... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel th... more ... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel that generalizes the Conrad-Harvey-Holland Theorem, namely, that every normal-valued /-group can be v-embedded into a special-valued/-group. 1. Introduction ...
Large-scale natural resource conservation initiatives are increasingly adopting a network governa... more Large-scale natural resource conservation initiatives are increasingly adopting a network governance framework to respond to the ecological, social, and political challenges of contemporary environmental governance. A network approach offers new modes of management that allow resource managers and others to transcend a single institution, organization, resource, or landscape and engage in conservation that is multi-species and multi-jurisdictional. However, there are challenges to network governance in large-scale conservation efforts, which we address by focusing on how special interests can capture networks and shape the goals, objectives, and outcomes of initiatives. The term “network capture” is used here to describe an array of strategies that direct the processes and outcomes of large-scale initiatives in ways that advance a group's positions, concerns, or economic interests. We outline how new stakeholders emerge from these management processes, and how the ease of information sharing can blur stakeholder positions and lead to competing knowledge claims. We conclude by reasserting the benefits of network governance while acknowledging the unique challenges that networks present.
Increasingly, natural resource conservation programs refer to participation and local community i... more Increasingly, natural resource conservation programs refer to participation and local community involvement as one of the necessary prerequisites for sustainable resource management. In frameworks of adaptive comanagement, the theory of participatory conservation plays a central role in the democratization of decisionmaking authority and equitable distribution of benefits and burdens. We observe, however, that the institutions of state, society, and economy shape the implementation and application of participation in significant ways across contexts. This paper examines the political ecology of participation by comparing and contrasting discourse and practice in four developed and developing contexts. The cases drawn from Central Asia, Africa, and North America illustrate that institutional dynamics and discourse shape outcomes. While these results are not necessarily surprising, they raise questions about the linkages between participatory conservation theory, policy and programmatic efforts of implementation to achieve tangible local livelihood and conservation outcomes. Participation must be understood in the broader political economy of conservation in which local projects unfold, and we suggest that theories of participatory governance need to be less generalized and more situated within contours of place-based institutional and environmental histories. Through this analysis we illustrate the dialectical process of conservation in that the very institutions that participation is intended to build create resistance, as state control once did. Conservation theory and theories of participatory governance must consider these dynamics if we are to move conservation forward in a way that authentically incorporates local level livelihood concerns.
Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is an environmental governance approach that ... more Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is an environmental governance approach that deals with complex and interwoven ecological problems through a participatory environmental management framework. Practitioner, donor, and academic interest in this strategy is on the rise, and successful CBNRM organizations are experiencing internal and external pressures to help “transfer” their knowledge and experiences to other contexts and scales. If organized through the traditional top-down diffusion of innovation approach, many barriers to CBNRM transfer exist, beginning with organizational costs that may outweigh potential benefits. However, reframed as a more “open” and emergent process, the burdens of transfer may be reduced and benefits increased. We draw on an analogy from the Open Source Software (OSS) movement to suggest an organizational rationale for exchange and principles such as “porting,” the “kernel,” “copyleft,” and “forking” that can guide CBNRM and for community-...
Over the past century, wildland fire management has been core to the mission of federal land mana... more Over the past century, wildland fire management has been core to the mission of federal land management agencies. In recent decades, however, federal spending on wildfire suppression has increased dramatically; suppression spending that on average accounted for less than 20 percent of the USFS’s discretionary funds prior to 2000 had grown to 43 percent of discretionary funds by 2008 (USDA 2009, via Thompson et al. 2013), and 51 percent in 2014 (2015 budget justification). The rising expenditures have created budgetary shortfalls and conflict as money “borrowed” from other budgets often cannot be paid back in full, and resources for all other program areas and missions are subsumed by suppression expenditures (Thompson et al. 2013). Significant policy making over the past 15 years has been designed, at least in part, to address these issues and temper wildfire costs. Despite the political efforts to control public spending on suppression, effective strategies rely on a thorough and c...
Collaborative graduate research Environmental governance Intermountain West a b s t r a c t Worki... more Collaborative graduate research Environmental governance Intermountain West a b s t r a c t Working effectively across boundaries is a critical skill for researchers focused on environmental governance in complex social-ecological systems, but challenges remain in the acquisition of such skills given the current structure of traditional disciplinary training. In an effort to contribute to improved coordination of research across disciplinary boundaries, we provide an insiders' view based on our experience participating in a two-year transdisciplinary research initiative designed to address the changing nature of environmental governance in the Intermountain West region of the United States. We discuss transdisciplinary research as a promising approach for addressing complex, real-world problems and identify several challenges. We analyze our transdisciplinary research process using the ideas of boundary setting, boundary concepts, and boundary objects. We conclude with reflections and lessons learned, emphasizing the importance of our external boundary setting, the role of funding, and the inexorable link between individual commitment and project success.
Although there is acknowledgment that the complexity of social-ecological systems governance dema... more Although there is acknowledgment that the complexity of social-ecological systems governance demands representation from diverse perspectives, there is little agreement in the literature on how to cross both fiat (human-demarcated) and bona fide (physical) boundaries to address such complexities. As a cohort of interdisciplinary scholars, we navigate the boundary between science and practice to address the question of fit regarding the role of organizations in transcending boundaries. We found there is a need to rectify discrepancies between theories about boundaries and theories about organizations. To this end, we propose a conceptual framework to analyze transboundary organizations, an umbrella term to group the literature on boundary organizations, intermediaries and bridging organizations; we introduce this term to illustrate they are not mutually exclusive and to facilitate interdisciplinary research. We first examine social-ecological systems (SES), a framework intended to improve understandings of boundaries and governance. We then continue to unpack the complexity of boundaries and organizations, specifically through important transboundary concepts such as scale and organizational learning. This helps frame our examination of the literature on: 1) boundary organizations; 2) bridging organizations (third-party entities); and 3) intermediaries (distinguished by their position between other actors). Our review identifies a number of discrepancies that pertain to the types of boundaries discussed and the roles assigned to organizations governing SES. Important characteristics have emerged from our review of transboundary organizations including legitimacy, saliency, urgency, and credibility. In developing a conceptual framework, we argue that transboundary organizations: 1) expand upon the boundary spectrum, 2) incorporate transboundary concepts, and 3) hybridize characteristics of boundary, bridging, and intermediary organizations. We conclude with a number of considerations for transboundary organizations and recommendations for further research.
... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel th... more ... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel that generalizes the Conrad-Harvey-Holland Theorem, namely, that every normal-valued /-group can be v-embedded into a special-valued/-group. 1. Introduction ...
... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel th... more ... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel that generalizes the Conrad-Harvey-Holland Theorem, namely, that every normal-valued /-group can be v-embedded into a special-valued/-group. 1. Introduction ...
Large-scale natural resource conservation initiatives are increasingly adopting a network governa... more Large-scale natural resource conservation initiatives are increasingly adopting a network governance framework to respond to the ecological, social, and political challenges of contemporary environmental governance. A network approach offers new modes of management that allow resource managers and others to transcend a single institution, organization, resource, or landscape and engage in conservation that is multi-species and multi-jurisdictional. However, there are challenges to network governance in large-scale conservation efforts, which we address by focusing on how special interests can capture networks and shape the goals, objectives, and outcomes of initiatives. The term “network capture” is used here to describe an array of strategies that direct the processes and outcomes of large-scale initiatives in ways that advance a group's positions, concerns, or economic interests. We outline how new stakeholders emerge from these management processes, and how the ease of information sharing can blur stakeholder positions and lead to competing knowledge claims. We conclude by reasserting the benefits of network governance while acknowledging the unique challenges that networks present.
Increasingly, natural resource conservation programs refer to participation and local community i... more Increasingly, natural resource conservation programs refer to participation and local community involvement as one of the necessary prerequisites for sustainable resource management. In frameworks of adaptive comanagement, the theory of participatory conservation plays a central role in the democratization of decisionmaking authority and equitable distribution of benefits and burdens. We observe, however, that the institutions of state, society, and economy shape the implementation and application of participation in significant ways across contexts. This paper examines the political ecology of participation by comparing and contrasting discourse and practice in four developed and developing contexts. The cases drawn from Central Asia, Africa, and North America illustrate that institutional dynamics and discourse shape outcomes. While these results are not necessarily surprising, they raise questions about the linkages between participatory conservation theory, policy and programmatic efforts of implementation to achieve tangible local livelihood and conservation outcomes. Participation must be understood in the broader political economy of conservation in which local projects unfold, and we suggest that theories of participatory governance need to be less generalized and more situated within contours of place-based institutional and environmental histories. Through this analysis we illustrate the dialectical process of conservation in that the very institutions that participation is intended to build create resistance, as state control once did. Conservation theory and theories of participatory governance must consider these dynamics if we are to move conservation forward in a way that authentically incorporates local level livelihood concerns.
Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is an environmental governance approach that ... more Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is an environmental governance approach that deals with complex and interwoven ecological problems through a participatory environmental management framework. Practitioner, donor, and academic interest in this strategy is on the rise, and successful CBNRM organizations are experiencing internal and external pressures to help “transfer” their knowledge and experiences to other contexts and scales. If organized through the traditional top-down diffusion of innovation approach, many barriers to CBNRM transfer exist, beginning with organizational costs that may outweigh potential benefits. However, reframed as a more “open” and emergent process, the burdens of transfer may be reduced and benefits increased. We draw on an analogy from the Open Source Software (OSS) movement to suggest an organizational rationale for exchange and principles such as “porting,” the “kernel,” “copyleft,” and “forking” that can guide CBNRM and for community-...
Over the past century, wildland fire management has been core to the mission of federal land mana... more Over the past century, wildland fire management has been core to the mission of federal land management agencies. In recent decades, however, federal spending on wildfire suppression has increased dramatically; suppression spending that on average accounted for less than 20 percent of the USFS’s discretionary funds prior to 2000 had grown to 43 percent of discretionary funds by 2008 (USDA 2009, via Thompson et al. 2013), and 51 percent in 2014 (2015 budget justification). The rising expenditures have created budgetary shortfalls and conflict as money “borrowed” from other budgets often cannot be paid back in full, and resources for all other program areas and missions are subsumed by suppression expenditures (Thompson et al. 2013). Significant policy making over the past 15 years has been designed, at least in part, to address these issues and temper wildfire costs. Despite the political efforts to control public spending on suppression, effective strategies rely on a thorough and c...
Collaborative graduate research Environmental governance Intermountain West a b s t r a c t Worki... more Collaborative graduate research Environmental governance Intermountain West a b s t r a c t Working effectively across boundaries is a critical skill for researchers focused on environmental governance in complex social-ecological systems, but challenges remain in the acquisition of such skills given the current structure of traditional disciplinary training. In an effort to contribute to improved coordination of research across disciplinary boundaries, we provide an insiders' view based on our experience participating in a two-year transdisciplinary research initiative designed to address the changing nature of environmental governance in the Intermountain West region of the United States. We discuss transdisciplinary research as a promising approach for addressing complex, real-world problems and identify several challenges. We analyze our transdisciplinary research process using the ideas of boundary setting, boundary concepts, and boundary objects. We conclude with reflections and lessons learned, emphasizing the importance of our external boundary setting, the role of funding, and the inexorable link between individual commitment and project success.
Although there is acknowledgment that the complexity of social-ecological systems governance dema... more Although there is acknowledgment that the complexity of social-ecological systems governance demands representation from diverse perspectives, there is little agreement in the literature on how to cross both fiat (human-demarcated) and bona fide (physical) boundaries to address such complexities. As a cohort of interdisciplinary scholars, we navigate the boundary between science and practice to address the question of fit regarding the role of organizations in transcending boundaries. We found there is a need to rectify discrepancies between theories about boundaries and theories about organizations. To this end, we propose a conceptual framework to analyze transboundary organizations, an umbrella term to group the literature on boundary organizations, intermediaries and bridging organizations; we introduce this term to illustrate they are not mutually exclusive and to facilitate interdisciplinary research. We first examine social-ecological systems (SES), a framework intended to improve understandings of boundaries and governance. We then continue to unpack the complexity of boundaries and organizations, specifically through important transboundary concepts such as scale and organizational learning. This helps frame our examination of the literature on: 1) boundary organizations; 2) bridging organizations (third-party entities); and 3) intermediaries (distinguished by their position between other actors). Our review identifies a number of discrepancies that pertain to the types of boundaries discussed and the roles assigned to organizations governing SES. Important characteristics have emerged from our review of transboundary organizations including legitimacy, saliency, urgency, and credibility. In developing a conceptual framework, we argue that transboundary organizations: 1) expand upon the boundary spectrum, 2) incorporate transboundary concepts, and 3) hybridize characteristics of boundary, bridging, and intermediary organizations. We conclude with a number of considerations for transboundary organizations and recommendations for further research.
... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel th... more ... This lends itself easily to a new and simple proof of a result by Ball, Conrad, and Darnel that generalizes the Conrad-Harvey-Holland Theorem, namely, that every normal-valued /-group can be v-embedded into a special-valued/-group. 1. Introduction ...
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Papers by Patrick Bixler