The impact of uncertainty on cooperation intent in a conservation conflict

Stakeholder cooperation can be vital in managing conservation conflicts. Laboratory experiments show cooperation is less likely in the presence of uncertainty. Much less is known about how stakeholders in real‐life conservation conflicts respond to different types of uncertainty.

We tested the effects of different sources of uncertainty on cooperative behaviour using a framed field experiment and interviews. The experiment compared a baseline scenario of perfect certainty with scenarios including either: i) scientific uncertainty about the effectiveness of a conflict‐reduction intervention; ii) administrative uncertainty about intervention funding; or iii) political uncertainty about the extent of community support. We applied these scenarios to a conservation conflict in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, involving the management of geese to simultaneously meet both conservation and farming objectives. We asked 149 crofters (small scale farmers) if they would commit to cooperate with oth...