Tacit working models of human behavioural change II: Farmers' folk theories of conservation programme design

Abstract

Community involvement may be essential for conservation programme success. We focus on farmers, asking how and why they believe conservation interventions will work, or not. Here we test models of folk theories of the human motivational factors required for behaviour change, in 3 rural central Chilean communities. We hypothesize that different models will be supported by farmers with different experiences with conservation programmes, and that socioeconomic and production system variation will explain further variation in who supports each working model. We use a multiple methods approach, combining a questionnaire with participant-observation. We find support for three of the working models of human behavioural change, among different socio-economic profiles of farmers. We believe that the schema of working models provides a boundary object to facilitate communication between conservationists and stakeholders, and can help improve conservation project design and implementation.

Keywords: Behavioural change; Conservation; Farmers; Motivation; Values.

Fig. 1

The gradient space formed by the four working models

Fig. 2

The three study sites in the area known as the Cordillera de Cantillana, showing the landcover context within the concerned municipal boundaries

Fig. 3

Indices data. For explanations of the indices see Table 3

Fig. 4

The cards depicting the statements representing the working models. The most frequent response for all statements was “Very Important”. On the left, the statements most often categorized as “Not Important”. Images drawn by AB