Climate Change Education Engaging Family Private Forest Owners on Issues Related to Climate Change: A Workshop Summary (2014) / Chapter Skim
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4 Engaging Forestland Owners: Perspectives from the Social Sciences
4 Engaging Forestland Owners: Perspectives from the Social Sciences
Pages 39-54
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From page 39... ...
A panel of social scientists and foresters drew on their experiences working with forestland owners in offering their responses to the presentations. IDENTIFYING EFFECTIVE MESSAGES Purnima Chawla, executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Strategies, linked ideas raised by the case studies discussed in Chapter 3 to concepts from the fields of social marketing, organizational behavior, and human decision making.
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From page 40... ...
In other words, she explained, "people may say ‘yes I am a good steward, but I don't see this behavior as an expression of my stewardship ethic.'" In such cases, she added, repetition of the rationale can be very effective. For example, she observed that the connection between building a legacy and estate planning with stewardship of the forest itself may not be apparent immediately because "it is not a natural connection people make." But if the message is repeated, the target audience has more opportunities to consider it and recognize that stewardship can mean taking a longer perspective and planning for what will happen to land
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From page 41... ...
THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY Maureen McDonough, professor of forest sociology and social forestry at Michigan State University, offered perspectives from the field of natural resources sociology about social relationships within communities, as they pertain to forestland owners. She began with approaches she observed in the case studies that align well with the research literature she tracks.
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From page 42... ...
Trying to convince people that "you are right and they are not is not going to be effective," McDonough observed. Political science research also offers insights about how people expect to participate in decision making, she added, and she did not hear much discussion in the case examples about including landowners in decision making.
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From page 43... ...
The basic question -- of what goes wrong and keeps people from receiving messages as they were intended -- underlies much of the research in educational and learning psychology, as well as communications, he added. There are many distinct factors that distort communications, Heimlich noted, that have generated lines of research.
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From page 44... ...
Social role is a significant determinant of people's actions, and it is a dynamic, rather than a static, concept. For example, a message to forestland owners about the land as a family legacy may come across differently depending on whether the recipient is hearing it as "the child of his grandparents or as the parent of his children and grandchildren." 1 Sociocultural theory is a psychological theory that stresses the importance of cultural contribution to an individual's cognitive and social development.
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From page 45... ...
As many others at the workshop had noted, the basic strategy is to understand the audience, design messages based on that, and use trusted sources to deliver it. Building on that, he explained, begins with the profile of six distinct groups of Americans' understanding of climate change, shown in Figure 4-1 (also discussed by Geoffrey Feinberg as the "Six Americas"; see Chapter 2)
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From page 46... ...
This research suggests that FIGURE 4-2 Certainty of belief about the reality of global warming, March 2012. SOURCE: Leiserowitz et al.
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From page 47... ...
. FIGURE 4-4 Priority of global warming for the President and Congress, 2008-2012.
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From page 48... ...
For example, some evidence suggests that discussion of risks to public health posed by climate change, and the actions that might mitigate those risks, may be more compelling to audiences who have resisted other approaches to the topic. Thus, discussion of heat waves, extreme weather, infectious diseases, or improving air quality may be effective.
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From page 49... ...
"People tend to trust climate scientists," Clark pointed out, "but they don't really know who they are." Since people also trust weather reporters, Clark and others have begun to work with these reporters to encourage them to incorporate factual messages about climate change into their forecasts.5 This would mean not linking a particular weather event directly to climate change, he added, but elaborating on the context to help people experiencing a heat wave understand, for example, that heat waves are becoming more common because of larger patterns. Climate change communication is a matter of "engaging hearts and minds," Clark concluded, or cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement.
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From page 50... ...
In one of the communities, she noted, a transportation planning organization advertised a public meeting to collect public input for their long-term planning effort that cited a desire to hear people's thoughts about climate change. "This was like a siren call for the alarmed and the dismissive," Layman explained.
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From page 51... ...
First, because the language used will determine how the message is received, it is vital to "deconstruct the message before sending." Second, a critical point was that effective messages come from trusted sources. James Houser, owner and consulting forester for James Houser Consulting Foresters, LLC, began by noting that as a professional forester who supports landowners in managing their property, he has noticed significant skepticism in his region (Texas)
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From page 52... ...
For example, they are working with the Roanoke Electric Cooperative to help guide local forestland owners in addressing forestland management issues. Amanda Mahaffey, northeast region director for the Forest Guild, described the experience that members of the Forest Guild6 had in working with woodland owners.
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From page 53... ...
Forest Service, highlighting two key aspects of the forest stewardship program. One is communicating to the general public why private forestland is important and the role its owners play in adapting to and mitigating climate change.
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