Managing for the middle: rancher care ethics under uncertainty on Western Great Plains rangelands
Managing for the middle: rancher care ethics under uncertainty on Western Great Plains rangelands
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中间管理：西部大平原牧场不确定下的牧场主护理道德
DOI：
10.1007/s10460-019-10003-w
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发表时间：
2019
影响因子：
4.5
通讯作者：
J. Derner
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
H. Wilmer;M. Fernández;S. Ghajar;P. L. Taylor;Caridad Souza;J. Derner
世界各地的牧场主和牧民管理并依赖于来自牧场的资源（牧场支持具有放牧潜力的本土植被）。在北美大平原，牧场生态学日益认识到管理牧场植被异质性对实现保护和生产目标的重要性。然而，这种模式对牧场主的应用有限，因为他们在高度的社会生态复杂性和不确定性下管理广泛的牛肉生产业务。我们利用关怀伦理的理论框架来探讨牧场主如何选择管理行为。我们对牧场主的反复访谈进行了修正的扎根理论分析，以(1)比较牧场主在相对确定和不确定条件下的决策；(2)描述用于优先考虑和选择管理行动的实践类型，以保持对这些通常是多代牧场的有效管理。我们将传统的决策框架与受访者描述的进行了对比，当环境和市场的高度不确定性或生态复杂性导致牧场主使用基于关怀的、灵活的和相关的决策框架时。面对复杂性和不确定性，牧场主往往寻求“中间立场”策略，以平衡牧场社会生态系统中多重相互冲突的责任。例如，牧场主基于照料的决策导致了保守的放养方法，以“中间管理”，例如，在不确定的天气和饲料可用性条件下限制风险。通过恢复草地燃烧放牧和草原土拨鼠保护，促进基于异质性的牧场管理以保护生物多样性，这需要提高对牧场主照料工作的评价。
Ranchers and pastoralists worldwide manage and depend upon resources from rangelands (which support indigenous vegetation with the potential for grazing) across Earth’s terrestrial surface. In the Great Plains of North America rangeland ecology has increasingly recognized the importance of managing rangeland vegetation heterogeneity to address conservation and production goals. This paradigm, however, has limited application for ranchers as they manage extensive beef production operations under high levels of social-ecological complexity and uncertainty. We draw on the ethics of care theoretical framework to explore how ranchers choose management actions. We used modified grounded theory analysis of repeated interviews with ranchers to (1) compare rancher decision-making under relatively certain and uncertain conditions and (2) describe a typology of practices used to prioritize and choose management actions that maintain effective stewardship of these often multi-generational ranches. We contrast traditional decision-making frameworks with those described by interviewees when high levels of environmental and market uncertainty or ecological complexity led ranchers toward use of care-based, flexible and relational frameworks for decision-making. Ranchers facing complexity and uncertainty often sought “middle-ground” strategies to balance multiple, conflicting responsibilities in rangeland social-ecological systems. For example, ranchers’ care-based decision-making leads to conservative stocking approaches to “manage for the middle,” e.g. to limit risk under uncertain weather and forage availability conditions. Efforts to promote heterogeneity-based rangeland management for biodiversity conservation through the restoration of patch burn grazing and prairie dog conservation will require increased valuation of ranchers’ care work.