Dialogue seeds in a top-down approach : a study of the County Administrative Board civil servants perspectives on communication and participatory approaches to nature conservation

Abstract: This study explores the perspectives of the County Administrative Board civil servants working for Nature Conservation in relation to communication and with a focus in participatory approaches. The institution itself with its traditional top down hierarchical framework and its Nature Conservation focus in natural sciences, constitutes an important reference group for the employees, and also acts as a constraining factor limiting their learning experiences and thus the possibilities for achieving the environmental goals it seeks. In this situation attempts that aim for an institutional change towards a more dialogical nature conservation approach such as the Dialogue for Nature Conservation training program, risk to go to waste unless there is a shared understanding of this epistemology followed by a coherent structural change in the institution that will allow for the theory to go hand in hand with the civil servants actual practice.