Examining Private Landowners’ Knowledge Systems for an Invasive Species

SANTO, ANNA R.; GUILLOZET, KATHLEEN; SORICE, MICHAEL G.; BAIRD, TIMOTHY D.; GRAY, STEVEN; DONLAN, C. JOSH; ANDERSON, CHRISTOPHER B.

HUMAN ECOLOGY

Springer

Año: 2017 vol. 45 p. 449 - 462

0300-7839

Shared ecological knowledge about the impacts ofbiological invasions can facilitate the collective action necessaryto achieve desired management outcomes. Since its introductionto an island archipelago in South America, the North Americanbeaver has caused major changes to the ecosystem. Weexamined landowners? mental models of how beavers impactecosystem services in riparian areas to understand the potentialto implement a large-scale eradication program. We used ethnographicinterviews to characterize individual landowners?perceptions about beaver-caused changes to ecosystems andlandowners? wellbeing, and examined the degree to which they are shared. While the eradication initiative focuses on ecosystemintegrity, landowners considered impacts on provisioning servicesto be most salient. Landowners did not have a highlyshared causal model of beaver impacts, which indicates adiverse knowledge system. This lack of consensus on how beaversimpact riparian areas provides some optimism for garneringsupport for eradication, and also offers insights into challengeswith mental modeling methodologies.