The concept of human dimensions

The name of this course is “Human Dimensions of Natural Resources”. What does it mean? What exactly are the human dimensions?

If you look up the word “dimension” in the dictionary, you are likely to find meanings like “aspect”, “element”, “component”, “factor” etc.

This gives us some idea about the meaning of human dimension—they are probably the human aspects (or elements, or components) of natural resource management.

The text has a great working definition of human dimensions on page 3, however the definition is specifically for human dimensions of wildlife

But as it turns out, if we simply replace the word “wildlife” with “natural resources”, we still end up with a good working definition. This definition is:

“The term human dimensions refers to how and why humans value natural resources, how humans want resources managed, and how humans affect or are affected by natural resources management decisions. Human dimensions inquiries strive to understand human traits and how to incorporate that understanding into management planning and actions. It covers a variety of ideas and practices including cultural, social, and economic values; individual and social behavior; demographics; legal and institutional frameworks of management; communication and education; and, decision-making processes of management. ”

So basically, in human dimensions we try to understand human behavior, and how to incorporate these human behaviors into natural resource management.

Why is that important? Why would we want to incorporate human traits and behavior patterns into natural resource management?

Because, like it or not, humans ARE an integral part of natural resource use and management

If we manage only for the resource without incorporating humans into the decisions, we will not be able to achieve our management goals, and it will not be in the best interest of the resource in the long run

Let us now move toward building a model for human dimensions of natural resources, i.e. let’s try to understand how it actually works

From the definition we know that understanding human behavior is the key

But what drives human behavior? Why do humans behave the way that they do?

Some examples: Why do some throw trash anywhere in a state part,

while others will only throw them in designated places, or even will pick up trash if they see them lying around?

Why do some find spending time in the woods enlightening while others don’t?

Why do some take an interest in visiting all the major national parks and other natural monuments, while others don’t even visit one in their lifetime?

Why do some hunt and others don’t?

Behind all these questions are a variety of forces that influence human behavior

These are called the driving forces These driving forces play a large role in people's

decision making processes, their activities, their impressions of the personal and social benefits and impacts of particular human activities, and their acceptance of change and control with regard to the social and natural environment (source: HD site)

There can be different types of these driving forces. Some examples include:

Social Spiritual Cultural Economic Political Legal

The next component in our human dimensions model is human behavior

We know that the driving forces influence human behavior. There are a variety of different human behaviors that have impacts on natural resources

We can talk about a few examples of such human actions

First, there are a variety of economic activities that have impacts on natural resources; they include

Forestry, agriculture, commercial hunting and fishing Tourism-focused economic development Natural resource based industrial development such

as forest products industries Housing development, development of high valued

real estate such as waterfront properties

There are also human activities that contribute to urbanization. They include

Land subdivision, forest fragmentation, sale of land to developers

Residential development Development of roads, bridges, and other

infrastructure Development of factories, offices, and other

commercial properties

A variety of recreation-related behaviors also influence natural resources:

Bird watching, wildlife viewing Hiking, biking, swimming, paddling Boating, diving, four-wheeling Hunting

There are also types of human behaviors that could be classified as stewardship of natural resources:

Environmental restoration Resource management, education, and

research Recycling

All of these different human behaviors (and you could think of a few others) impact our natural resources

Some of these impacts are negative, some are positive, and some may have both negative and positive aspects; the next component in the human dimensions model will capture these impacts

The third component of the human dimensions model is “Effect of Change”

As mentioned earlier, this includes the positive and negative impacts of human behavior

Human behavior causes changes in our natural environment, now we are looking at the effects of these changes

Now, what kind of changes are we talking about? These changes can be of several different categories.

Let’s look at some of them:

Conversion of forest land to other uses, land cover change

Loss and fragmentation of habitats Soil erosion, water quality

There can be economic changes as well: Changes in economic viability of local

communities Economic opportunities for people; i.e. jobs

There can be social changes: Changes in community relations Changes in access to resources Changes in community security

Now, what kind of effects could these changes have?

Environmental quality Human health and safety Quality of life Increased planning and management efforts

such as zoning, new laws, outreach and education

An important thing to remember is that whether or not these effects of change will be seen as positive or negative will vary from people to people.

This connects this component back to the first one, that is, “driving forces”

The final component is “Management strategies”

So far, we know that driving forces influence human behavior; which causes changes and in turn impacts our natural environment

Now, this component asks—what can we do to address these changes?

We can undertake a variety of management strategies to achieve one or more of the following:

Alter the influence of the driving forces on people’s decision making

Alter human behavior Alter effects of change due to human

behavior

Some management strategies are quite direct. Examples include:

Regulation—new laws, zoning etc. Enforcement of existing regulations This type of management strategies include

the traditional “command and control” approach

A second type of management strategy is somewhat indirect. Examples include:

Incentive programs Demonstration projects Education and outreach This is more of a participatory approach

Now, we can look at all four of these components of the human dimensions model and their interrelationships in a figure (source: HD site):