Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California Cooperative Extension, 1553 Berger Drive, Building 1, San Jose, CA, 95122, USA,
Environ Manage. 2014 Feb;53(2):454-64. doi: 10.1007/s00267-013-0216-4. Epub 2013 Dec 17.
In the western United States, livestock grazing often co-exists with recreation, cultural resource management and biodiversity protection on federal and state protected rangelands as well as on many local government open space areas. While the value of livestock grazing for managing rangeland vegetation to reduce fire fuel loads and improve wildlife habitat is increasingly recognized by resource management professionals, public concerns, and conflict between recreationist and livestock have led to reductions in public land grazing. Traditional public input methods yield a constrained picture of people's attitudes toward cows and public land grazing. Public meetings, hearings, and surveys, the most commonly used mechanisms for public land managers to solicit public opinion, tend to foster participation of organized special interests or, in the case of surveys, focus on a specific topic. General public input is limited. This study explored the use of personal photography in social media to gain insight into public perceptions of livestock grazing in public spaces. Key findings of this study include that many recreationist in grazed San Francisco Bay Area parks shared views, interests, and concerns about cows and grazing on the photo-sharing website, Flickr(TM) that seldom show up at a public meeting or in surveys. Results suggest that social media analysis can help develop a more nuanced understanding of public viewpoints useful in making decisions and creating outreach and education programs for public grazing lands. This study demonstrates that using such media can be useful in gaining an understanding of public concerns about natural resource management.
在美国西部,牲畜放牧常常与娱乐、文化资源管理和生物多样性保护共存于联邦和州立受保护的牧场上,以及许多地方政府的开放空间区域。虽然牲畜放牧在管理牧地植被以减少火灾燃料负荷和改善野生动物栖息地方面的价值越来越被资源管理专业人员所认识,但公众的关切以及娱乐者和牲畜之间的冲突导致了公共土地放牧的减少。传统的公众参与方法只能描绘出人们对牛和公共土地放牧的有限态度。公众会议、听证会和调查是公共土地管理者征求公众意见最常用的机制,但这些机制往往会促进有组织的特殊利益群体的参与,或者在调查的情况下,只关注特定的主题。公众的一般意见受到限制。本研究探讨了在社交媒体中使用个人摄影来深入了解公众对公共空间中牲畜放牧的看法。这项研究的主要发现包括,在旧金山湾区有放牧的公园中,许多娱乐者在照片分享网站 Flickr(TM)上分享了他们对牛和放牧的看法、兴趣和关切,而这些观点很少出现在公众会议或调查中。结果表明,社交媒体分析可以帮助更细致地了解公众观点,这对于公共放牧地的决策和宣传教育计划很有用。本研究表明,使用这种媒体可以帮助了解公众对自然资源管理的关注。