Open Collections

Rahimova, Nargiz

University of British Columbia

This study looks into landowners’ motives to initiate a collaborative riparian restoration project in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. The project intends to coordinate restoration activities across several adjoining parcels, better aligning activities with the natural riparian processes than would occur through individual, uncoordinated actions. This study provided a number of important insights into the understanding of factors motivating collective restoration projects. The study also helped understand the specific social-ecological context where riparian restoration can be used as an adaptation approach to climate change by farming communities. This analysis highlights that the emergence and execution of this project was the result of a coincidence of enabling conditions. Important initial triggers included impacts from changing weather patterns that increase farming costs and a threat of regulatory action. Landowners’ perception of being in a ‘fishbowl’ in relation to a nearby residential subdivision created a perceived need to act as a group and demonstrate their pro-environmental attitudes. The availability of a funding program targeted at group farm projects enabled this project to proceed. Improved knowledge about climate change and the role of ecosystems in mitigating the impacts, facilitated by the restoration practitioners, served as an important driver for change in motivations and intention to proceed despite regulatory and project management hurdles and delays. Although a supportive regulatory environment was found important to motivating the restoration collective action, institutional barriers do not discourage participation if other enabling factors are present.

Text

2022-08-12

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82361

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/