Understanding the Enablers and Barriers to Local Environmental Stewardship

Local environmental stewardship activities occur across environments, geographies, social contexts and rural to urban gradients. Yet the success of these environmental stewardship initiatives is not a given in any given... [ view full abstract ]

Local environmental stewardship activities occur across environments, geographies, social contexts and rural to urban gradients. Yet the success of these environmental stewardship initiatives is not a given in any given context. Would be stewards can face a number of barriers, such as capacity challenges, rapid environmental change, external social and market pressures, and lack of political will and motivation. This facilitated panel discussion will explore the enablers and barriers to successful local environmental stewardship and potential solutions that might help communities to overcome the challenges that they face. Through bringing together presenters from across the Community Conservation Research Network (CCRN) with representatives from the IUCN Commission on Ecological, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP), this panel will help to synthesize insights from a broad number of case studies and contexts. In doing so, it will help to achieve CCRN objectives of integrating and synthesizing knowledge. Panelists will include Merle Sowman, Prateep Nayak, Osvaldo Munguia, Kevin Chang and Vatsu Rakotondrazafy. Panel moderators are Nathan Bennett and Sharmalene Mendis-Millard.