Visualising relational values in a region: how two conservation stakeholder groups in the US Northwest conceive of their relationships with the land

ABSTRACT

Many conservation programmes pay property owners for land use practices which deliver certain ecosystem services, yet there can be enrolment challenges. Consequently, this paper visualises how two stakeholder groups in the US Northwest involved with a conservation programme (enrollers and enrolees) conceive of their relationships with the land. This regional graphic is an example for how to visually express complex qualitative data in an accessible fashion using geographic and tag cloud methodologies. Graphics of this type can be used to improve understanding of the variety of ways that people value nature at the public-private nexus of conservation.

KEYWORDS:

• conservation
• relational values
• tag cloud
• stewardship

The United Nations recently announced a goal of conserving 30% of Earth’s lands, oceans, coastal areas, and inland waters by 2030 (United Nations, 2022). To meet this task, programmes that pay private-property owners for conservation practices on their land will have to be maximised. Increasing conservation enrolment will require novel participatory tools which foreground the multitude of ways that people value nature. The concept of relational values (Chan et al., 2016), and regional graphics like the one offered in this paper, may help in this endeavour by facilitating better communication about human-nature relationships.

The concept of relational values proposes a way of attributing value which is not concerned with how nature can be means to ends (instrumental value) or if components of nature are ends in-and-of themselves (intrinsic value). Instead, relational values are personal and cultural articulations of the value of nature tied to people’s relationships with nature, frequently assisted by metaphor (e.g., ‘that tree is part of my family’).

Figure 1 is a visualisation of complex qualitative data from an existing relational values study which examined enrolment dynamics in a government conservation programme in the US Northwest (Pape, 2023). Tag cloud methodology (White, 2013) has been employed – words appear larger if the relational value was more frequently articulated within the research area by the two studied stakeholder groups (conservation programme enrollers and enrolees).¹ Visualising this data geographically makes the regional dimension of these values more accessible. Graphics of this type can be used to improve understanding of the variety of ways that people value nature at the public-private nexus of conservation.

Figure 1. Tag cloud of relational values related to a conservation programme in the US Northwest.

The relational values of stewardship, responsibility, identity, care and kinship are written inside a yellow tag cloud which is overlayed on a region in the central part of the US Northwest. The five values are different sizes with stewardship being the largest, followed by responsibility, identity, care and kinship being the smallest. The size of each word corresponds to the prevalence of the corresponding value in the examined study.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Within the relational values study, which this graphic is based on, stewardship was articulated by 17 respondents as informing government conservation programme enrolment during semi-structured interviews, followed by responsibility at 15, identity at 12, care at nine and kinship at seven. The sum of frequencies exceeds the sample size (22 respondents) because most respondents mentioned more than one relational value. The font size for each value in the graphic is proportional to the frequency for the corresponding value. Stewardship within the study was defined as a sense of duty to protect and look after the land. Care was defined as a concern/love for aspects of the land that matter to someone. Kinship as a feeling that components of the land (e.g., animals) are like family. Responsibility as an accountability for what happens with the land. Identity was defined as a perception that beliefs about the land are part of who a person is.