Chapter 5: The evolution of meanings and perceived benefits as a basis for understanding
5.5 Summary…
In the preceding sections, I used historical information, policy documents and a selection of quotes to illustrate how meanings evolved over time and became prioritised and reflected in public infrastructure and how stakeholders behaved as a result. The full range of meanings and benefits as expressed by respondents is summarised in Tables 5.2 (meanings) and 5.3 (benefits).
Table 5.2. Summary of meanings associated with plantation forests, Fynbos and reduced meanings as a result of the permanent removal of pine trees from Tokai.
Range of meanings highlighted by respondents
Meanings – plantation forest
Meanings – heathland (Fynbos)
Meanings reduced as a result of permanent removal of plantation
Dependence X X
Therapy X X X
Links with the past X X X
Sense of community X X
Identity X X
Sustenance X
Commodity X
Planning, care and management X
Landscape intimacy X
Landscape pattern X
Sense of purpose X X
Wildlife sanctuary X X X
Scenic beauty X X X
Sanctuary for worship X X
Romantic love X
Ecological value X
Table 5.3. Summary of benefits associated with plantation forests, Fynbos and reduced benefits as a result of the permanent removal of pine trees from Tokai.
Benefits highlighted by respondents
Benefits – plantation forest
Benefits – heathland (Fynbos)
Benefits reduced as a result of permanent removal of plantation Cultural services
Recreation and tourism X X X
Cultural heritage X X
Educational values X X
Social relations X X
Spiritual and religious values X X
Sense of place X
Knowledge systems X X
Aesthetic values X X X
Inspiration X
Provisioning services
Food and fibre X X
Genetic resource X X
Water X
Regulatory services
Local climate regulation X X
Regulation of human diseases X
Erosion control X
The framework I presented in Chapter 2 depicts a robust social-ecological system as one in which the resource users and public infrastructure providers jointly negotiate a biophysical setting that reflects the prioritised meanings they attach to the resource. Prioritised meanings are incorporated into the public infrastructure and this, in turn, has implications for how the resource is configured and managed, how users perceive benefits and how users behave.
In the case of the plantation forestry era of Tokai, the management agency initially resisted the adoption of recreation meanings, but, over time, and as the agency realised that it could gain stakeholder support for its image as a public service provider, the agency accommodated recreation meanings and benefits alongside the meanings it prioritised for timber production. This was reflected in how perceptions of what constituted the resource changed from ‘timber’ to ‘plantation’ or Forest as new (recreation) meanings were accommodated. It was also evident in the provision of physical infrastructure that serviced resource users. As perceived benefits were realised, behaviour supported the negotiated prioritisation and distribution of benefits, and the public infrastructure, as was clearly evident in the results. Supportive behaviour, although more individual than collective, contributed to managing the resource in order to yield the desired benefits as shown in, for example, the pattern of timber harvesting, the manner in which stakeholders were kept informed, and in the willingness to provide the necessary physical infrastructure. When these reinforcing processes are operating effectively the social-ecological system can be considered robust: it is resistant to change while at the same time able to accommodate negotiated change, and there is reliability and consistency in the accommodation of meanings and the distribution of benefits. At the time that national policy changed and SANParks was to take over as the managing agency the Tokai social-ecological system was robust.
More than a hundred years following the establishment of plantation forestry at Tokai, the introduction of new public infrastructure that originated at various levels and, primarily, outside of the Tokai social-ecological system, emphasised biodiversity meanings and called for the permanent removal of the pine plantations. The conservation agency defined the context for the future Tokai landscape according to the scarcity and uniqueness of lowland Fynbos, which they argue can only be regenerated at Tokai. Whilst many accepted this motivation, some stakeholders felt that, in conjunction with Fynbos restoration, the agency should at the same time have given greater priority to those meanings and benefits that developed during the plantation forest era, in particular those meanings associated with mature, shade trees in the landscape. In other words, some stakeholders called for a greater degree of accommodation of old meanings and the benefits associated with a landscape reflective of those meanings, alongside the development of a landscape that reflects predominantly new, biodiversity meanings. The way in which meanings were perceived to be handled led some stakeholders to protest. There was uncertainty around the prioritisation of meanings and the distribution of benefits and about how the new landscape would reflect the combination of old and new meaning prioritisations. This resulted in a variety of resistance behaviours and the abandoning of the use of Tokai by some. There was diminished trust in the participatory process and in the agency, based on perceived unreceptiveness and unwillingness to acknowledge or consider user meanings and user suggestions for how old and new meanings may be incorporated into the implementation of the new rules (public infrastructure). The accommodation and ordering of meanings, the distribution of benefits and the processes whereby they were negotiated became less reliable and less consistent and this challenged the robustness of the Tokai system. It will be some time before the new Tokai social- ecological system will become robust.
Change is an inevitable property of dynamic social-ecological systems. In the context of this study, I suggest that change will always require a reprioritisation of meanings. This was evident in the development and expansion of meanings in the plantation forestry era which led to incremental adjustments in the public infrastructure. It was also reflected in the Tokai system ‘disturbance’
brought on by a strong conservation lobby and which called for the evaluation and reordering of new and old meanings. The study shows that when there is a process that allows meanings and public infrastructure to co-evolve it results in supportive behaviour that reinforces both the process and the infrastructure; in other words it fosters robustness of the SES. In the later phase it also illustrates that when meanings are not carefully considered and taken into account in the process of formulating public infrastructure the system becomes unstable as the ordering of meanings and public infrastructure are contested by some and supported by others: the SES becomes less robust. As some users re-order their meanings and engage the process of forming the new public infrastructure and others abandon using the resource, behaviours will become more supportive and co-evolutionary and the SES is likely to become more robust over time.