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Matt Collins on place-based collaboratives

Posted by Peter Donovan 1 year, 11 months ago in policy and framing /

Here's a very significant and interesting talk by Matt Collins on place-based collaboratives. The topic is conflict prevention--wolves and bears vs livestock, strategies including guard dogs, fencing, fladry, carcass removal, range riders . .. but in many instances these strategies don't accord with existing social norms among ranchers.

Highly relevant to other areas or challenges such as monitoring.

He emphasizes the value of a bounded network, which allows important relationships to be fostered with some trust. And also the value of a "boundary-spanning network" (such as the Western Landowners Alliance) that can help spread the innovations, including that of a bounded network.

He talks about a "spiral of silence" in a community that can be broken when a "thought leader" models the acceptance of an innovation (e.g. a conflict prevention strategy). This serves as an "injunctive norm" that tells people that the innovation is now accepted, and breaks down the barriers to peer-to-peer interaction ... important for landowners to share what tools are working as well as with successes with other community members, which can help increase implementation in the group.

Matt talks fast as he only has 15 minutes to summarize his thesis. For my older ear, I slowed the playback to .75 in settings.