Participatory Community Perspectives of Environmental Sustainability and Social-Ecological Resilience in US Virgin Islands

Abstract

Due to an unprecedented human presence and influence on the earth’s natural resources and processes the environmental sustainability and resilience of many areas is uncertain. This study will examine the collective perceptions of stakeholder and institutional groups, related to natural resource use, on the drivers that influence environmental sustainability and social resilience within the US Virgin Islands. The approach will use Social-Ecological Systems (SES) theory and involve a two-phase research methodology: (a) Participatory scenario planning to uncover the perceived drivers impacting sustainability and social-ecological resilience as well as examine the presence (or absence) and strength of a cohesive community vision regarding social-ecological stewardship, and (b) Game theoretic Role Playing Games (RPG) in which participants will engage in strategic collaborative decision making in exercises using scenarios identified during the participatory scenario planning phase. The benefits and broader impacts of this research are the identification, understanding, and in-depth analysis of real-world and place based emergent properties of an integrated social-ecological system of interactions; exploring and analyzing the multi-dimensionality of a diverse and integrated set of alternative collective social and mental perspectives; and, the provision of an evidence-based decision support mechanism to aid resource managers, end users and the broad community in the USVI and the Caribbean region. Funding for this research is provided by NSF VI-EPSCoR award no. 0814417.