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Understanding Grassroots Stakeholders and Grassroots Stakeholder Groups: The View from the Grassroots in the Upper Sugar Creek
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groups and generating partnerships among existing groups. Such choices cannot be made in the abstract, but can only be made on the basis of understanding the empirical opportunities and obstacles presented by the social and biophysical characteristics of a specific watershed. We posit that the strategy of forming new grassroots watershed groups is likely to be necessary in watersheds where the primary source of impairment is nonpoint source pollution from a large number of resource users, where these resource users are relatively unaware of a common resource problem, and where previous or existing conflict over the watershed is minimal. In such cases, there are no existing advocacy coalitions organized to defend their interests in relation to the common resource, there is no widely recognized conflict over watershed issues to generate coalition formation, and there is no general awareness of a problem in water quality to place watershed issues on the agenda of policy makers.
Moreover, drawing on ACF, we assume that the type of learning that is necessary to
support restoration efforts is very different from a “disinterested search for ‘truth’” or what happens in a classroom. Such action-oriented learning occurs in a dynamic social and political context that frequently involves ambiguity and conflict, and such learning is undertaken by the kinds of imperfect individual and collective agents posited above. This means that the kind of scientific and technical information that is frequently critical to watershed restoration efforts will usually be perceived in terms of its compatibility with existing social identities and will inevitably be filtered through the grassroots stakeholders’ deep core beliefs and values. These factors complicate all attempts to use scientific data to educate stakeholders regarding the current state of the watershed, to identify causes of impairment, to develop solutions, and to propose new strategies for restoration.
3) Attitudes of Landowners along the Upper Sugar Creek
Successful watershed management requires understanding not only the complex
biophysical processes and social practices affecting water quality and habitat, but also how residents of the watershed make use its resources, how they see the current state of the watershed, and what they see as potential future uses of the watershed (Burger 1998). Unless watershed managers and organizers have an adequate understanding of the beliefs, values and behaviors of grassroots stakeholders regarding the stream, they have little chance of implementing watershed plans. Since we were interested in those stakeholders whose adoption of conservation measures would have the most impact on water quality, our survey focused on property owners along the stream. Using GIS and the county auditor’s database, we identified each parcel in the Upper Sugar Creek that abutted the mainstream or a tributary. We sent out our first mailing of the survey in August of 2000, and when it plus a second mailing failed to generated additional responses, we moved to a “drop/off pick/up” approach and obtained 163 completed surveys, giving us a response rate of 84%.
The language of the Upper Sugar Creek survey was adopted on the basis of a
focus group discussion with local stakeholders who had worked previously with AMP. The survey attempted to elicit watershed residents’ level of awareness of water quality issues, whom they blamed for problems they identified, what watershed resources they valued, what (if any) improvements they wanted to see in the watershed, what agencies or groups they trusted, and whether or not they were willing to make improvements or work
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| | Authors: Weaver, Mark., Moore, Richard. and Parker, Jason. |
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groups and generating partnerships among existing groups. Such choices cannot be made
in the abstract, but can only be made on the basis of understanding the empirical
opportunities and obstacles presented by the social and biophysical characteristics of a
specific watershed. We posit that the strategy of forming new grassroots watershed
groups is likely to be necessary in watersheds where the primary source of impairment is
nonpoint source pollution from a large number of resource users, where these resource
users are relatively unaware of a common resource problem, and where previous or
existing conflict over the watershed is minimal. In such cases, there are no existing
advocacy coalitions organized to defend their interests in relation to the common
resource, there is no widely recognized conflict over watershed issues to generate
coalition formation, and there is no general awareness of a problem in water quality to
place watershed issues on the agenda of policy makers.
Moreover, drawing on ACF, we assume that the type of learning that is necessary to
support restoration efforts is very different from a “disinterested search for ‘truth’” or
what happens in a classroom. Such action-oriented learning occurs in a dynamic social
and political context that frequently involves ambiguity and conflict, and such learning is
undertaken by the kinds of imperfect individual and collective agents posited above. This
means that the kind of scientific and technical information that is frequently critical to
watershed restoration efforts will usually be perceived in terms of its compatibility with
existing social identities and will inevitably be filtered through the grassroots
stakeholders’ deep core beliefs and values. These factors complicate all attempts to use
scientific data to educate stakeholders regarding the current state of the watershed, to
identify causes of impairment, to develop solutions, and to propose new strategies for
restoration.
3) Attitudes of Landowners along the Upper Sugar Creek
Successful watershed management requires understanding not only the complex
biophysical processes and social practices affecting water quality and habitat, but also
how residents of the watershed make use its resources, how they see the current state of
the watershed, and what they see as potential future uses of the watershed (Burger 1998).
Unless watershed managers and organizers have an adequate understanding of the beliefs,
values and behaviors of grassroots stakeholders regarding the stream, they have little
chance of implementing watershed plans. Since we were interested in those stakeholders
whose adoption of conservation measures would have the most impact on water quality,
our survey focused on property owners along the stream. Using GIS and the county
auditor’s database, we identified each parcel in the Upper Sugar Creek that abutted the
mainstream or a tributary. We sent out our first mailing of the survey in August of 2000,
and when it plus a second mailing failed to generated additional responses, we moved to
a “drop/off pick/up” approach and obtained 163 completed surveys, giving us a response
rate of 84%.
The language of the Upper Sugar Creek survey was adopted on the basis of a
focus group discussion with local stakeholders who had worked previously with AMP.
The survey attempted to elicit watershed residents’ level of awareness of water quality
issues, whom they blamed for problems they identified, what watershed resources they
valued, what (if any) improvements they wanted to see in the watershed, what agencies or
groups they trusted, and whether or not they were willing to make improvements or work
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