How do you personally connect to the Bay?
I thought you might like a peek behind the scenes to see the kind of outcomes we are already getting from simply asking you two questions. As this project unfolds, we will show you how a small amount of your time and an alternative approach to community-led planning, can be truly effective.
How does the average person characterise themself?
Already what you’ve told us is enough to know that:
The average person who uses the Bay, characterises themselves as doing 5.8 activities.
We originally listed just 22 categories. However, these represent a staggering 1.2 sextillion (billion, billion) permutations. That’s the total number of ways someone could characterise themself, as either doing one or more combinations of activity.
How planning can select for inevitable conflict
Often, when we plan community consultation for conservation, we will put people into one of those 22 categories e.g. dog-walkers, birdwatchers, fishers or snorkelers. But this is a huge mathematical mistake as it’s only 22 of 1.2 sextillion possibilities. It’s a huge error which we call ‘bias’ in statistics. It means we’ve made an incorrect assumption that jeopardises what we do next.
One negative consequence is that it can lead to conflict by pitting groups against each other, and amplifying problems that may be insignificant. Let’s point out the obvious: dogs disturb birds; and fishing kills fish. But what if 25% of our community overlaps as fishers who like to go snorkelling, own dogs and birdwatch? And what if, the greatest issues are different, and the conflicts would be lessened by a shared focus on them instead?
Avoiding conflict by understanding shared values
The reality is that the greatest threats and pressures to all our lives, come from a degraded ecosystem. That impacts all of us. If we had a healthier ecosystem, we could restore the natural processes that enable us to live better lives and there would be more scope for us to enjoy the range of things we need for a healthy life and strong economy.
This is why our community is doing this differently. In this project is, we are:
First understanding what activities are ‘representative’ of our community; and then;
Showing how those shared values relate to the ecosystem we value.
It is enhancing the values we share that’s key to improving our lives and making decisions that positively affect us all.
An initial peek at some data
What you’ve contributed with these first two questions will allow us to work out what is ‘representative’ for our community.
The following data are from only 20 initial responses but you can see how patterns can emerge. The red and orange indicate areas where there are clusters of interest that relate to values. Going to cafes features highly, along with fishing, going to the beach, walking and swimming. In terms of value, being in nature, partaking in hobbies and personal wellbeing, feature highly. These data will change and we will start to see clusters that make up 90% of activities relating to values that we get from spending time in the environment.
It is crucial that we have representative group of people for the next stage. Traditionally, confronted with a conservation agenda, one might go to a conservation group. But that might not adequately represent people who visit cafes, or families who go to the beach. It’s very unlikely to represent you!
It’s a fact that we very often exclude the majority of our community from conservation planning decisions, because we don’t understand how widely their values connect to the world around us. Then we start making decisions which can upset people and have a negative impact on our economy and the ecosystem.
What comes next?
The exciting part of this project will happen when we connect our shared values with ecosystem features. That is the next step and why we would like you to spend just 25 minutes thoughtfully answering a few questions.
The majority of our personal wellbeing, ability to work and play, is defined by our connection to the world around us. This value strongly affects our economy and is measurable in both monetary and non-monetary ways.
When we can say ‘XX% of our region’s economic value and strength is determined through our sense of community and social wellbeing, and this is dependent upon the following ecosystem features’, we can make a very strong community-led case for action.
Later on I’ll come back to explain more about how this works, including:
Why community co-designed plans are extremely important and powerful;
How we will build a tool that allows our community to propose a set of actions that are self-determines; a social priority; ecologically viable; and economically necessary.