Scientific modeling and local visions of sustainability and the future: A new method for natural resource community-based planning

After more than a decade of participatory, multi-scale, multi-objective and multi-stakeholder sustainable agriculture and natural resource research at the watershed and landscape levels, a number of disconnections between theory and practice at the working field level have been identified. One of these is the necessity to achieve an agreement between scientists, the local community, planners and policy makers about the scale in which applied activities should be conducted. Another problem is the inability of our present models to project into the future, a time zone absolutely critical for the attainment of sustainability. This paper outlines a methodology for linking the perceptions of local people with the science of biophysical modelers that takes into consideration the desired future conditions of all stakeholders or actors.