Engaging Landowners in the Conservation Conversation through Landowner-Listening Workshops

Participatory approaches to natural resource research have become increasingly popular, ensuring local knowledge is incorporated into conservation decisions while also benefitting community members. Understanding if and how different methods achieve participatory research goals is important and lacking. In this study, we investigated how one approach, landowner-listening workshops, performed across six criteria for participatory research. We conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of two workshops including participant observation, qualitative analysis of the workshop transcript, and a post-workshop survey administered to 27 landowners and 22 conservation professionals. We found that landowner-listening workshops provided a unique space for open conversation, with all participants benefiting from knowledge exchange. However, workshops did not perform consistently on fostering the spread of participation, and there were mixed results on the clarity of objectives. Based on our findings, we conclude landowner-listening workshops show promise as participatory research that helps bridge the gap between professionals and landowners.