Integrating Place, Case and Process in Central Romania

Joern Fischer, Jan Hanspach, Tibor Hartel, Jacqueline Loos, Andra Milcu, Friederike Mikulcak, Ine Dorresteijn
(and many others)
Email: jfischer@leuphana.de Blog: http://ideas4sustainability.wordpress.com/ Twitter: @ideas4sust
Integration by case, place and process:
Identifying development risks and opportunities in Central Romania

Welcome!
How to meet the challenge of global change at local scales?
Observation: We often lack “benevolent dictators” who will implement
grand ideas, policies or management plans at large scales
Therefore: When that is the case, we need ways to help local actors
navigate global change
Here: a case study from Southern Transylvania, Romania
Short overview
Work-in-progress on development risks and opportunities

Integration by place, case, and process
1. Choosing (and defining) the place worth studying
Which issues need to be investigated?
2. Defining study “cases” – units of the system
Choosing focal units
3. Establishing a flexible process for ongoing integration
Source: Sherren, Fischer and others, Landscape Ecology 2010

Small scale, low intensity farming

A tightly coupled social-ecological system…
... until now, anyway …
Source: The Resilience Alliance

The scope
Overall goal:
to understand current changes in the region, and identify
avenues for its sustainable development
Focus on:
1. Farmland biodiversity and ecosystem services
2. Preferences and attitudes of local people
3. Governance, including barriers to adaptation and transformation
4. Equity implications
Today, I focus on integration, not on the sub-components

The cases: villages as social-ecological units
While embedded in a context of multi-level governance, many
important decisions are made at the level of individual villages

Stratified random selection of 30 village catchments
Terrain ruggedness
(high, medium, low)
Protection status
(SPA, SCI, no)
Stratification

Process: key features of this project
Solution-oriented in the spirit of sustainability science
Consultation and collaboration with local partners
Small, interdisciplinary research team
Mix of independent and joint activities within the team
We target:
scientific journals with academic insights
local organisations with regionally relevant materials

IDENTIFYING DEVELOPMENT RISKS AND
OPPORTUNITIES
Work-in-progress
Publication to be led by Dr. Jan Hanspach – many other collaborators are involved!

Anticipating possible directions of change
Aim: to understand development risks and opportunities as they
apply to different parts of our study area
Villages differ in (among others):
Population size
Ethnic composition
Remoteness
Natural capital
Local leadership

Our approach…
… is transdisciplinary (social science, natural sciences,
stakeholders)
… combines multiple data sources (databases, remote sensing,
ecological field data, workshops)
… draws on mixed methods (quantitative, qualitative)
… acknowledges uncertainties
… recognises that changes occur at several scales
… is spatially explicit
… and we hope it may also be useful for other case studies …

Regional
dynamics
Local
conditions
Social-ecological
inertia
Regional
dynamics
Local
conditions
Scenario 3Scenario 1
Scenario 2 Scenario 4
Scenario 3Scenario 1
Scenario 2 Scenario 4
Social-ecological
inertia
IntegrationInput
21
3
4
5

Spatially explicit quantification of local conditions
1. Natural capital
2. Socio-demographic factors
3. Others: Village isolation,
village size, terrain ruggedness
1. and 2. assessed for subset
of 30 villages, then generalized
3. for all villages in study area

Natural capital
Proportion land cover (arable, pasture, forest, orchards)
Carbon stocks (above, below and soil for arable, pasture, forest)
Hunting data (red deer, roe deer, boar, hare)
Pollinator abundance (thanks to Andras Baldi’s team, especially Aniko Kovacs!)
Farmland biodiversity: plants, butterflies, birds (own field data)
Scenic beauty (forest, landscape heterogeneity, major roads, fortified churches)

Three groups of villages
Natural capital bundles differ according to dominant land use type

Are there socioeconomic bundles?
Hungarian vs non-Hungarian villages
But: How do the Roma fit in?

Other local characteristics
Isolation: time [min] to drive to the next regional centre (> 20.000
inhabitants), weighted by road size
Ruggedness
Population size

STEP 1
Workshops with 17 organizations and key
individuals (nature conservation, forestry,
agriculture, tourism, social organisations,
churches...)
What are the main changes in the past, present
and the future? What are the drivers?
Development of systems diagrams with each
group
Participatory assessment of regional dynamics

STEP 2
Identification of commonalities and differences
Which links between variables did stakeholders
consistently talk about?
This gave us an understanding of system
dynamics and predictable causalities
On which issues did they disagree?
This gave us an understanding of uncertainties

STEP 3
We developed a draft systems diagram that included an understanding of uncertainties
STEP 4
In additional, mixed workshops we obtained feedback and refined our systems diagram

Influenced by
EU policy,
global markets,
national institutions
and local leaders
Profitability of
small scale
farming
Amount of
poverty
Amount of
conflicts
Social capital
Quality of
education
Number of
people leaving
the village
Level of
corruption
Tourism
development
+
-
+
-
-
-
- -
Maintainance of
traditions
+
Emigration of
Saxons
-
Amount of land
sold to foreign
land owners
Amount of intensively farmed land
(conventional or organic)
-
-
+
Amount of
abandoned
land
- +
Seeking short-term
profiteering
Amount of forest
exploitation
+
Modern lifestyle
-
-
Aggregate
local
economy
+
-
Maintainance and
development of
infrastructure
+
+
-
-
+
+
Farmland biodiversity
(cultural, regulating and
supporting ecosystem
services)- -
Forest biodiversty
services)
-
R
R
Note: stakeholders reported that the variables in white boxes systematically differed between villages

According to local
stakeholders, spatial
differences systematically
relate to:
• Ethnic composition
• Isolation
• Village pop. size
• Terrain
• Natural capital bundles
(= dominant land use)
Profitability of
small scale
farming
Amount of
poverty
Amount of
conflicts
Social capital
Quality of
education
Number of
people leaving
the village
Level of
corruption
Tourism
development
+
-
+
-
-
-
- -
Maintainance of
traditions
+
Emigration of
Saxons
-
Amount of land
sold to foreign
land owners
Amount of intensively farmed land
(conventional or organic)
-
-
+
Amount of
abandoned
land
- +
Seeking short-term
profiteering
Amount of forest
exploitation
+
Modern lifestyle
-
-
Aggregate
local
economy
+
-
Maintainance and
development of
infrastructure
+
+
-
-
+
+
Farmland biodiversity
services)- -
Forest biodiversty
services)
-
R
R

An example of “system inertia”: local economy
• based on subjective ranking of local experts
• includes only rankings that were consistent
among multiple stakeholders

Scenario planning
In our workshops, we also asked about drivers of change and
uncertainties in those drivers

Scenario planning
Drivers and changes were turned into short stories
We treated as certain those things regularly considered to happen
We treated as uncertain those things with big differences in views –
including controversial aspects (e.g. integration of Roma)
We then developed internally consistent scenario logics
We differentiated between internal versus external uncertainties

Pro-environmentalnationalandsupranationalpolicyemphasis
Pro-economynationalandsupranationalpolicyemphasis

Low ability of locals to capitalize on opportunities
High ability of locals to capitalize on opportunities

Balance brings beauty
Missed opportunityOur land – their wealth
Prosperity through
growth

Balance brings beauty
Organic farming and ecotourism
Diverse sources of income
High social capital
Maintainance of traditions
Missed opportunity
Few organic farms by foreigners
Abandonment in many areas
Locals poor or leave the area
Low social capital
Our land – their wealth
Land grabbing by foreigners
Intensification and exploitation
Locals leave or are poor
Low social capital and many conflicts
Prosperity through
growth
“Western European” development
Conventional intensification
Economic and social improvements
Deterioration of natural capital

Scenario planning
Each scenario has been turned into a storyline
Artwork is used to illustrate each scenario
For local communication, we also
disseminate scenarios as a booklet in Romanian and Hungarian
complement the narrative with fictional personalised accounts of
each alternative future

Amplification of inertia under different scenarios
Intensification Abandonment Forest
exploitation
Tourism Local
economy
Social
capital
Emigration Role of
foreigners
Prosperity
through growth
Our land,
their wealth
Balance brings
beauty
Missed
opportunity

exploitation
Tourism Local
economy
Social
capital
Emigration Role of
foreigners
Prosperity
through growth
+
Our land,
their wealth
--
Balance brings
beauty
++
Missed
opportunity
-

exploitation
Tourism Local
economy
Social
capital
Emigration Role of
foreigners
Prosperity
through growth
+++ -- ++ + +++ + +
Our land,
their wealth
+++ + +++ -- - +++ +++
Balance brings
beauty
++ - - ++ + +++ --
Missed
opportunity
+ ++ + - - +++ +

Amplification of change in different scenarios
+
Local
economy
Prosperity
through
growth
+++
Our land, their
wealth
Balance brings
beauty
+
Missed
opportunity
=

Development risks and opportunities
Intensi-
fication
Abandon-
ment
Forest
exploi-
tation
Tourism Local
eco-
nomy
Social
capital
Emigra-
tion
Role of
foreig-
ners
Prosperity through
growth
Our land,
their wealth
Balance brings
beauty
Missed
opportunity

What can we learn from this?
Some villages are pre-disposed to certain changes no matter what
the future brings
Some trends are likely at a regional level, no matter what the future
brings
Local initiatives will make a major difference to local outcomes,
regardless of external circumstances

What can we learn from this?
Some villages are pre-disposed to certain changes no matter what
the future brings
Some trends are likely at a regional level, no matter what the future
brings
Local initiatives will make a major difference to local outcomes,
regardless of external circumstances
Regional analyses mask potentially important local differences
Our approach makes local differences explicit, drawing on local
expertise, quantitative and qualitative analyses
This highlights hotspots of risks and opportunities for certain
development trajectories

Conclusion: Applicability beyond Transylvania?
Mapping of ecosystem services: useful to understand trade-offs and
synergies and their spatial distribution
Conceptual systems modelling: good for understanding dynamics but
typically spatially “flat” (= all drivers equal in all locations)
Scenario planning: useful given uncertainty and for capacity building
We demonstrated an approach to combine these methods to identify
hotspots of social-ecological development risks and opportunities
Next steps:
Write-up as a journal article
Local dissemination via booklets and presentations/workshops

Thanks for funding to Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Thanks to many collaborators, including the MET, Dave Abson, Tobias Kuemmerle, Henrik von Wehrden
Thanks to those who have provided valuable ideas in the past, e.g. Garry Peterson, Ioan Fazey, Toby
Gardner, Line Gordon, Gretchen Daily, Andras Baldi
Thanks to you for listening!
Follow our blog: ideas4sustainability.wordpress.com
Could you kindly rephrase that in
equivocal, inaccurate, vague,
self-serving, and roundabout
terms that we can all
understand?

Integrating Place, Case and Process in Central Romania

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