findings show that multiple place meanings predicted place attachment, which in turn predicted the discrete emotions of pride and guilt. Place attachment, pride, and guilt positively correlated with pro-environmental behavior. We also observed that the relationships between multi-dimensional conceptualizations of place attachment and behavioral intentions were partially mediated by pride but not guilt, as hypothesized in response to the broaden and build theory of positive emotions. This study develops theoretical insights to clarify how cognitive-emotional bonding can lead people to behave in more environmentally friendly ways.

Linking knowledge to action in collaborative conservation.

Authors have documented a "research-implementation gap" in conservation. Research intended to inform conservation practice often does not, and practice often is not informed by the best science. We used the literature on policy learning (i.e., literature attributing policy change to learning) to structure a study of how practice is informed by science in collaborative conservation. We studied implementation by U.S. states of state wildlife action plans. On the basis of 60 interviews with government and nongovernmental organization representatives, we identified 144 implementation initiatives for State Wildlife Action Plans that were collaborative. We conducted case studies of 6 of these initiatives, which included interviews of key individuals and analysis of written documents. We coded interview transcripts and written documents to identify factors that influence availability and use of scientific information. We integrated these factors into a model of collaborative conservation. Although tangible factors such as funding and labor directly affected the availability of scientific information, practitioners' ability and willingness to use the information depended on less tangible factors such as the quality of interpersonal relationships and dialogue. Our work demonstrates empirically that relationships and dialogue led to: (1) the sharing of resources, such as funding and labor, that were needed to carry out research and produce information and (2) agreement among researchers and practitioners on conservation objectives, which was necessary for that new information to inform action. Our findings can be understood in the context of broader concepts articulated in the policy-learning literature, which establishes that social learning (improving relationships and dialogue) provides the foundation for conceptual learning (setting objectives) and technical learning (determining how to achieve these objectives).

Resumen: Diferentes autores han documentado un "vacío de investigación-implementación" en la conservación. La investigación que intenta informar a la práctica de la conservación a menudo no lo hace, y la práctica a menudo no es informada por la mejor ciencia. Utilizamos la literatura sobre aprendizaje de políticas (i.e., literatura que atribuye cambios en políticas al aprendizaje) para estructurar un estudio de cómo la práctica es informada por la ciencia en conservación colaborativa. Estudiamos la implementación de planes de acción para vida silvestre en estados de E.U.A. Con base en 60 entrevistas con representantes de organizaciones gubernamentales y no gubernamentales, identificamos 144 iniciativas de implementación de Planes de Acción Estatales para Vida Silvestre que fueron colaborativas. Realizamos estudios de caso de 6 de estas iniciativas, que incluían entrevistas a individuos clave y el análisis de documentos escritos. Codificamos las transcripciones de las entrevistas y los documentos escritos para identificar factores que influyen en la variabilidad y uso de la información científica. Integramos estos factores en un modelo de investigación colaborativa. Aunque factores tangibles, como el financiamiento y labor, directamente afectaron la disponibilidad de información científica, la habilidad y disponibilidad de practicantes para utilizar la información dependió de factores menos tangible como la calidad de relaciones interpersonales y de diálogo. Nuestro trabajo demuestra empíricamente que las relaciones y el diálogo llevaron a: (1) compartir recursos, como el financiamiento y la labor, que fueron necesarios para llevar a cabo el proyecto y producir información y (2) acuerdos sobre objetivos de conservación entre investigadores y practicantes, lo cual fue necesario para que la información nueva informe a la acción. Nuestros hallazgos pueden ser entendidos en el contexto de conceptos más amplios articulados en la literatura de aprendizaje de políticas, que establece que el aprendizaje social (mejora de relaciones y diálogo) proporciona el fundamento del aprendizaje conceptual (fijar objetivos) y el aprendizaje técnico (determinación de cómo alcanzar esos objetivos).

Sense of place and experimentation in urban sustainability transitions: the Resilience Lab in Carnisse, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Experimentation as a means of governance for sustainability transitions has been advocated for years by transition scholars and geography scholars. We propose that examining the impact of experimentation requires an understanding of its embeddedness in place as a socio-spatial context. This notion of embeddedness, which conceptually aligns well with the understanding of sense of place, is under-examined in sustainability transitions literature. By conjoining the sense of place and sustainability transition literatures, we conceptualize that sense of place can be one outcome of experimentation fostering sustainability transitions. We examine urban living labs as an open format of urban experimentation, where multiple actors interact with the aim to co-design, test, and implement governance innovations. From the literature, we have distilled three phenomena that relate to a sense of place as mechanisms for transformation: a symbolic understanding or meaning of place; a narrative of place that connects to a transformative vision; and new types of relations between people and place. With this conceptual lens, we analyze our case study, an urban living lab called The Resilience Lab in a neighborhood of the city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Drawing from a longitudinal case study research, we contend that urban living labs can connect a sense of change (transformation) with a sense of place by co-creating new narratives of place, by co-producing knowledge on new practices and new relations between people and place, and by allowing the co-design or (re)establishment of places with symbolic meaning. As such, urban living labs facilitate urban sustainability transitions.

Benefits, motivations, and barriers related to environmental volunteerism for older adults: developing a research agenda.

Interest in civic engagement focused on the natural environment has grown dramatically, as has the population of older adults. Our article explores the potential for increased environmental volunteerism among older adults to enrich the lives of volunteers while benefitting the community and environmental quality. Curiously, this convergence has been relatively neglected by researchers and program developers. We review existing literatures on trends in volunteerism, motivations, benefits, and barriers to participation, with a special focus on elements most relevant to older adults. Based on this review, we identify a number of critical areas of research, and pose key research questions.

A comparative analysis of predictors of sense of place dimensions: attachment to, dependence on, and identification with lakeshore properties.

Sense of place can be conceived as a multidimensional construct representing beliefs, emotions and behavioural commitments concerning a particular geographic setting. This view, grounded in attitude theory, can better reveal complex relationships between the experience of a place and attributes of that place than approaches that do not differentiate cognitive, affective and conative domains. Shoreline property owners (N=290) in northern Wisconsin were surveyed about their sense of place for their lakeshore properties. A predictive model comprising owners' age, length of ownership, participation in recreational activities, days spent on the property, extent of property development, and perceptions of environmental features, was employed to explain the variation in dimensions of sense of place. In general, the results supported a multidimensional approach to sense of place in a context where there were moderate to high correlations among the three place dimensions. Perceptions of environmental features were the biggest predictors of place dimensions, with owners' perceptions of lake importance varying in explanatory power across place dimensions.

Risk and climate change: perceptions of key policy actors in Canada.

This article examines factors that predict perceptions of risk associated with global climate change. The research focuses on the perceptions of those associated with climate change policy making in the prairie region of Canada. The data are from an online survey (n=851) of those policy actors. The analysis integrates several dominant approaches to the study of risk perception: psychometric approaches that examine the effects of cognitive structure; demographic assessments that examine, for example, differences in perception based on gender or family status; and political approaches that suggest that one's position in the policy process may affect his or her perceived risk. Attitudes toward climate change are to a degree predicted by all of these factors, but only when indirect effects are observed. Sociodemographic characteristics have little direct effect on perceived risk, but do affect general beliefs that affect risk perceptions. Perceived risk is related more strongly to these general beliefs or world views than to more specific beliefs about the effects of climate change on weather patterns. Position within the policy process also contributes to our understanding of perceptions, with industry and governmental actors demonstrating similar attitudes, which contrast with environmental groups and university researchers.