A transdisciplinary approach to a conservation crisis: A case study of the Eurasian curlew (Numenius arquata) in Ireland

In this article, we build on a growing literature of examples of transdisciplinary approaches to illustrate the catalysts and outcomes of a stakeholder‐driven process to conservation practice. We illustrate this using the case of one of Europe's most rapidly declining bird species, the Eurasian curlew (Numenius arquata). As part of the response to its continuing decline, a stakeholder‐driven workshop was held in Ireland in November 2016, bringing together over 80 stakeholders from a range of governmental, non‐governmental, and private organizations responsible for or interested in curlew conservation and management. This innovative workshop sought to formulate ideas and support the implementation of actions from stakeholders themselves on how to halt further losses of curlews, within the current legislative framework. Four years on, many of the short‐ and medium‐term actions identified during the workshop have been implemented jointly by stakeholders. However, curlew recovery will require continued communication and meaningful engagement with all relevant stakeholders together with increased government support underpinned by increased public awareness and ownership of the curlew's plight. Ultimately, many stakeholders will measure the success of curlew conservation in Ireland by the long‐term viability of the breeding population.

disciplines from the natural and social sciences to inform conservation action in a more integrated way (see Bennett et al., 2017;Mascia et al., 2003), as well as integration between science and civil society actors (Torkar & McGregor, 2012). This approach can be described as transdisciplinarity, or the approach of working collaboratively across scientific disciplines and with other societal actors to generate new and more holistic knowledge on societal problems and develop solutions together (Hadorn, Bradley, Pohl, Rist, & Wiesmann, 2006;Reyers et al., 2010;Young & Marzano, 2010). This has resulted in a movement in conservation to try and involve stakeholders earlier and to a greater degree in conservation interventions (Ainsworth, Redpath, Wernham, Wilson, & Young, 2020;Redpath et al., 2017;Reed, 2008;Young et al., 2016). Many examples of collaborations with stakeholders exist and a large number of principles, guides, and toolkits can be used to better engage with stakeholders (e.g., Mishra et al., 2017;Wondolleck & Yaffee, 2000). When stakeholder-driven processes do occur, it is essential to explore the catalysts behind these processes, and the actions derived from them within socio-political boundaries, to determine the effectiveness of such transdisciplinary processes (Muñoz-Erickson, Aguilar-González, Loeser, & Sisk, 2010). Few studies, however, report on catalysts and progress. This paper adds to this literature by outlining the outcomes of a stakeholder-driven process to conservation practice, using the example of a workshop focused on the Eurasian curlew (Numenius arquata) conservation in Ireland in 2016. The objectives of this study were to (a) understand the catalysts that led to the workshop in Ireland, (b) capture and monitor the actions identified by stakeholders to address the decline in curlews, (c) identify barriers, as perceived by stakeholders, to curlew conservation, and (d) explore the progress of actions and the potential for stakeholder-driven processes to stimulate conservation actions.
Curlews have seen a continued decline in population and range across Europe, but particularly in Ireland, where there has been a population loss of 97% in the last 30 years (O'Donoghue, Donaghy, & Kelly, 2019) and a range loss of 78% (Balmer et al., 2013). Curlews demonstrate breeding site fidelity and in Ireland tend to utilize breeding habitat types that combine a mixture of marshy or peatland habitats with marginal farmland habitats (Bracken, McMahon, & Whelan, 2008;Colhoun, Mawhinney, & Peach, 2015). The causes of breeding curlew declines are well reported (e.g., Franks, Douglas, Gillings, & Pearce-Higgins, 2017). Habitat loss and degradation as a result of agricultural intensification, land drainage and afforestation, predation, and human disturbance have been identified as the threats to breeding populations in Europe (European Commission, 2007). In Ireland, peatland habitats have declined by 47% due to peat extraction (Malone & O'Connell, 2009), which together with burning of peatland prior to harvesting, may cause unacceptably high levels of disturbance to breeding pairs. Large sections of raised peatlands in Ireland have been harvested since the mid-1940s although this is to be phased out by 2030. Agricultural intensification is leading to marginal areas being improved through drainage and reseeding, producing areas of grassland that are of limited value to breeding curlew (Colhoun et al., 2015). Abandonment of traditional land management practices poses a threat, particularly within economically marginal farming regions (Henle et al., 2008). Further habitat loss and fragmentation occurs on marginal farmland and peatland when afforestation occurs (Malone & O'Connell, 2009). The 2007-2011 Bird Atlas highlighted the recent severe decline of the curlew (Balmer et al., 2013). Despite this scientific knowledge on the causes of curlew declines, their loss in Ireland continues, with stakeholders increasingly concerned that breeding populations of curlew are heading for extinction (Colhoun & Cummins, 2013;O'Donoghue et al., 2019). The National Parks and Wildlife Services of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gealteacht has the responsibility for curlews in Ireland but they require independent landowners and other government departments, such as the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine to implement conservation action for the curlew.
Since 2010, BirdWatch Ireland, an environmental NGO, lobbied for a government response and publicized the plight of curlews, and undertook monitoring and conservation management with funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (e.g., Donaghy, 2014). The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), that manages the Irish State's nature conservation, coordinated the first national survey of breeding curlews between 2015 and 2017 (O'Donoghue et al., 2019). During this time, BirdWatch Ireland, environmental groups and other organizations including Bord na Móna (BnM) (a semi-state company whose businesses include biomass procurement and supply, power generation [peat based and renewable], waste recovery, domestic fuel products and professional and consumer horticulture products), jointly discussed undertaking positive action for breeding curlews. Subsequently, to raise awareness of the decline in curlews across Britain and Ireland, a British producer and writer (Mary Colwell) undertook a 500-mile walk (Curlew Media, 2016), during which funds were raised toward organizing two workshops, one of which was in Ireland. This workshop, held in Higginstown (Co. Westmeath, Ireland) in November 2016 was organized by Mary Colwell along with BirdWatch Ireland (Anita Donaghy) and University College Dublin (Barry McMahon) with support from Irish National Parks and Wildlife Services (Barry O'Donoghue) with the view to invite all organizations or individuals (e.g., active individual conservationists) with an interest or who could assist in curlew conservation.

| The workshop and interviews
To understand the stakeholder-driven process to address the curlew decline, we used a two-stage approach of (a) compiling the conservation actions identified by the participants of the workshop, and (b) carrying out subsequent interviews with key informants.
The workshop brought 80 stakeholders from over 12 organizations from the government, conservation, forestry, NGOs, agriculture (both individual farmers and Teagasc-the Agriculture and Food Authority, which also provides a research and a farmer advisory service), energy production, and academia together and provided a forum for discussions on the future conservation of curlews. While this was not a "usual" gathering, the stakeholders at the workshop were representative of the need for the interested personnel in curlew conservation in Ireland to organize their initial position as they represented various organizations with different approaches to conservation, for example, NGOs, government departments and interested individuals. The workshop was chaired by an independent ecological consultant (Alan Lauder) and started with plenary presentations, setting the scene in terms of the curlew biology, status, and drivers of decline. The participants were then encouraged to join working groups where they identified possible actions jointly. These actions were then presented in plenary by the rapporteurs in each working group, discussed in plenary and agreed upon jointly by stakeholders at the workshop as actions needed to address the curlew decline. Some actions were identified in more than one working group. No actions identified in the working groups were dismissed-as such the aim of the workshop was to compile and agree on actions, rather than prioritize or rank them. Juliette Young and Barry McMahon transcribed the actions identified, and synthesized them according to the period in which they could be achieved (short, medium, and long term). The report was disseminated to workshop participants a week after the workshop to invite any comments or suggestions. None were received and the report was finalized. The outcomes of the workshop were the development of cross-stakeholder jointly agreed conservation actions, and that the government department responsible would be asked to convene a Government Task force for the conservation of curlews in Ireland.
Following the workshop, participants that had attended the workshop were contacted by Amy McCluskey. We used key informant sampling  to target experts in curlew conservation from organizations with different roles. We selected individuals based on having (a) attended the workshop and (b) demonstrated that they were already undertaking land management or conservation actions for curlews. The stakeholder organizations contacted included Bord na Móna, Teagasc, Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Irish Peatland Conservation Council, Curlew Media, BirdWatch Ireland & The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. A total of 10 stakeholders were interviewed, all of whom would be considered experts in their fields. Attempts were made to establish contact with a representative of the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association (TCCA) as well as the Irish Farmers Association (IFA). While an initial agreement was received from the IFA no further information was given from their representative following a subsequent email. A representative of Teagasc, the Irish farmer research and advisory body, did, however, take part in the interview. No response was received from the attempts made toward to TCCA. The stakeholder breakdown can be found in Table 1.
The interviews took place from 16th March to 7th April 2017. Of the 10 interviews, eight were conducted over the phone, one was face to face and the last was completed online. All interviewees were made aware of the purpose of the study, its methodology and intended use of the research. All interviewees were asked to complete a confidentiality and consent form prior to the interview, and data were analysed and reported accordingly. All interviewees received a copy of the manuscript once completed to comment on and approve. A suggested time of no more than 30 minutes was given to each stakeholder, although this varied depending on the stakeholders' availability and desire in wanting to talk about the curlew further. The study was carried out using a semi-structured interview process with an interview guide consisting of 20 broad and specific questions (see Appendix SA1 in Supporting Information for the interview guide). All interviews were transcribed verbatim in Microsoft Word 2010. For the analysis of the interviews, Adobe Acrobat 9.0 Pro was used to scan both the individual interview transcripts and the dataset as a whole to identify significant themes and issues within it. Establishing common themes and opinions within the interviews created percentages of catalysts, barriers or issues of most significance to the interviewees.

| Catalysts for the stakeholder workshop
The main reason for attending the workshop for eight interviewees was the conscious need to conserve the species (see Figure 1). One interviewee stated that "It's a social duty [to attend the workshop] rather than a work instruction to take part. The reasons are more altruistic" (SH3). Another interviewee (SH1) felt it was "the right thing to do" and "felt a responsibility that we should be part of it and we feel like we have a lot to give, but that we also have a lot to learn as well." Seven interviewees highlighted this need to gather more information, particularly on how to manage the curlew population. As one interviewee (SH7) stated, "I think it was a really important event because it was the first time everybody was brought together to talk about this.
[…] there was a serious lack of communication before that." Another interviewee also commented on their predictions of how the next generation would look back and judge the situation as a catalyst: "We have to do something because future generations will never forgive us" (SH1). Other catalysts highlighted by interviewees included awareness raising such as Mary Colwell's walk and the fact that it was seen as a conservation priority, networking, support to other groups, and a general interest in the decline of farmland birds (see Figure 1).

| Actions identified by stakeholders to address the curlew decline in Ireland
The short-, medium-, and long-term actions jointly identified by stakeholders during the workshop are listed in Table 2, not in priority order. The short-, medium-, and long term are defined by BM and JY as less than 2 years, between 2 and 5 years and more than 5 years. The text in italics after each action describes the extent to which the action has been addressed since the workshop, as perceived by the authors.

| Perceived barriers to the conservation of curlews
The main barrier to curlew conservation, as with many issues around conservation, was identified by nine interviewees as the limited availability of funding (see Table 3). Funding was seen as a restriction in moving forward by four out of the 10 interviewees, especially when discussing landowner involvement in management: "Farmers will be involved if there is appropriate funding and information available to them. Resources I think is the T A B L E 2 (Continued)

Timeframe Actions identified Progress towards achieving actions
Enforce existing conservation and domestic turf cutting laws.
Some progress. The minister for culture, heritage and the Gaeltacht has brought a number of cases to court in relation to illegal turf cutting.
Encourage habitat creation for curlews in key areas.
This is one of the objectives of the curlew conservation Program, with a number of sites having been "enhanced" through scrub creation, rush cutting, scrape creation, liming and predation exclusion.
Habitat creation and management is being undertaken as part of the CABB project and the curlew EIP, with management agreements in place with two landowners with curlew in Donegal Galway and Leitrim.
Other work is planned with specific capital works only agreements in CABB.
Encourage more public support and engagement in curlew conservation. Create and train specialist advisers or "champions" to engage with farmers, other landowners and local communities to promote curlew conservation.
The frontline personnel of the Curlew Conservation Program have pioneered efforts throughout much of Ireland and have gained significant and important experience since 2017. However, the one season contracts potentially create an issue with continuity.
Examine options for reconnecting curlews with Irish heritage and folklore, re-establishing the curlew as part of Ireland's history.
Some progress. This is being looked at as part of a masters project associated with the Curlew Conservation Program.
Long-term actions for curlew conservation in Ireland -actions that could be carried out beyond 5 years Examine climate change and carbon storage policy to support conservation of bogs-e.g., encouraging carbon storage to be focused on bogs, not forests.
The Climate Action Plan g contains a number of actions relating to valuing and restoring bogs in terms of carbon storage-e.g., there is a commitment to restore 22,000 ha of designated raised bogs and Bord na Móna will look at the restoration capacity of sites under their management.
(Continues) biggest stumbling block" (SH5). Other funding constraints relating to farmers' involvement related to dissemination of information: "if you don't have the money you can't get the people on the ground providing the advice, making contact with farmers and continuing to get people involved" (SH8). It is important to note that since the workshop, the government have given some funding to the Curlew Task force (completed in September 2019 see recommendations (https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/general/ curlew-task-force-recommendations.pdf and other information https://www.npws.ie/research-projects/animalspecies/birds/curlew-task-force) and the Curlew Conservation Program (https://www.npws.ie/farmers-andlandowners/schemes/curlew-conservation-programme).
Difficulty in overcoming habitat loss and maintaining good quality habitats on curlew sites into the future was the second most commonly identified barrier, highlighted by four interviewees. Restrictions on farmers planting T A B L E 2 (Continued)

Timeframe Actions identified Progress towards achieving actions
BirdWatch Ireland undertaking blocking of drains on 500 ha of blanket bog in the Ox Mountains, co. Sligo as part of CABB.
Develop long-term Agri-environment policy balancing production focus with public good and other values. This could include landscape scale management to encourage fledged curlews to come back to their original habitat.
NPWS and DAFM are working closely on the formulation of the next CAP Strategic Plan (CSP). A specific submission for curlew was made to the Prioritized Action Framework and the CSP public consultation.
Develop government policies specifically aimed at protecting curlew sites from land drainage, forestry and wind farm developments.
Curlew locations are prioritized for Agrienvironment schemes and conservation action and are taken into account as part of a protocol relating to forestry. However, further progress needs to be made on both to secure protection from both agriculture and forestry land use change.
Examine peat extraction techniques on privately owned bogs.
The Curlew Conservation Program has had a number of positive engagements with local turf cutters in safeguarding nests, but there is no national policy or protocol in relation to how such cases are to be dealt with. It would be useful to have turf cutters contribute to creating habitat on degraded sites or even simply returning the top sod face up after cutting.
Examine potential for alternative fuel sources to cutting turf, for example, providing appropriately sited and sustainably managed conifer forestry patches to landowners.
No progress.
Encourage research on curlew population dynamics at site level, including examining the drivers of curlew loss between hatching and fledging.
The output from the research on the Curlew Conservation Program is due in 2020. trees due to curlew presence were mentioned as an obstacle due to its impact on farmers' rights: "It's the ultimate restriction not being able to do what you want with the land; it's about tweaking management, as opposed to a direct sort of denial of land use" (SH4). One interviewee commented on how "It will be relatively easy to incentivize positive work (provided the financial and ecological resources are available) but it will be rather more difficult to turn around policies and markets that have led to and continue to destroy habitat" (SH2). Three interviewees stated that the lack of support from government agencies surrounding legislation was a major barrier to overcome. The same number also highlighted a lack of communication and openness between different agencies. Other barriers included lack of knowledge and research, poor public awareness or support, and the perceptions or reputations of stakeholders limiting co-operation between groups (see Table 3).
When asked why they thought it had taken so long to react to declining curlew numbers, three interviewees mentioned government policies and regulations: "Ireland is slow to fulfil its obligations in relation to halting the decline of biodiversity. It is probably not as high profile as some of our other environmental obligations such as those in relation to water quality and greenhouse gas emissions" (SH5). Another interviewee commented on the lack of political will to conserve biodiversity: "In a way it's probably that they feel people are concerned about wildlife but not concerned enough to not vote for somebody for not acting to protect curlew" (SH6). These views were reflected by another interviewee: "They should have been protecting those birds all along, but there is no political will there […] This has to start at the top, if there's not [political will] then you're just wasting your time" (SH10). Many interviewees believed that this lack of political will explained the broader lack of engagement in management strategies and the lack of public awareness and engagement around curlew conservation. One interviewee stressed that "Everyone likes to be talked to and get their opinion […] and nobody spoke to anyone on the ground so straight away it was doomed" (SH1). Public engagement was the only way forward according to one interviewee: "My big point of view on curlew and any conservation on peatlands is from the bottom up is the way to go and not from the top down and try to push for that and get everyone […] to understand that" (SH1). Engaging early on with landowners was a proven approach according to one interviewee: "The models elsewhere particularly in the Burren have shown that community engagement […] is a proven model for fostering different approaches and different thinking. It can be applied across different areas, it's a model of listening and co-operation and working together. It's a completely logical approach" (SH4).
Interviewees also referred to the wider public attitude toward biodiversity loss and management of species in Ireland stating that it was "a reflection of our society that […] we're bothered when it gets to crisis level but we're not prepared to put resources into things that are not critically endangered" (SH6). Another put it down to the societal worth of curlew conservation: "That's what it's all about, how much are the curlew worth, how much are trees, cattle or sheep worth? It boils down to those questions. Unless society decides that the curlew is more important in that area than sheep than cattle" (SH3). An area of discussion among interviewees was why it took an outside influence such as Mary Colwell to "probe our conscience" (SH3).

| DISCUSSION
The fact that all short-term, and many of the mediumterm, actions identified by workshop participants have been enacted since the workshop took place is somewhat encouraging for future conservation action for curlews in Ireland. The catalysts leading to the workshop are also a sign for hope. Stakeholders felt a social duty and responsibility in managing the species, and were supportive of the need and desire to share and gather more information and knowledge on how to manage the curlew effectively. As such, the stakeholders in this transdisciplinary approach were similar to "stakesharer," as coined by Torkar and McGregor (2012), namely a group of people sharing "ideas, solutions, threats and opportunities as they try to stake out their collective response to human-nature interface problems" (pp. 65). Despite the different backgrounds of interviewees, there was agreement on how to move forward with the management process in terms of short-, medium-, and long-term actions for curlew conservation in Ireland. There are, however, a number of caveats around this particular situation that need to be highlighted before being able to predict whether the stakeholder-driven process we describe in Ireland is likely to be more successful in terms of the long-term conservation of curlews than past initiatives and programs-or applicable to other situations. First, it is important to appreciate that this situation was context-dependent by virtue of the people involved (and their values), and the landscape in which the curlew populations occur-which will not necessarily be the same as the situation in other countries or for other species. One notable aspect in this context which made the identification of joint actions as part of only one workshop possible, was that there was no conflict between stakeholders over the conservation of curlews. As such, stakeholders were able to suggest and agree on solutions more easily than in other more contentious conservation situations (e.g., Redpath et al., 2013). Second, although the above actions were considered by stakeholders and interviewees as "last minute" and should have been addressed before the population had declined to such a small size, there have been a large number of initiatives and programs undertaken in Ireland to help conserve curlews-these were the basis on which the walk and the workshop happened and should be acknowledged. Even if the stakeholders did not refer to these directly, the publication and communication around them would have influenced the views of the stakeholders before they got to the workshop. Similarly, it is difficult to single out the workshop in terms of evaluation of progress, as the workshop is part of a range of initiatives aiming to conserve curlews. Third, many interviewees stressed the need for the momentum to be maintained to achieve long-term actions, emphasizing continued communication, meaningful engagement, and collaboration with all relevant stakeholders, including farmers and landowners, and increased funding to be made available by the Irish government-fueled by increased public awareness and psychological ownership of the curlew. This indicates that a number of criteria need to be fulfilled for these actions to be implemented. Whether the 5-year timeframe is feasible considering the current conservation status of the curlew is debatable. Finally, as highlighted in the introduction, the role of policies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy cannot be minimized in the conservation of curlews. Addressing these was not the aim or within the breadth of the workshop-which aimed instead to set the ground for discussion and future action. The expectations of the workshop, and the timeframe chosen for the actions resulting from it, highlight the trade-offs between science and policy, including the different values guiding policy actions, and the constraints in terms of timeframes that science and policy operate in (Sarkki et al., 2015;Watt et al., 2019;Young et al., 2014).
A key question that emerges from our example is lessons learned on how to get relevant government bodies and other stakeholders to engage jointly and rapidly to address conservation issues. In the case of curlew conservation in Ireland, there were a number of catalysts that led to stakeholders attending the workshop and identifying joint actions. The catalysts were linked to the reasons behind the steep decline in curlews, namely, apathy and a lack of appropriate information and communication to the influential stakeholders, but also powerful policies designed to promote agricultural and rural development potentially to the detriment of curlews, as mentioned above. Apathy and the lack of information was addressed by a number of factors, including a greater awareness of the immediacy and extent of the curlew decline (through scientific input and media attention)-and the realization that many stakeholders were passionate about curlews. The level of apathy or engagement varied according to different groups of stakeholders-as can be the case in such processes (Ainsworth et al., 2020), and demonstrate the importance of the engagement of key stakeholders in such processes, including the need for other options should representatives of such influential groups not be engaged. In light of the importance of farming and turf cutting on curlew populations, it was perhaps disappointing that while there were a number of individual interested farmers present at the workshop, no farming representative bodies were represented. However, the Irish farmer research and advisory body, Teagasc, was present at the meeting and a representative was interviewed as part of the study. Members of the Tuft Cutters association were invited to the workshop but did not attend. It should be pointed out that both farming representative bodies and those interested in turf cutting were invited to be part of the Curlew Task Force and did participate to some degree. This demonstrates incremental changes in stakeholder engagement which were brought about by the workshop and the learning from the discussions. However, the reality is that other options will be needed to engage with these important stakeholders. At the local level, it is the development of personal relationships with landowners which is and will continue to be key and this aspect, according to one of the authors, who works at the National Parks and Wildlife Service, appears to be working well. Having the option of bypassing representatives and working directly with stakeholders such as farmers may be particularly important in this stakeholder process.
While the approach we describe here is context dependent (as with many conservation issues), we argue that an important catalyst for this and other similar processes is the definition and recognition of a shared problem, in which a diversity of stakeholders from science, policy, and practice have a role to play (Young et al., 2014). Scientists have a key role in communicating research more effectively to the key stakeholders to inform them sooner and better on the extent of species decline. This includes the better use of framing their research, or using narratives that can increase the impact of their knowledge Howard et al., 2018;Rose, Brotherton, Owens, & Pryke, 2018). Importantly, scientists may need to go further by suggesting practical management options, including how to implement these options, their costs, and the trade-offs involved in not implementing them (Balian et al., 2016). Governments and their departments have a role in providing the resources for scientists to monitor population size and the will and resources to implement conservation actions. As the example in this article highlights, they also have a role in supporting initiatives that bring key stakeholders together to exchange knowledge and start the process of joint discussions and action setting. Finally, landowners and managers have a role in implementing the actions they have themselves identified. As highlighted in this paper, the workshop provided an initial opportunity for local stakeholders, including landowners, to have a say in the way in which they could manage their land for curlews. This follows other studies that have emphasized the need for such bottom-up early ownership of conservation actions (e.g., O'Rourke, 2005). Hopefully, the results of this study will allow the stakeholders involved to continue to jointly monitor progress of their proposed actions with conservation outcomes, while acknowledging and addressing the many barriers and drivers that continue to hamper curlew conservation.
To conclude, based on our experience in Ireland on the conservation of the curlew, we argue that the above, combined with a transparent approach to developing joint solutions and sufficient resources can encourage more stakeholders to become stakesharers in conservation. Our study also highlights the need for more studies to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of stakeholder processes in conservation. Despite some encouraging progress in terms of the short-and medium-term actions identified by stakeholders in this context, many stakeholders will measure the overall success of curlew conservation in Ireland by the long-term viability of the breeding population.