Our analysis indicates that participants consistently used strong shared frames to justify their views and deal with divergent views. In this manner, shared frames dominated their discussions. The shared frames included an interaction frame, certain issue frames, and a set of value frames held by members of all stakeholder groups. During the discussion, frames were deliberated through frame reflection and social interaction, affecting frame salience, elaboration, and adjustment.
Shared Frames
Shared Interaction Frame
Our analysis of the workshop discussions and the interviews suggests that participants held a shared interaction frame which we call ‘collaboration frame’. This frame could be seen in the participants’ strong willingness to collaborate, based on their understanding that they shared a common overarching aim and an openness to others’ perspectives. In the interviews, several participants reflected on these elements when asked what they remembered most about the workshop. For example:
We're all working towards restoring and managing that peatland for the overall benefit of the environment in the future. (Business 1)
I think everybody was on board with what everybody's trying to do and trying to listen to everybody's point of view just to come to some sort of compromise or a plan for doing the best we can. (Farmer 1)
Several participants recognised that the shared aim spanned different interest groups’ divergent perspectives on the right way to achieve this aim: “We all want the same thing ultimately, we just have different ways and different thoughts about how we should go about that process.” (Conservationist 7).
The collaboration frame was linked to feelings of a positive atmosphere –“What I remember most is it was a very good atmosphere” (Business 1)—and a positive feeling about the workshop in general. Participants also mentioned that they were ‘heartened’ by the shared aim across different interest groups:
I was very heartened to be in the room with a group of people that whatever their main interest was (e.g. farming, grouse, climate), were all appreciative of the importance of peatlands and agree that we want to get to a place where we have good functioning peatlands for the future. (Conservationist 1)
Shared Issue Frames
Throughout the workshop it also became clear that participants shared certain issue frames. Some of the shared frames were made explicit in the discussions, in particular an ‘environmental frame’, referring to a focus on environmental concerns (for example biodiversity, water regulation and carbon retention related to peatlands), and an ‘economic frame’, referring to the focus on economic and financial concerns (such as costs of peatland conservation). The other issue frames were more implicit.
We discerned repeated patterns of argumentation indicating the shared belief that it was necessary to take into account local differences and local knowledge and to find local solutions. We call this the ‘localisation frame’. For example, farmers and conservationists applied the localisation frame when pointing out that the official map of functioning or restorable blanket bog was not correct, because this map implied that all peat beyond 40 cm of depth could be turned into a “fully functioning rewetted peat ecosystem” even though more ‘porous ground and steep slopes’ would not allow for rewetting and thus creating a functioning blanket bog (Farmer 1).
Whilst the localisation frame meant that participants ‘zoomed in’ to highlight local factors, they occasionally also ‘zoomed out’ by using a ‘global’ frame. For example, participants reflected on the peatland management options in the light of UK-wide environmental policies, and they drew a few international comparisons of peatland management, for example with New Zealand.
Participants also frequently emphasised the need to take into account a broad range of issues that interact with each other, i.e., to take a ‘holistic’ view. “It’s not just the management of the hills; it needs to be a holistic approach.” (Farmer 1) The ‘holistic’ frame was used across participants, and promoted fervently by one farmer when explaining how environmental and economic concerns played into each other. For example, “from the farming point of view, most farmers farm as if they’re going to live forever because if you don’t look after the environment on your farm it won’t be there in the future.” (Farmer 1) The holistic frame was also apparent when participants stressed that it was impossible to gain viable solutions without taking into account the various elements of the socio-ecological system comprising farming, conservation of peatland, flood control, economic incentives and livelihoods, and that it was necessary to aim for a ‘balance’ between the interacting elements: “It’s all so interlinked that if you undermine one it undermines the other and at the moment there isn’t an economic sustainability underpinning environmental sustainability.” (Farmer 1). It also appeared that participants used the holistic frame to show their willingness to compromise and find a ‘balance’ between the different interests, in line with their collaboration frame.
Another frame concerned ‘framing to the public’, namely the need to use the right language to justify public payments and demonstrate public benefit to taxpayers. Public benefit was often phrased in terms of a ‘common good interest’, in line with the language used in scenarios presented by the researchers and the broader policy context (Bateman & Balmford, 2018). Participants highlighted that certain measures could not easily be framed favourably to the public even though they were required for protecting biodiversity. One example was animal population control: “I think telling the public we’re going to shoot all the bunnies and catch all the moles and hang them on the fence then there’s quite a bit of resistance, I would think.” (Farmer 2). Similarly, whilst the participants regarded carbon retention as a key function of peatlands, it was mentioned that the public may not be aware of this function.
Interestingly, the ‘framing to the public’ frame implied that ‘the public’ was seen as a common outgroup, suggesting an ingroup identity amongst workshop participants. The coherence of the workshop members as an ingroup became even more apparent in the frequent mention of disagreement with the approaches taken by certain external bodies, indicating an ‘external opponent’ frame. Above all, ‘Natural England’ (the government agency responsible for delivering large-scale agri-environmental payment schemes) was repeatedly criticised as historically imposing ill-informed policies that did not take into account local requirements, though there were more favourable opinions of more recent results-based payments pilot projects. To a smaller extent, participants showed antagonism towards broader UK and European governmental policies and the water regulation board.
Shared Value Frames
Our analysis further suggests that the workshop participants shared certain value frames, i.e., values that functioned as frames. Notably, the named interaction frame and issue frames are also not free of value, as values feed into them. For example, the collaboration frame relies on the perceived value of collaborating, the environmental frame relies on the value of an intact environment and the economic frame relies on the value of economic advantages. However, values are not the defining features of these frames, as these focus on interactions and issues, respectively. By contrast, values are the core constituents of value frames.
During the discussions, participants made either explicit or implicit reference to value frames to justify their reasoning. The value frame ‘social justice’ became salient foremost when participants discussed the current systems of distributing financial incentives for conservation actions, which put farms with poorer land at a disadvantage. A related value frame was ‘respect for tradition’, visible when participants referred to farming practices that had developed over centuries, based on local knowledge of the ecosystem, and were therefore environmentally sustainable.
Respect for tradition was linked with a strong value frame ‘place identity’, i.e. an appreciation of how the Pennines were special as a place. For example, beautiful wide views and broad skies, small scale farming based on long standing traditions, and the interdependent practices of grouse shooting, shepherding and heather conservation were described as beloved characteristics of this area. During the storytelling it became clear that a few participants had experienced these features as part of their upbringing, loading them with strong emotional value.
Somewhat related to the respect for tradition and place identity, participants also expressed a strong sense of ‘responsibility’ that guided their reasoning. Farmers and estate representatives felt responsible for maintaining the landscape that sustained their livelihood:
I think farmers are at the behest of environmentalists because it’s … certainly in our interest to do anything like that, because we have to live and work there every day. (Farmer 2)
Moreover, conservationists as well as those receiving the incentives (i.e., farmers and landowners) demonstrated their belief that payment incentives for ecosystem maintenance had to be allocated wisely to produce actual benefit: “Public money has to be used well and transparently” (Farmer 1).
Notably, some of the frames were cued by the workshop agenda from the start. Above all, the aim to evaluate post-Brexit peatland scenarios and to suggest fair prices for post-Brexit agri-environmental payments cued the ‘environmental’ and the ‘economic’ frame, and the need to combine the two. The ‘holistic frame’ was cued by the broad range of criteria included in the scenarios, and by stakeholders’ task to suggest a combination of policy options that would help achieve multiple objectives. The task to include multiple criteria and objectives also stressed the need to collaborate across different views, cueing the collaboration frame. The localisation frame became salient early in the discussion, driven by participants’ intricate knowledge of local differences that led them to question policies that did not take into account local factors. The value frames in turn were made explicit during the value elicitation exercise. Several other frames became salient only later in the discussion, such as the ‘framing to the public’ and ‘external opponents’ frame.
Stakeholders’ Views
The analysis of shared frames indicates how stakeholders’ frames informed their views concerning particular situations and issues (see Online Appendix 1). For example, the environmental frame informed views on particular methods of protecting biodiversity, and the localisation frame underscored views of mismatches between general grazing and cutting schemes and local peat conditions. At the same time, participants held certain divergent views despite their shared frames. We noted that these differences in views were based partly on different applications of shared frames and partly on differences in the initial salience that the frames had for different participants in relation to the issue.
There were disagreements between estate representatives and farmers on the one side and conservationists on the other concerning the environmental benefits and dangers of heather burning (discussed later), tied to different applications of the environmental frame. Moreover, there was initial disagreement on whether reducing grouse numbers was necessary for achieving satisfactory peatland conditions, again because participants applied the environmental frame in different ways. Whilst three conservationists explained that reducing grouse numbers could have biodiversity and carbon storage benefits, Estate 1 held that grouse management through burning helped conservation by preventing wildfires, and Business 3 explained that peat quality depended on local conditions more than grouse numbers. Differential salience of the economic versus environmental frame led to initial disagreement between a contractor and three conservationists on the benefits and dangers of planting trees. Whilst Business 3 suggested that tree production was an important new source of income for struggling farmers in the uplands, applying the economic frame, Conservationists 5 and 8 applied the environmental frame, explaining that planting “the wrong trees in the wrong place” was harmful for biodiversity and moor quality.
The different salience of certain frames also underscored divergent views regarding the option of rewilding, i.e., “letting nature take its course” as opposed to managing the landscape. Whilst an estate representative and two farmers highlighted the dangers of rewilding for current animal species, applying the environmental frame, two conservationists suggested payments for rewilding as an option for certain areas, using both the environmental and localisation frame.
Using and Deliberating Shared Frames
Our analysis of conversation episodes revealed how the shared frames guided participants’ reasoning and thus dominated during the discussion. Supported by their collaboration frame, participants repeatedly drew on the shared issue and value frames—partly implicitly and partly explicitly—to structure their argument, respond to each other, and arrive at joint decisions. As mentioned, in the case of divergent views some stakeholders initially applied the frames in a different manner or placed emphasis on different frames to justify their views. But, from their reactions to each other’s justifications, it was clear that they did not disagree on the frames the others referred to. Instead, they picked up the reference to this frame to further discuss the issue and arrive at an agreement.
By being applied during the discussion, the shared frames were deliberated and thereby strengthened. Figure 1 illustrates how participants started with partly different views but shared frames, which underlay key frame deliberation mechanisms, feeding into deliberation outcomes concerning views and frames.
In terms of deliberation mechanisms, the workshop discussions allowed stakeholders firstly to reflect on their frames. For example, participants reflected on the environmental and economic frames when discussing the need to take both stances, and on the localisation frame when emphasising that Natural England did not sufficiently take into account local requirements. During social interactions, stakeholders used keying, layering and breaks of interpretations, and they amplified, extended and merged frames. Using and deliberating shared frames in this manner had the important function of dealing with divergent views, resulting in either agreements on views or maintaining a plurality of views. Moreover, the deliberation strengthened the frames by making them more salient to all involved, and more elaborate.
We did not discern any radical changes in the meanings associated with participants’ frames that would indicate ‘frame transformation’ (Snow et al., 1986). However, in the interviews, a slight change of meanings transpired. Changes in the relative salience and the elaboration of frames here amounted to a slight change in a frame, which we call ‘adjustment’ (rather than shift or transformation) of frames. Specifically, a surveyor and three farmers appeared to have significantly strengthened and elaborated their environmental relative to their economic frame, as they had become more aware of scientific details on environmental issues such as carbon retention, and on environmentally friendly alternatives to burning. For example,
I’m certainly far more aware when I’m on the fells of some of the finer points of the vegetation. And I am looking at sites and thinking, how would you restore that into a functioning carbon storing ecosystem? (Farmer 1)
Two conservationists had elaborated their economic frame and were now using it to a greater extent than before the workshop, as they had become more aware of economic management options in comparison to governmental subsidies:
I think as a group, as we began to discuss the role of businesses and their increased responsibility it triggered something in my mind that I thought well yeah, we do need to look at them to take a little bit more responsibility for their actions from now on. (Conservationist 7).
We will now take two examples of interaction episodes to demonstrate the use and deliberation of shared frames. The first example illustrates how frames were used to deal with divergent views on a particular issue, and how the frames were deliberated in the process. The second example shows how the course of interactions influenced the salience and elaboration of a particular frame.
Example 1: Using shared Frames to Deal with Divergent Views
We will first demonstrate the use and deliberation of shared frames with regard to the discussion of the perhaps most prominent point of disagreement, heather burning. Heather burning is a traditional practice used by farmers to create young shoots for grazing sheep and by the ‘sporting estates’, i.e. grouse shooting business, to yield a mixed (‘mosaic’) habitat for grouse. Members of these groups emphasised that controlled burning of combustible vegetation was also an important environmental measure to prevent wildfires, as it allowed for the growth of the more fire-resistant heather. This view was emphasised particularly by the grouse shooting estates: “Apart from getting young shoots through for grazing for sheep and for grouse we believe that it would be ridiculous not to have firebreaks to break wildfire up. Because once they get alight, they just keep going, they don’t stop.” (Estate 1).
A contrasting view was held foremost by conservationists, who had been lobbying for a stop of heather burning in the uplands. The view was that “the burning practices that have been carried out probably for the last 150/60 years are having a major negative impact on the upland environment, threatening these important carbon stocks, threatening the quality of our drinking water, increasing run-off from the big upland catchment, so associated with flooding downstream and impacting on priority habitats and species.” (Conservationist 5). Although the conservationists accepted that controlled burning helped to prevent wildfires, they argued that wildfires developed primarily on degraded, dry bogs, due to reduced water levels. Rather than controlling combustible vegetation through burning, degraded bogs should thus be rewetted to restrain combustible vegetation and make the bog more fire resistant. Views also diverged with regard to the option of burning merely for restoration purposes, which some conservationists criticised as unsustainable.
The issue of burning was brought up when evaluating the given scenarios in the blue group, as different burning practices featured in the different scenarios. The facilitator here labelled managed burning as a “the most controversial” aspect of the scenarios and outlined two ‘camps’ regarding burning, then inviting participants to present their stance. By frankly acknowledging that views on the issue were controversial, this introduction set the ground for participants mentioning their differing views openly and discussing them in detail.
The contrasting views on this issue were not resolved in the workshop. However, the discussions were shaped by shared frames, leading to conclusions that allowed the different views to co-exist, enabling a joint decision on what services should be included in the payment scheme. Rather than promoting the interests of their group, participants showed a clear willingness to evaluate burning as a practice by taking into account all interests and using the shared ‘environmental’ ‘localisation’ and ‘holistic’ frames. In line with their collaboration frame, participants were open to new information, built their arguments on the preceding utterances of other members, and reflected on the various stances. Figure 2 summarises the frames and deliberation mechanisms that participants used during this discussion.
The discussion started with Farmer 1 explaining the environmental risks of wildfire, hence using the ‘environmental’ frame (rather than promoting the narrower farming interest) and cueing this frame to the others (see Fig. 2). Layering onto this frame, a head estate keeper, part of the grouse shooting interest group, emphasised that the traditional ‘rotational’ burning practice was in fact a restoration activity and was not done routinely without a restoration need. He thus framed this practice in line with the environmental frame. He also applied the ‘holistic frame’ by combining economic (sheep and grouse shooting) and environmental aspects:
I think one of the huge mistakes was made was calling it rotational burning in the first place. You know, a keeper doesn’t go up to a bit of land and say, ‘Oh, I burnt that 15 years ago, it’s time to burn it again.’ They will go to an area that requires the heather vegetation could be taken off because it’s become long and stemmy and it isn’t good for grouse, it’s not good for sheep, draining out the bog. So they’ve probably been doing restoration burning for a long time under the remit of rotation burning. (Estate 1)
The same estate keeper also emphasised the need to take a holistic view on the burning issue to balance restoration with economic concerns:
It goes back to the holistic approach …, if you’re only looking at one factor, … you say: … if you stop burning completely … the peat’s going to start quicker … you forget about all the other stuff that it affects, whether it’s biodiversity, whether it’s the economics of the site. And you have to look at it as a whole and find the balance between all the different interests. (Estate 1)
Layering on the holistic frame, the estate keeper thus emphasised the interdependence of environmental and economic aspects and merged the environmental with the economic frame. Through this combination of frames, he offered a ‘break of interpretation’ of the burning issue, questioning the term ‘rotational burning’ and the approach of stopping burning completely (Fig. 2).
What followed was a discussion on the details of burning practices and alternatives such as cutting. Members of different interest groups asked each other factual questions, following a ‘rational problem solving’ approach (Brugnach et al., 2011) and demonstrating their willingness to learn from each other: Conservationist 1 explained the shooting communities’ practice of cutting combined with burning, Farmer 2 responded by inquiring about several details of this practice, which were then provided by the conservationist as well as the Estate representative 2. Farmer 1 chipped in with the comment “it [cutting] is a tool”, and shortly afterwards with the conclusion that “If we’re going to move on to trying to produce an outcome, you shouldn’t rule out any tool in the box”. He thereby suggested not to exclude any of the different practices, thus integrating the participants’ different views and allowing them to coexist. Farmer 1 justified his conclusion by drawing on the shared frames of localisation (the need to tap on local knowledge) and the environmental frame:
If we’re going to move on to trying to produce an outcome, you shouldn’t rule out any tool in the box to achieve that, and it should be relying on the intuition and knowledge of the people … that’s the only way that you’re actually going to get the improvement in the environment. (Farmer 1)
By layering the ‘localisation’ frame onto the holistic frame and the merged environmental and economic frames, Farmer 1 thus offered another break of interpretation, reinterpreting the different approaches to burning as a ‘tools’ in a ‘toolbox’ instead of alternatives. He thereby suggested that all the different approaches had potential use, depending on local conditions. This interpretation was clearly in line with the collaboration frame, and it served to extend the previously used environmental frames to encompass different views on burning.
The solution of retaining all tools was taken up by the facilitator: “Let’s expand that toolkit and let’s have more things in that toolkit that we can choose from”, followed by further confirmation and justification by Farmer 1, this time referring to the holistic frame in terms of taking a broad view and combining environmental and economic concerns:
You shouldn’t chuck anything out otherwise you’re limiting yourself because you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But the key thing for all these different scenarios is if you want to have environmental sustainability, it has to be underpinned by economic sustainability. (Farmer 1)
In this manner, the facilitator and Farmer 1 amplified the merged environmental, and economic frame, and the associated holistic frame. In the summary of the discussion, the facilitator later presented this conclusion as consensus across the different views in the group, again amplifying the used frames:
There is currently still conflict over whether or not burning should be allowed to be part of your toolkit or not. And going with the consensus of the table … the more tools you’ve got in that toolkit, the more adaptable you are and the more effectively you can then adapt to whatever changing conditions. (Facilitator of blue group)
This conclusion enabled participants to maintain their plural views on burning whilst reaching the joint decision of retaining burning in the catalogue of peatland management practices to be included in future policies.
The follow-up interviews later revealed that a few individuals had adjusted their views on burning slightly through the discussions. Farmer 2 related that he had now better understood the arguments against burning, and its possible alternatives. Conservationist 3 reflected on the different perspectives of the participants and pointed to the fact that scientific evidence regarding burning was inconclusive. Farmer 3 concluded that burning seemed to be acceptable in some areas but not others, relating to the localisation frame. He also explained his change of view:
I hadn't realised that if the peat is washed away they'll lose the carbon introduced as well. So I think I just have a better understanding of the consequences of allowing the peat to be damaged. So, controlling heather burning properly so that they protect the areas where the peat is. … I changed my mind on that one.
Notably, the discussions of divergent views also strengthened the ‘collaboration’ frame, visible in the fact that several interviewees recollected how workshop attendants had pursued a shared aim despite their different approaches. Using shared frames in their reasoning concerning divergent views (such as the issue of burning) had helped participants find an integrative solution (keeping all tools in the toolbox). This seems to have made workshop attendants aware that all participants’ interests should be taken into account to find a common solution for achieving the shared aim (frame reflection), thus strengthening the collaboration frame. Online Appendices 2 and 3 provide further illustrations of the use of frames and deliberation mechanisms during discussions of divergent views, concerning grouse management (Online Appendix 2) and tree planting (Online Appendix 3).
Example 2: Deliberating the Social Justice Frame
We now take the example of a particular frame, the social justice frame, to further illustrate how frames became more salient and were elaborated through the discussion, affecting subsequent discussions and the conclusions. Figure 3 summarises the use of frames and frame deliberation mechanisms in relation to deliberation outcomes for the relevant episode.
The most obvious use of the social justice frame was in the red group’s scenario discussion concerning the distribution of payments between landowners and farmers. This aspect of justice was taken up again in the group’s discussion on fair prices. In the red group’s scenario discussion, a conservationist mentioned the issue of reforestation, starting with an ‘environmental’ frame. Business 3 then introduced the economic aspect of reforestation by mentioning that farmers would be able to gain additional income from woods, hence keying a new interpretation using the economic frame. This was encountered by Conservationist 5 with the consideration that farmers may not have the legal right to plant trees, keying another interpretation by using aspects of the social justice frame—which led Business 3 to elaborate on the legal rights (amplifying this frame). This again led to the following comment by the facilitator: “So I might come back to that, the kind of issue of tenants and payments with regards to whether it goes to landowners or tenants…” By highlighting the importance of payment distributions, this comment amplified aspects of the ‘social justice’ frame, leading to a detailed exchange on the fairness of these distributions. Conservationist 7 noted “… It’s making sure there’s an equitable system that the carbon credits are actually fed back directly to sort of tenants.” Business 3 responded by extending the frame, mentioning that new payment systems could make it easier for a big landowner to get rid of a tenant farmer and “just ranch the whole place”. To this Conservationist 7 added that it was important to support small scale farming in order to maintain biodiversity, thus merging the ‘social justice’ frame with the ‘environmental’ frame.
In the later fair price discussion, the same participants brought up and elaborated on these aspects of social justice again. Business 3: “…The contractor’s going to take all the money for the rewetting process, farmer nothing, estate -…, money in, money out, doesn’t see it.” In the summary of the session, the facilitator included the participants’ points on social justice, again amplifying this frame, and combined them with the ‘holistic’ frame concerning ‘balance’: “…recurring point—question is who benefits, landowners, farmers or tenants? Where’s the balance? Is there too much emphasis, for example, on capital schemes that ultimately don’t bring in any money for the farmer.”
Interestingly, the social justice value was hardly cued during the scenario analysis by the blue group. The social justice frame did emerge clearly in this group’s discussion of fair price, however without questioning the distribution of payments. Instead, several other issues related to social justice were discussed, such as whether the amount of payment matched the common good interest, whether current environmental services were sufficiently rewarded, and whether it was fair to create a two-tier system between farms with more or less functionable bog.
This analysis demonstrates how the course of interactions influenced which frames became salient in the discussion and how the frames were elaborated, namely which issues they were applied to (e.g., to the distribution of payments in the red group versus the amount of payment in the blue group). During the discussion, frames were also elaborated through merging with other frames. For example, the social justice frame was combined with the environmental frame in the red group and with the holistic frame in the blue group. The process of frame deliberation thus influenced the combination of frames used in the subsequent discussion and in the conclusions of the discussion, finally influencing the joint decision on what should be included in the payment schemes.