When things go wrong? - Communication and learning gaps between managers and their environmental advisors; a cartoon collaboration

Abstract

This paper explores the format of a cartoon strip to examine individual roles and social identity of participants involved in the management of protected land. Its collaborative production involved an advisor reporting interaction experiences and an artist's visualisations made in response. This dialogue iteratively generated a picture story about both the preparation and implementation of a Site Management Plan for a protected area and the different dialogues between individuals and their impressions of each other. The storyline is fictionalised through visualisation to be both generalised and highly specific. It illustrates some types of communication failure by contrasting speech and thought bubbles which in turn reflect one author's personal experience of providing (regulatory) advice over thirty years in the UK. However, the story has also borrowed elements of Alpine experience and the pictorial characterisation has been generated by the other author from a perspective as a visual artist. The authors offer this methodology as a consultation tool.