“Death by a Thousand Cuts”: Conservation Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Protecting Lakes in a Tourist Region Surrounded by Agriculture

Abstract

Freshwater systems are complex social-ecological systems (SES) impacted by multiple activities within watershed boundaries beyond their shorelines. Since many of these systems provide important ecosystem services, are threatened, and are managed by complex governance structures, there is a need for empirical work to understand how social setting and interactions between stakeholders impact governance. This study assesses conservation stakeholders’ perspectives in the Iowa Great Lakes region, a valuable freshwater system that is a popular tourist destination nested within an intense agricultural production region. Conservationists work within a polycentric governance structure to protect the Lakes. Using 23 semi-structured interviews and the SES Framework, we examine the environmental pressures facing the region, barriers to mitigation efforts, and solutions within a polycentric system. Our results highlight the difficulties in using voluntary conservation measures to mitigate environmental pressures and the challenges of involving non-conservation stakeholders given competing goals and limited resources.

Keywords:

• Conservation policy
• governance
• stakeholders
• tourism
• agriculture

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgments

We want to thank the anonymous reviewers for carefully reviewing our manuscript. Their thoughtful insight and suggestions resulted in a significantly improved manuscript. We would also like to thank the participants of this study for their time and thoughtful responses.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Becker Family Graduate Research Fellowship. This work was also supported by the University of Iowa’s Graduate & Professional Student Government Research Grant and GC/GSS/OVPR Research Grants for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.