Science Communication across Diverse Ways of Knowing and Collaboration in a Landscape-Scale Natural Resource Governance Network

The Northwest Boreal Partnership (“Partnership”), established in 2012 as part of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network, encourages cross-jurisdictional, collaborative natural resources management at a landscape scale. The Partnership is a governance network of Indigenous and non-Indigenous land managers, researchers, and local resource users from a 330-million-acre region of boreal ecosystems in Alaska and northwestern Canada. Central to the purposes of the Partnership are ideas of sharing scientific information to improve environmental conservation. We investigated the relationship between science information and collaboration among diverse participants drawing on theoretical frameworks related to governance networks, collaboration, and diverse ways of knowing. We gathered data through document review, observations, and participant interviews to characterize the nature of scientific information shared in the network, how the information is valued by network participants, and how this is related to collaboration. Our analysis highlights several themes useful for understanding how the partnership has evolved while maintaining an interest in sharing scientific information: change and uncertainty, scarcity and abundance, and the individual and the whole. These themes provide insights into the complexity of ‘sharing scientific information’ in the network, and the challenges of bringing together diverse ways of knowing that span government, non-government, Indigenous, and academic settings. The findings of this case address how the perceived neutrality of science can support participation of a diverse group. It also raises questions about whether and how the Partnership creates a base of stability that can sustain trust and forward momentum in a changing natural and political landscape. Lessons from this case may be relevant to other collaborative natural resource management networks with diverse participation.