Abstract

Management of natural resources ultimately requires managing the people who influence the resources. Fisheries management has primarily focused on the ecological and economic components of management without full consideration of the social dimensions. Indeed, there have been repeated calls for the greater inclusion of the human dimensions to natural resource management. While there is an abundance of literature detailing the importance of understanding the drivers of human behavior in coastal resource management methods, few agencies have been able to systematically measure these drivers. We introduce a tool, cognitive mapping, that through frequent administration we have found to be particularly effective in bridging the worlds of surveys and open-ended interviews. This method is able to capture substantial data, is easy to administer, puts less cognitive load on respondents and researchers, and requires minimal data analysis skills in order for it to be useful for decision makers and disseminated to stakeholders. Mental models are a key determinant in understanding a person’s behavior and motivations. There exist many approaches to cognitive mapping ranging from simple to complex and have been applied to diverse topics in natural resource management. We discuss four of these approaches and outline their application to understanding natural resource issues in varying contexts. We conclude by discussing how this approach can be incorporated into coastal resource management in the Caribbean

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