Multi-stakeholders’ preference for best management practices based on environmental awareness

Abstract

Stakeholder participation is crucial in solving environmental problems, especially in rural areas. This research investigates multi-stakeholders environmental awareness and preferences for best management practices (BMPs) in water conservation zones of north China for tackling non-point source pollution issue. A sample of 287 stakeholders involving 62 environmental officials, 18 volunteers, 73 left-behind villagers, and 130 migrant workers were interviewed. New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale and Principal component analysis were used to evaluate stakeholder's environmental awareness, preference for BMPs and factors influencing awareness and preference. Results show that engineering BMPs generally have a higher acceptance than management BMPs which can guide proper farming practices to reduce the likelihood of contamination from the source. Among the management measures, the preference for nutrient management was higher than that of tillage management. Considerable preference heterogeneity exists among different stakeholder groups in terms of BMPs in the case study area. Overall, environmental officials and volunteers are more supportive for implementing BMPs than left-behind farmers and migrant workers. In terms of implementation, environmental officials and volunteers tend to pay more attention to both the environmental benefit and economic benefit, while left-behind farmers and migrant workers focus more on economic benefit. To gain more economic benefit, people in areas with low economic levels are more willing to accept these measures to improve the status quo of living environment and income. Principal component analysis shows that demographics (23.6%), environmental awareness (15%), policies (13.6%) and economic (12.8%) can influence stakeholders' preference for BMPs. The cumulative contribution of the four factors accounts for 65%. The results suggest that decision makers need to coordinate multi-interest among the stakeholders and emphasize stakeholder consultation to meet local stakeholders' needs. We provide implications to policy-makers for revising existing or introducing adequate incentives to motivate local stakeholders and increase their support for implementing BMPs, instead of using enforcement.

Introduction

Environmental governance, especially in western democracies, increasingly relies on stakeholders' participation (Drazkiewicz et al., 2015). Stakeholder theory and empirical evidence confirm the positive relationship between stakeholder pressure and implementation of environmental practices and strategies (Betts et al., 2015). Involving stakeholders in environment management reflects an investment of those critical to successful outcomes in the process and is often assumed to be the most effective way to improve the reliability and applicability of policies (Leach et al., 2002). Moreover, it can also improve stakeholders’ environmental awareness and their sense of responsibility to solve environmental problems (Reed, 2008; Reed et al., 2009).

Definitions of community, public and stakeholders are given throughout the public participation literature, but these terms are not applied consistently (Ashford, 1999; Orts and Strudler, 2009). The US National Research Council (2001) states that stakeholder refers to individuals and organizations who have an interest in, or who are affected by, the establishment of a protected area (Leach et al., 2002). Watershed stakeholders, as the body of the basin, include those living next to or relying on natural resources (e.g., water and land) in need of protection, but also include those interested in or affected by watershed management/protection, such as government, public, enterprise, NGO, and other organizations and individuals (Qiu et al., 2014).

The research contents of stakeholder participation in environmental management mainly focus on (i) Evaluation of the public engagement process. It is believed that a good participation process must be legal and fair, emphasizing that the participation process needs guidance and consultation, fully reflects the interests and rights of all stakeholders and forms a struggle for rights (Webler et al., 2001). (ii) Impact of public participation process on environmental management system. The pressure of stakeholders and the implementation of the environmental management system have a great impact on environmental behavior. In addition to the impact on individuals, the implementation of the environmental management system also enhances the impact of stakeholders on the environmental balance (González-Benito et al., 2011). (iii) Factors influencing the willingness to improve the environment. 46 Studies in America concluded that the single factor has little influence on the selection of BMPs, so it is necessary to combine multiple factors to improve the effectiveness of BMPs configuration (Baumgart-Getz et al., 2012). Studies of BMPs acceptance in India have shown that higher relative benefits (e.g., less investment, time saving, environmental benefits), consistency with the agricultural system to meet the needs of farmers, and observed advantages of BMPs increase farmers' acceptance of BMPs (Reimer et al., 2012).

While, in China, the study of stakeholder participation in water environment management is limited to the understanding of water pollution and management measures. Researches about the factors that affect the effect of multi-stakeholder participation, and what methods are adopted to enable stakeholders to actively participate in watershed water environmental management are insufficient.

Considering the high heterogeneity and complexity of stakeholder groups with their multiple interests, it is really hard to better understand issues and optimize implementation (Luyet et al., 2012). So the government should consider different stakeholders' interests and needs, and try to coordinate the interests of all parties by bringing in stakeholders’ perspectives, and then it can achieve more effective decision-making and implementation. Some examples of successful management include the cases of water transfer in Alberta (Lafreniere et al., 2013), rice production in Bangladesh (Alam et al., 2013), and ecosystem service decision-making (Hauck et al., 2013) Studies in Latin America show that in countries that have put in place national procedures for stakeholder consultation, the role of national institutions is highlighted. Conversely, in countries with no national government guidelines on local stakeholder participation, it presents a risk that only those stakeholders who favor the project/plan will be invited to share comments. (Benites-Lazaro and Mello-Théry, 2019).

Best management practices (BMPs) are effective means to control non-point source pollution that are composed of managing and engineering measures intended to prevent or reduce the movement of sediment, nutrients, pesticides, and other non-point source pollutants from land to surface or underground water (Makarewicz et al., 2009b; Sharpley and Wang, 2014). Management practices attempt to guide proper farming practices such as contour farming and fertilizer management to reduce the likelihood of contamination from the source, while engineering practices are construction projects, such as wetlands and filter strips, aimed at reducing the impact of run-off and soil erosion through increased water infiltration (Kaplowitz and Lupi, 2012). BMPs have been applied in many places in the world such as Gansu Province in northwestern China (Hui et al., 2014), California, New York, and the American West (Hayden et al., 2015; Makarewicz et al., 2009a), Vouga catchment in Portugal (Rocha et al., 2015), Oudon River in France (Laurent and Ruelland, 2011).

Despite some success, it was recognized in the 1990s that some management approaches had failed to produce significant reductions in non-point source pollution (Logan, 1993) and had not been widely accepted by the agricultural community, especially in the absence of stakeholders' participation when implementing BMPs (Reed, 2008). Because of cultural, political and historical contexts, participation of all relevant stakeholders in decision of BMPs in China, especially in rural China, is not as common as in western countries. Also, issues will be very complicated involving imbalance of age and education. Because stakeholders have less logical thinking about environmental problems and they are not good at expressing their opinions instead of following the crowd. Existing empirical studies (Han et al., 2019) in China have focused mainly on a single type of stakeholder; needs of multiple stakeholders in environmental management are rarely considered. The aims of this paper are to (i) demonstrate a better understanding of the interests and needs of multiple stakeholders for designing and applying BMPs and (ii) provide implications to policy-makers for revising existing or introducing adequate incentives to motivate local stakeholders and increases their support for implementing BMPs, instead of using undesired enforcement.