What Can Photo-Elicitation Tell Us About How Maritime Farmers Perceive Wetlands as Climate Changes?

Wetlands provide numerous public and private benefits, cushioning our vulnerability to climate change, yet wetlands are increasingly subject to land-use conversion. In Nova Scotia, land drainage has become as much a cultural practice as a production activity in the almost four centuries since Acadians started draining coastal marshes for farming. Nonetheless, many farmers have begun reintroducing and restoring wetlands. We undertook an exploratory photo-elicitation study with livestock farmers in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, to understand what their farm landscape values suggested about their perceptions of wetlands and climate change without disclosing these specific interests. Farm landscapes evoked three general themes for farmers: pragmatic and immediate issues related to short-term economic viability; longer-term stewardship of ecosystem services, albeit an incomplete set of them; and, sense of place and identity. Many farmers clearly valued wetlands—and were having them constructed—largely to improve and regulate water quality. Climate change was not, however, a significant component of any narratives, much less those related to wetlands, potentially because of the visual methods employed to elicit them.