When Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors: Overcoming Disciplinary Barriers to Improve Natural Resource Management

ABSTRACT

The traditional disciplines of natural resource management are rooted in university departments, each with their own traditions, theories, approaches, and professional journals. While individual fields have contributed a great deal to our body of knowledge, the time has come to tear down the walls among them. Here we examine some of the characteristics of successful interdisciplinary research highlighted by the professional legacy of our late colleague, Mark Plummer. Through this lens, we hope to provide practical guidance for researchers conducting meaningful research integrating social and natural sciences in support of natural resource management.

KEYWORDS:

• interdisciplinary research
• natural resource management

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the helpful comments on this article by Patrick Christie. We thank all authors of the articles contained in this issue of Coastal Management, whose contributions exemplify the scientific principles that Mark Plummer embodied. Mark will be forever remembered, and forever missed.

Notes

1. This, of course, includes other social metrics such as cultural values (Chan, Satterfield, and Goldstein 2012).