Conflict to Cooperation: An Axiological Analysis of Collaborative Resource Stewardship in the Nisqually River Watershed

195 pagesHere I evaluate collaborative stewardship planning in the Nisqually River Watershed to see how values about human-nature relationships are represented in watershed stewardship practices. To do so, I review planning documents and testimonial sources with a conceptual framework that studies environmental values by combining approaches from hermeneutic phenomenology with the conceptions of human-nature relationships outlined by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Looking at the data this way shows more precisely how values are represented within and influence the efficacy of planning outcomes. This study investigates relatively unexplored factors in socioecological decision-making and resulting stewardship practices. Enhancing our understanding of how resource conflicts happen and are resolved, and how values inform the process/outcome of collaborative stewardship practices is incumbent for coping with and overcoming future environmental challenges around the world. Such studies are necessary for successfully navigating present and future contradictory uses and identities associated with resource conflicts. In this work I trace how contexts of conflict become cooperative, demonstrate how values emerge in Nisqually planning contexts, while showing how hermeneutic phenomenology and IPBES are helpful for both studying and practicing collaborative stewardship