Doctoral Dissertation Research: Knowledge, Networks, and the Spaces of Coral Reef Conservation

珊瑚礁被描述为环境恶化速度最快的生态系统之一，特别是当珊瑚礁位于人口中心附近或易于获得各种资源开发努力时。全球珊瑚礁减少的速度刺激了更多的管理和保护努力，但这些努力收效甚微，因为关于哪些危及珊瑚礁生态系统的因素是最重要的应对因素、如何缓解这些因素以及如何衡量进展的争论愈演愈烈。因此，珊瑚礁养护科学受到不确定性和相互竞争的政策处方的困扰，而采取行动的紧迫性继续升级，这体现了科学实践及其在一般环境政策中的应用中的一个悖论：一方面，科学研究是由专业知识中的分歧和不确定性推动的，但另一方面，实际的决策需要对离散的因果关系达成普遍一致。指导这项工作的是这样一种信念，即目前关于这一问题的争论程度并不是由于缺乏关于珊瑚礁系统的科学知识，而是因为对科学不确定性的误用和错误强调，这些不确定性推动了进一步的调查，并扭曲了被普遍认为是事实的核心结论。运用Q-方法，本研究将从相互竞争的珊瑚礁科学和保护知识中表征共识，并对围绕政策的主观性和目标进行量化排名。将利用社会网络分析来探索引发辩论的科学不确定性如何在其流动的空间和概念网络中传播和演变。将利用地理信息系统(地理信息系统)来确定关于珊瑚礁系统的特定争论可能起源于何处，以及基于进行科学研究的区域，对珊瑚礁衰退和缓解的看法在空间上是如何变化的。这项研究将在南佛罗里达州进行，那里不仅有一个经过充分研究的珊瑚礁区域和建立的保护框架，而且还是几个对珊瑚礁保护感兴趣的学术、国际、政府和非政府组织的所在地，从而提供了一个强大的珊瑚礁科学家和政策制定者的国际网络，可以接受采访。通过研究科学家和政策制定者协商科学不确定性的方式，这项研究极有可能为环境政策制定提供新的途径，这些努力因声称有共同保护目标的网络内部缺乏共识而陷入瘫痪。这项工作旨在找出克服阻碍有效缓解努力的科学不确定性的方法，这些不确定性在海洋环境中尤其重要，因为在海洋环境中，科学研究异常昂贵，观察和采样技术取决于区域政治、生物和地球物理差异。这项研究将产生一种可获得的方法，通过揭示支撑争论所围绕的科学范式的要点，并量化网络中那些人在核心信念上达成一致的程度，从而促进一种快速、准确地解构有争议的环境辩论的方法。在环境脆弱性日益增加的情况下，这项研究面临着一些主要障碍，这些障碍阻碍了科学研究及时转化为有效的补救政策。

Coral reefs are described as among those ecosystems suffering the greatest rates of environmental deterioration, particularly when located near population centers or easily accessible to a variety of resource exploitation efforts. The rates of reef decline worldwide have spurred greater management and conservation efforts, but these have achieved little success as debates intensify over which factors endangering coral reef ecosystems are most important to address, how to mitigate them, and how to measure progress. Coral reef conservation science is thus beset by uncertainty and competing policy prescriptions, while the urgency for action continues to escalate, exemplifying a paradox in the practice of science and its application to environmental policy in general: on the one hand, scientific research is propelled by disagreement and uncertainty in specialized knowledges, yet on the other hand, practical policy-making requires general agreement about discrete causal relationships. Guiding this work is the belief that the current level of contention on this issue is due not to a lack of scientific knowledge about reef systems, but rather to a misuse and mis-emphasis of scientific uncertainties that drive further investigations and distort core conclusions that are generally accepted as fact. Using Q-Methodology, this dissertation research will characterize common understandings from competing knowledges of reef science and conservation, and quantitatively rank the subjectivities and goals surrounding policy. Social Network Analysis will be employed to explore how scientific uncertainties that fuel debates are communicated and evolve in the spatial and conceptual networks through which they flow. Geographic information systems (GIS) will be used to determine where particular contentions about reef systems may have originated and how perceptions of reef decline and mitigation are spatially contingent based on the region where the science is conducted. This research will take place in South Florida, which not only has a well-studied reef tract and established conservation frameworks, but also is home to several academic, international, governmental and non-governmental organizations interested in reef conservation thus providing a strong international network of reef scientists and policy-makers who will be available for interviews. By examining the ways in which scientists and policy-makers negotiate scientific uncertainty, this research has a strong potential to suggest new avenues for environmental policy-making efforts that have been paralyzed by a lack of consensus within networks that claim a common conservation goal. This work seeks to identify ways in which to surmount the scientific uncertainties that inhibit effective mitigation efforts, which are particularly important in marine environments where scientific research is exceptionally expensive and where observation and sampling techniques are contingent on regional political, biological, and geophysical differences. This research will result in an accessible methodology that will facilitate a way to quickly and accurately deconstruct contested environmental debates by revealing main points that underpin the scientific paradigms around which the contentions are structured, and quantify the degree to which those in the network agree on core beliefs. In a time of increasing environmental vulnerability, this research confronts some of the main obstacles that prevent the timely translation of scientific research into effective remediating policies.