Place meanings and desired management outcomes

Federal land management agencies and social scientists have been attempting to understand place meanings and the perceptions of resource users for decades. In this research, we suggest that understanding the relationships between the meanings individuals ascribe to managed landscapes and those individuals’ preferences for management outcomes have become increasingly important. The processes of devolution and globalization have simultaneously increased the need for locally informed collaborative management and increased the importance of local ‘place’. Following the cognitive perspective on place, we examine how individuals’ place meanings affect their desired management outcomes. Data come from a questionnaire administered to residents living near three U.S. Army Corps of Engineers managed projects within Illinois’ Kaskaskia River Watershed. Confirmatory factor analysis is employed to validate a seven-dimensional scale of place meanings and a six-dimensional scale of desired management outcomes. Subsequent structural equation modeling revealed that desired management outcomes were significantly influenced by place meanings (12 significant relationships found). Most notably, the analysis revealed that believing the managed resource area contributed to the local community's identity significantly and positively influenced all of the possible management outcomes. The connection between resource management and community identity matters. Other findings reveal individuals attached a variety of meanings to the resource, and that these meanings can affect desired management preferences in distinct and potentially conflicting ways. In sum, our findings begin to unravel some of the complexities between the various meanings attached to managed landscapes and their affect on desired management outcomes.

► Community identity was the most consistent predictor of desired management outcomes.
► The connection between resource management and community identity matters.
► Individuals attached a variety of meanings to the two resource areas studied.
► Place meanings were found to affect desired management outcomes in distinct ways.