TRUE GRASP: Actors visualize and explore hidden limitations of an apparent win-win land management strategy in a MAB reserve

Authored by Marco Braasch, Luis Garcia-Barrios, Sergio Cortina-Villar, Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Neptali Ramirez-Marcial

Date Published: 2018

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.03.022

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Win-win solutions might be short-lived. Government permission for smallholder farmers to extract and sell resin from a pine savanna biosphere-reserve in Mexico has settled a long dispute among different stakeholders in the short-term; however, forest production and conservation beyond 20 years are compromised due to low pine recruitment caused by competition with exotic grasses. Grass control practiced by farmers through grazing and fire has previously been discouraged by conservation authorities, which inadvertently limits long-term pine conservation and use. We describe the participatory design, rationale and simulation attributes of an educational, interactive, agent-based model that explores suites of management options and their economic and ecological outputs. We present and analyze the outcomes of four simulation workshops, where farmers and external-actors better grasped the complex ecological interactions involved in conserving and using pines in grazed pine savanna with exotic grasses, and discussed these findings with a long-term vision and tradeoff analysis approach. (c) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Tags

Agent-based model Decision Making Simulation Agent-based models Ecosystem services Participatory modelling protected areas Social-ecological systems stakeholder involvement Biodiversity conservation Challenges Construction Human decisions Fire Cover change Forest Trade-offs Smallholder farmers Cattle in forests Forest management tradeoffs Software availability Biosphere-reserve Forest frontiers