Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
And we're welcoming to our studio,
our great friend from UW Extension,
Anna James, Anna, good to see you.
Good to see you, too, James.
Thanks so much for being here.
I had to really hit the last name this time.
I had to really hit that.
Yeah.
We appreciate you joining us.
And certainly appreciate the topics we're able to touch on.
And today, you're bringing up a little bit
something different for us.
Yeah, generally a lot of times when I'm on,
we talk about a different kind of area and conservation,
natural resources, and mainly we focus on the resource itself.
We've touched a little bit on the people,
but not really how the people are looked at in conservation
or how the people can shape conservation.
So today, we're going to talk a little bit
about social sciences and how that is so critical
to conservation and conservation management.
So what is social science in general?
Yeah, so social science in general,
when we're thinking about conservation, social science,
it's a subset of your classic and applied social science
disciplines, and it focuses particularly
on conservation or environmental management.
So you take your classic forms of social science,
and then we just look at it through a lens of conservation.
Kind of is how I like to define it.
So how does this apply to conservation?
Right, right, so a lot of people might ask,
well, why are we even thinking about this?
Like, well, why do conservation professionals care about this?
Like, don't we normally talk about ecological processes
and natural science, which yes, we do,
but talking about the people and how the people
and their social science aspects of it
really plays into conservation.
So most of us conservation professionals
care much more about just the natural world, right?
We care about you.
We care about how we all interact with the natural world,
and that's kind of how conservation social sciences
is looking at.
So today's natural resources managers,
they're catching on to the fact that natural resources management
involves much more than just the ecological process, right?
Social process and consequences must also be considered
because we are part of the ecosystems, right?
We, what our decisions do impact
whether that be positive or negative
that the ecosystems around us.
Yeah, it's a, it's a food chain we're a part of.
It's not a hierarchy.
Right, right.
It's a whole system, right?
That's a cool thing about ecosystems
is we get to, I love ecosystems.
I love them so much.
We get to think about how everything interacts with each other.
And when you look at an ecosystem map,
it's like your humans and all the animals, the plants,
everything, and it just looks like a mess,
just a mess of how everything interacts together.
It's really cool.
As a side note, you got me into,
I've always found them a little interesting,
but talking with you, I've gotten
to understand ecosystems better.
And I watch these like aerial videos on,
just on Paramount and stuff from sometimes
and there's one on our national parks.
And Yellowstone in particular,
there is an ecosystem over there that is untouched
and it's amazing, the depth and things that can happen
when there's no human imprint on some of them.
It's really, that's a whole,
we got to talk about ecosystems
like the whole other categories I've gotten.
We should, I will make a mental note of that.
Historically, how has this applied with natural sciences?
Yeah, so historically, natural sciences
have tended to be primarily information source
and they've kind of been used to guide conversation
and conservation actions.
There's men, historically, many influential conservation
practitioners who have long recognized
the importance of marrying social and the natural sciences.
In fact, one of the greats, we call them,
Aldo Leopold, hailed in Wisconsin, right?
He argued that the fusion of those
who study human plant and animal communities,
quote, will perhaps constitute the outstanding advance
of the present century.
So saying like, when you think about human plant
and animal communities together,
that's how we're gonna move forward.
Yeah, yeah, so.
Instead of kind of categorizing them
or separating them, realizing that they're all attached,
that they're all connected.
Right, and I think it's human nature
to want to categorize things and put them in a box, right?
So we actually have to step outside of our comfort zone
to think about how everything plays in one, right?
It's one of those things.
It's funny sometimes when you think about
what we have named species and insects and these things
and I think about it and like,
well, they didn't name themselves that.
They don't think about those things.
Where are the ones that put these things in a box?
Where are the ones that categorize that,
but everything's interesting.
It is.
How is social science used in conservation management?
So there are multiple ways that social sciences
can be used in conservation management.
So we're gonna break it down into three basic categories.
I'm gonna try to keep this as simple as what we can
because I'd like to put this in real life perspective.
So the three categories we have classic social sciences
and that's the classic conservation social sciences
that are defined as those who have come
from a specific discipline.
So that could be like environmental anthropology,
environmental psychology, environmental economics.
Then we talk about applied.
So many of these ideas of applied social sciences
and conservation kind of stem and feed
from the applied conservation social sciences
and other disciplines.
So these could include conservation marketing.
How do we see people interact
with marketing around conservation practices?
Conservation education.
That's my role, right?
So I'm working in the applied field.
Conservation law and many others.
So law, there is a social science aspect to law,
which is really interesting to consider.
Yeah, yeah.
And then you have more interdisciplinary fields.
These fields draw on and bridge concepts
from different social and or natural science disciplines.
So interdisciplinary fields include political ecology,
human ecology, social ecology systems, human dimensions
and much more.
So it's interesting with social.
I don't want to say it's easy enough
to just put social sciences into these three categories,
especially when it comes to conservation,
because they all merge together.
So while I'm doing a lot of applied social science work,
especially in the conservation education,
I'm also doing a lot of the human dimensions,
which is what you would call interdisciplinary.
So that's looking at how people interact
with natural resources in their environment.
Mm-hmm.
It's, I think it's understandable the way you're explaining it.
I also understand that it takes depth to understand it,
and that there's layers to this.
Like just about anything we talk about it,
you ask somebody, you know, how's their day going?
Most people have a pretty gray day.
Good, bad, a little bit of both in there.
It's very seldom that well, I'm having this kind of day,
and it's just that.
You know, usually a mix of things,
usually a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
A little bit of reading in between the lines.
Yes, yes.
How about real life application of social sciences
in conservation management?
Yeah, so a majority of the time social sciences
start with a question.
For example, we might ask things like,
is environmental conservation a local election issue?
So is this environmental topic a local election issue?
Should we see it on our local ballots?
Or how might a city plan their green space
and parks for health of both nature and people?
So we're really thinking about social science
allows conservation professionals to think
about the decisions they're making
through kind of the lens of how people would perceive it
or how the general public can be a positive role.
And also how the impacts of conservation
might also cause a negative effect on people, right?
Yeah, one thing that I maybe you've heard this too, Anna,
but I know that I have, when it comes to conservation,
when it comes to doing environment
and doing some good for it or helping the environment,
so many times I've heard people in my life,
and not just recently been in my whole life,
or say, it's such a big problem, or there's so much,
or where do I even begin?
A lot of this feels like whether it's intention or not,
or the intention of it or not, breaks it down a little bit.
And the problem gets a little bit simplified a little bit more.
And okay, well, I know I can't make a major corporation
necessarily change exactly what they're doing,
but I could do something about me
and I'm putting my money or my energy
and understanding what my local representatives
are where they feel on these issues.
Some of that stuff, and it breaks it down a little bit,
so it's not just one gigantic, hey, fix the earth.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no kidding.
Break it down a little bit.
Yeah, they can be so intimidating.
And that's my goal, like my whole goal
as a conservation professional is,
I have that big picture mind in the back of my head,
but that's not my focus, right?
My focus is, how can I educate people well
so that they feel led to take that initiative?
They know they're placed in the system.
They can recognize their place in the system
and how they can play a role.
I will say a lot of conservation professionals
don't necessarily take in that aspect of conservation
in general is the role of the people
and how we just give them a sense of place
within these initiatives, within this place
that we're working or within this goal
we're working towards.
And I mean, don't get me wrong.
It can be so overwhelming for a conservation professional
to have to keep in mind that big picture role too.
We have to place ourselves as well
because trying to think about saving our natural resources
that can be daunting.
Yeah, especially if you're in that field
and you feel at times like the year alone
or there's not a lot of people backing you on these things,
which is part of the reason why we love having these conversations
and we love to get more people active
and more people involved in this kind of thing.
You and I have had many conversations
about how it literally affects everybody,
not just economically or where you are in life
as far as your age or anything,
but even your level of care on this subject,
we've affected that.
We've shown that, hey, this affects your economy
or this affects taxes or those sorts of things.
We've given you plenty of examples
of how this touches everybody.
Yeah.
It's also, I think a nice note too,
it's something that we talk a lot about
when we talk about mental health
and we encourage people,
no matter how much you care about somebody else,
you have to take care of your own backyard
before you can help someone else.
This is a little of that where, you know,
starting right at the household in your house
and how is your house and your carbon footprint
impacting the world and starting there
and kind of branching from there
and figuring out how your community's affected,
how your representatives are representing you
and that kind of thing.
Yeah, when I was writing my outline for this show,
I kind of dabbled in, you know,
how do I want to approach it?
Because there's so many different ways to approach it, right?
We can use social science to influence people
taking responsibility for their actions,
but we can also use social science as a way
to make sure that laws that we are looking at
are effective or that people will perceive them
as effective, right?
So it's really interesting to just try to wrap your mind
around how much people play into conservation.
I had a whole class in college,
like just about talking about how people would interact.
A lot of people get into the field of conservation
because they like the solitude,
that they like to be alone,
they like to be, you know, on the water in the woods.
Yeah, it can be a very solitary field to work
and then little do you know,
like people, you generally are serving people,
so people are a giant aspect of conservation.
And you know, when I've gone back to my college,
you had graduated from it and talked to some students,
I always encourage them to take more social dynamic classes,
learn more about it.
So you can be an effective educator and effective communicator.
You can have the greatest message in the world,
but if you can't get it across,
it's how much doesn't matter.
Yeah, I see what you're saying there, interesting.
Do we have some examples of how we can apply this?
Yep, so I'm going to talk about a couple
of just very broad examples.
And then I'm going to talk to you guys about
how I actually use social sciences.
So some examples like broader examples
be social science can and has been used
to understand the complex markets and supply chains
in order to combat illegal poaching of animals.
And so we understand the motives behind those people.
Why are they choosing to poach?
Can we, you know, is the mode of money?
Can we supplement funds in other ways?
You know, is it a food shortage?
Can we provide other resources?
So digging into the social dynamics of even poaching
is a really good example.
Social sciences has also been used to collect
traditional ecological knowledge that has been used
to better understand changes in animal populations
like whales and caribou, traditional knowledge.
There are tribes, you know, and Native American tribes
that are here in our country and around the world
that have just a depth and a breadth of knowledge
about these resources and they have a different way
of looking into those resources.
So how do we take that and we value their insight, you know?
So just a different, you know, I don't want to say
it's like a societal change.
Like how do we look at, how do we look at that differently?
How do we look at these things?
Bridge those worlds together.
Yeah, how do we, how do we value those, those outlooks?
And then social sciences has been used to review
whether or not the public views, policy and practices
as effective.
So for example, like the effectiveness
of fishing regulations, how are people looking at those?
So that's a big one.
Yeah, it is a big one.
Yeah.
So this is how we, in some examples of how it can be
and how we can apply them.
But you mentioned yourself, how you do this,
how do you apply these to your own day to day?
Yeah, I, you know, so I'm a natural resources educator,
which means that I create programming
to educate people on natural resources issues, right?
Generally it's focused on water quality.
But I've never really shared how I hone in on those programs.
How do I decide which program I'm gonna use?
Well, that's where the research part of my job
comes into play.
So I get to do social science research
in order to inform the programs that I create.
So for example, just recently we finished analyzing data
for a survey that I did with producers
in the area of producers as in farmers.
I wanted to know what their, you know,
their constraints were around water quality,
what their behaviors were around water quality,
what their needs were around water quality.
So I created a survey and we sat down one-on-one on farm
and used the survey as kind of a way to form conversation
and guide conversation and in the responses that we got,
so we had qualitative responses,
which is, you know, people's answers
to like an open-ended question.
And then quantitative, which is your hard numbers, right?
You're asking them to answer yes, no, maybe et cetera.
Now those responses when we analyze that giant data set,
I can look at producers' perspectives on water quality
and see, okay, this is what they care about.
This is an area that might not be as relevant to them.
So the areas that they care about, I'm gonna focus on.
The areas that they don't know about, I'm gonna focus on.
And then we can see some of their,
it's also social sciences can be a good way for us
to get a check of how we are doing in our jobs, right?
So we asked a question quite frankly,
like later list your trusted resources
from one being of most trust to whatever being of least trust.
And it was like all agency folks.
And that is a really good way for us to say, okay,
I'm at the top of this list, we're doing good,
we're effective communicators,
we're reaching out to this audience
or I'm at the bottom of this list,
we're not doing too good, we need to change the way
we're communicating.
So that's just one really basic example of how I use
social sciences, and it's just a good way to kind of
make sure that you're serving the needs
of your target audience, right?
So that's the applied social science
and that's the human dimension social sciences.
That's not only a way for me to check the work
that I'm doing and for me to kind of direct the work
I'm doing, but I can also use the data I've collected
and share it with other agency folks
to make sure that they know the direction
that their target audience is,
I'm saying air quotes,
that the audience they're looking to serve
is interested in, right?
Yeah, it comes that, well there's a couple of things here.
One, it speaks to the importance of surveys.
When you get these kind of surveys
you see these things, take the time to fill them out.
Most any surveys, only going to take a minute or two.
But the data can be less forever.
It can be such vital data.
It is really interesting to kind of get to peak
behind the curtain a little bit and see how you,
how maybe some of the extension handle these topics
and what to do.
And it speaks to how much we appreciate extension
because you guys do this right.
You're, I can only imagine how many topics
to you yourself would let, you know what, I like this.
I want to talk about this and you'd be able to do that.
It's not in your position, but being good at your job,
your, your way meant what they want to hear,
what is important to my community,
what is important to my, you know,
the people in this area and applying that.
And especially when I think of the expanding that
and other areas are going to have different needs,
different things.
So that survey in another area is going to be answered differently
so that they're able to apply those things for that area.
Everybody's different and especially with a topic
like conservation, the things that they're doing in,
you know, up north or maybe down south,
maybe we need to do something different here.
Oh, I cannot stress that a more, like enough,
that gets back to the ecological stance.
So like, you know, the things that I'm focused on down here,
the issues that the communities here are focused on
could be completely different than up north.
So as a large educational entity
or a large agency, right, DNR and RCS, whatever,
you have to really make sure that you're focusing
your initiatives on the areas that you're looking to serve.
Most things in life, there's no blanket approach too,
but especially with something like this,
where I mean, I would gather, you could go zip code
to zip code and it would change, you know.
Oh, oh, you could go township to township.
Yeah, it would be just really cool to,
you can, it's like at the Russian nesting dawn, right?
You can see those larger, larger kind of focuses
and, you know, we might even be able to see
those larger initiatives right now.
We have climate change, climate resiliency.
Those are the national issues that we're talking about.
Then we bring it down to a local level,
maybe water quality, right?
You know, water quality, yes, it can be a national issue,
but like the, is it water scarcity?
Is it quality, is it nitrate?
Is it what, what is it in our community
that we're focusing on?
Yeah, in California, they've got water issues too,
but it's a lack of.
Here, it's more like, it's more about what
the condition of the water is.
So that's a great example, and it's something that I think,
not only, I think helps people
and maybe break things down a little bit more,
maybe be able to focus your attention
to learn the things that you need to and, you know,
do your homework or research or whatever you want,
but hopefully it also creates a little more empathy
towards the rest of our fellow Americans.
Like, you know, in California,
what they're dealing with right now
with the mudslides and some of these things,
I've got friends over there that I care about,
but even if I didn't know anybody in that state,
it pulls up my empathy understanding
what caused that a little bit better,
understanding the world that we're in.
Those things never, they never go out of fashion
that kind of stuff, and we need more of it.
Anna, we never have enough time.
I had to look at the clock, I'm like,
we all the time, I had like five more questions for you.
That's okay.
Next time we'll get to them.
But I did want to make sure to mention that
if people have follow-up questions
as some of the things we've talked about
or like to know more,
I can only imagine with a topic like this,
the follow-up questions you might get.
If people want to reach you, how can they do that?
Yep, you can either stop in at the Wood County Extension Office
in the Wood County Courthouse
or you can reach out to me by email
at anna.m.james.
J-A-M-E-S at whisk.
W-I-S-C dot edu.
Anna James, Natural Resource Educator with UW Extension.
Always good to see and talk with you.
Thanks for the time.
Thanks so much, James.
Well, a more midday magazine coming up for you on WFHR,
locally grown radio.