Exploring natural resource management with metaphor analysis

In the following pages I reflect on the nature of natural resource management by exploring some of the metaphors used during planning, implementing, and reflecting on two watershed management projects. Metaphors are used to understand one idea through another, and their use in everyday dialogue can provide a means to understand the conceptual frameworks that underpin behaviours. Within the case studies presented here, natural resource management was conceptualized variously as journeying, revealing a picture, and treating watershed illness. Understanding the world through each of these conceptual frameworks appears to have influenced the planning, delivery, and evaluation of natural resource management activities undertaken in the case-study areas. The qualitative, interpretive study of conceptual frameworks presented here helps to explain participant behaviours, and could be used to predict the acceptance or otherwise of particular program approaches within these and similar projects.