Citation:

Canfield, Katherine, K. Mulvaney, AND C. Chatelain. “People don’t like change”: Achieving ecological goals and maintaining social value in cranberry bog wetland restoration. RAE Coastal & Estuarine Summit 2022, New Orleans, LA, December 04 - 08, 2022.

Impact/Purpose:

Public engagement can help to improve the long-term response of users to restoration projects. This research seeks to understand how both recreators at cranberry bogs in Cape Cod and key informants involved in the research and practice of retiring cranberry bogs view priorities in bog retirement and restoration. Further, it seeks to identify recommended practices for future restoration projects to meet both the needs of those who call these places home and the people involved in the research and restoration of the sites.

Description:

When wetland restoration occurs in places that have great cultural meaning, public engagement is essential to ensure the social value of the space is preserved while reaching ecological goals. In restoration ecology research, there continues to be a disconnect between environmental change and how the value people associate with a landscape is impacted (Buijs, 2009). Building on research that has looked at how place meaning affects people’s interpretation of water management interventions (i.e. Buijs, 2009; Davenport and Anderson, 2005; Druschke, 2013), this project investigated how the intersection of place meaning, restoration, and public engagement can impact people’s perceptions of small-scale agricultural restoration interventions. This presentation uses six cases of bog retirement and restoration in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to build scientific understanding of how to best communicate the value and process of wetland restoration and how to engage communities. We interviewed restoration researchers and practitioners, alongside recreators using the retired sites, to investigate how diverse place meanings, intended uses, and cultural models impact people’s perspectives of a wetland undergoing environmental change. These interviews identified local resistance to change, the importance of working with communities early in the restoration process to understand and address local concerns, targeted engagement, and context-specific design that is informed by local use. Further, we will provide evidence-based recommendations on how to systematically integrate experiential knowledge into restoration designs, and present recommendations for best practices to balance social and ecological goals in coastal wetland restoration.

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