Links between media communication and local perceptions of climate change in an indigenous society.

Indigenous societies hold a great deal of ethnoclimatological knowledge that could potentially be of key importance for both climate change science and local adaptation; yet, we lack studies examining how such knowledge might be shaped by media communication. This study systematically investigates the interplay between local observations of climate change and the reception of media information amongst the Tsimane', an indigenous society of Bolivian Amazonia where the scientific discourse of anthropogenic climate change has barely reached. Specifically, we conducted a Randomized Evaluation with a sample of 424 household heads in 12 villages to test to what degree local accounts of climate change are influenced by externally influenced awareness. We randomly assigned villages to a treatment and control group, conducted workshops on climate change with villages in the treatment group, and evaluated the effects of information dissemination on individual climate change perceptions. Results of this work suggest that providing climate change information through participatory workshops does not noticeably influence individual perceptions of climate change. Such findings stress the challenges involved in translating between local and scientific framings of climate change, and gives cause for concern about how to integrate indigenous peoples and local knowledge with global climate change policy debates.

From Paper to Forest: Local Motives for Participation in Different Conservation Initiatives. Case Studies in Southeastern Mexico.

Under the assumption that local participation can contribute toward conservation, various policies have sought to increase the participation of local communities in conservation, but not always with success. Despite this failure, the drivers that explain local participation remain unclear and few studies have attempted to understand the motivations behind involvement (or lack of it) in different conservation initiatives and adopting the perspective of the local stakeholder. In this study, we analyze the motives behind the participation (or lack thereof) of local populations in three conservation schemes: Protected Areas, Areas Voluntary Devoted to Conservation, and areas under Payment for Environmental Services. The study, conducted in 6 communities of southeastern Mexico, comprises an ethnographic stage and the application of a survey exploring the motives for participation. Our results show similarities among the motives for participation in these three initiatives, predominantly the obligation to comply with acquired commitments and a desire to "care for the land". Results also show that 77 % of the people interviewed did not participate in any conservation initiatives, often due to the lack of mechanisms by which to participate. We conclude by questioning the feasibility of achieving local participation in conservation as currently proposed and for the aims that are outlined.

Local participation in biodiversity conservation initiatives: a comparative analysis of different models in South East Mexico.

In Mexico, biodiversity conservation is primarily implemented through three schemes: 1) protected areas, 2) payment-based schemes for environmental services, and 3) community-based conservation, officially recognized in some cases as Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas. In this paper we compare levels of local participation across conservation schemes. Through a survey applied to 670 households across six communities in Southeast Mexico, we document local participation during the creation, design, and implementation of the management plan of different conservation schemes. To analyze the data, we first calculated the frequency of participation at the three different stages mentioned, then created a participation index that characterizes the presence and relative intensity of local participation for each conservation scheme. Results showed that there is a low level of local participation across all the conservation schemes explored in this study. Nonetheless, the payment for environmental services had the highest local participation while the protected areas had the least. Our findings suggest that local participation in biodiversity conservation schemes is not a predictable outcome of a specific (community-based) model, thus implying that other factors might be important in determining local participation. This has implications on future strategies that seek to encourage local involvement in conservation.