Stewardship
Stewardship refers to our responsibility to manage and protect the land and its natural heritage
(Brown & Mitchell, 1998), and involves nourishing something for someone else: for society, nature, a God, or future generations (Worrell & Appleby, 2000). Stewardship is therefore essentially different from traditional management methods, given that the latter are more focused on efficiency and profitability, while stewardship is more acting for a benevolent purpose, as a moral duty or responsibility. It is based on the premise that “pro-organizational, collectivistic behaviours have higher utility than individualistic, self-serving behaviour” (Davis, Schoorman, & Donaldson, 1997). Stewardship also refers to shaping pathways towards ecological resilience, especially in the context of social-ecological systems such as farming systems (Chapin et al., 2011; Kofinas & Chapin, 2009); as such building further on elements of resilience thinking.
In the PIP approach stewardship is stimulated by creating awareness about changes in natural resources and our own role, inducing the responsibility in stakeholders to protect and conserve land, water and vegetation. This is closely related to awareness about environmental values, such as prevention of pollution, protection of the environment, respect for the earth and unity with nature; also referred to as biospheric values (Steg, Perlaviciute, Van der Werff, & Lurvink, 2014). However, stewardship is only valuable when translated into concrete actions. Hence, in the PIP approach, during a series of workshops where farmers exchange knowledge and experiences and receive on-demand trainings, stewardship is further strengthened with capacity building on good practices related to land and farm management and use of the commons.