A framework to implement Stakeholder participation in environmental projects (original) (raw)
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Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review
The complex and dynamic nature of environmental problems requires flexible and transparent decision-making that embraces a diversity of knowledges and values. For this reason , stakeholder participation in environmental decision-making has been increasingly sought and embedded into national and international policy. Although many benefits have been claimed for participation, disillusionment has grown amongst practitioners and stakeholders who have felt let down when these claims are not realised. This review first traces the development of participatory approaches in different disciplinary and geographical contexts, and reviews typologies that can be used to categorise and select participatory methods. It then reviews evidence for normative and pragmatic benefits of participation, and evaluates limitations and drawbacks. Although few of the claims that are made have been tested, there is evidence that stakeholder participation can enhance the quality of environmental decisions by considering more comprehensive information inputs. However , the quality of decisions made through stakeholder participation is strongly dependant on the nature of the process leading to them. Eight features of best practice participation are then identified from a Grounded Theory Analysis of the literature. These features emphasise the need to replace a ''tool-kit'' approach, which emphasises selecting the relevant tools for the job, with an approach that emphasises participation as a process. It is argued that stakeholder participation needs to be underpinned by a philosophy that emphasises empowerment, equity, trust and learning. Where relevant, participation should be considered as early as possible and throughout the process, representing relevant stakeholders systematically. The process needs to have clear objectives from the outset , and should not overlook the need for highly skilled facilitation. Local and scientific knowledges can be integrated to provide a more comprehensive understanding of complex and dynamic socio-ecological systems and processes. Such knowledge can also be used to evaluate the appropriateness of potential technical and local solutions to environmental problems. Finally, it is argued that to overcome many of its limitations, stakeholder participation must be institutionalised, creating organisational cultures that can facilitate processes where goals are negotiated and outcomes are necessarily uncertain. In this light, participatory processes may seem very risky, but there is growing evidence that if well designed, these perceived risks may be well worth taking. The review concludes by identifying future research needs.
Stakeholder analysis in environmental and conservation planning
Lessons in Conservation, 2007
Stakeholders are defined as the people and organizations who are involved in or affected by an action or policy and can be directly or indirectly included in the decision making process. In environmental and conservation planning, stakeholders typically include government representatives, businesses, scientists, landowners, and local users of natural resources. These groups of stakeholders often have very different positions and values that may be difficult to reconcile with each other and the planned project. This synthesis provides a brief overview of why it is important to incorporate different stakeholders, including underrepresented groups and “hidden” stakeholders, in the planning process and discusses the potential benefits of inclusion. Before involving stakeholders, conducting a stakeholder analysis can help to identify relevant stakeholders and to assess their views and interests on a proposed project. The synthesis describes specific techniques for conducting a formal stakeholder analysis, such as the use of stakeholder tables and a stakeholder influence/interest grid. Finally, the synthesis also highlights some approaches and strategies that can help to facilitate a fair and productive participatory process.
Approaches to identifying stakeholders in environmental management
Stakeholder analysis and engagement processes are recognised as essential in environmental and natural resources management (ENRM). Underpinning these processes is the identification of stakeholders, an often tacit process which finds the practitioner responsible for stakeholder analysis or engagement sifting through all of society to determine who is awarded stakeholder status for the given project or issue. While the ENRM literature provides guidance for stakeholder analysis and engagement, there has not been the same level of examination of the practical approaches to—and assumptions underlying—stakeholder identification by practitioners working in the field. This research extends on the ENRM stakeholder analysis and engagement literature by exploring the approaches to identification as used by ENRM practitioners. Semi-structured interviews (n = 20) were conducted with ENRM practitioners, leading to the classification of eight approaches to stakeholder identification. These approaches are discussed as the 'art' and 'science' of stakeholder identification. Practitioners' conceptualisations of the terms stake-holder, community, and the citizenry are discussed, and differences in understandings of these critical terms are outlined based on the broad domain of ENRM in which the practitioner is operating (land use change versus agricultural extension or community engagement). The social structures of relevance to stakeholder identification (individual, social constituency, group, organisation) are presented, and practitioners' perspectives on the role of groups are discussed. Through explicating the approaches to identification of stakeholders, this research offers new perspectives on a significant element of ENRM. These insights provide greater clarity on the practices which shape stakeholder analysis and engagement in ENRM, and highlight the importance of acknowledging the privileged position of the practitioner in deciding who is awarded stakeholder status in a project or issue.
Ecology and Society, 2016
We distill complex frameworks for stakeholder engagement into five main principles that scientists and natural resource managers can use in planning stakeholder engagement efforts. Many natural resource management professionals, including practitioners and scholars, increasingly recognize the need for, and potential benefits of, engaging stakeholders in complex decision-making processes, yet the implementation of these efforts varies wildly, reflecting great methodological and conceptual diversity. Given the dynamic and diverse natural resource management contexts in which engagement occurs and the often significant stakes involved in making decisions about natural resources, we argue that stakeholder engagement would benefit from a theoretical framework that is both agile and robust. To this end, five essential elements of stakeholder engagement are evaluated and organized to form the Five-Feature Framework, thereby providing a functional and approachable platform with which to consider engagement processes. Aside from introducing and developing the Five-Feature Framework, we apply the framework as a measure to evaluate the empirical case study literature involving stakeholder engagement in natural resource management in an effort to better understand the obstacles facing robust and genuine engagement in natural resource management. Our results suggest that the most basic principles of engagement are often absent from stakeholder engagement projects, which confirms the need for a functional framework. The Five-Feature Framework can be used to plan flexible, adaptable, and rigorous engagement projects in a variety of contexts and with teams that have varying backgrounds and experience. By virtue of its simplicity and functionality, the framework demystifies stakeholder engagement in order to help natural resource professionals build opportunities for collaborative decision-making and integrate citizen values and knowledge into complex management issues.
The planning step of an ecological risk assessment includes the largest role for public participation in the entire assessment, for it is here that the risk manager must ensure that the assessment will yield the information he needs to make a decision. This essay discusses some general characteristics of public participation in ecological risk assessments, including the ways in which different lifestyles may lead to the establishment of community specific management goals and hence of different endpoints; the type and nature of the input provided by the public to the risk assessment and the ways in which input from the public differs from input from the scientific community; and a discussion of definitions of stakeholders and participatory processes which emphasizes their contextual nature. The essay concludes with a review of some of the challenges facing a risk manager as he designs a participatory process. Six major areas are discussed, each incorporating suggestions that should reduce difficulties in implementation of such a process and increase the likelihood of acceptance of its outcome, and hence the overall quality of the risk assessment.
From the Forest to the River: Citizens\u27 Views of Stakeholder Engagement
2006
Since the early 1990s collaboration and consensus processes have become associated with success in the environmental policy and natural resource policy arenas. Interest in collaboration and consensus processes have emerged, in part, out of a frustration with more conventional efforts used to involve stakeholders, to work though conflicts, and to make decisions in the environmental and natural resource policy arenas. Collaboration and consensus processes, when designed well and applied appropriately, provide opportunities for meaningful stakeholder engagement. This essay features aspects of two government-led or agency-based (Koontz et al. 2004; Moore and Koontz 2003) planning efforts that consider collaboration and citizens/stakeholder engagement. Both projects, a forest management plan revision on the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania, and a regional sediment management planning effort at the mouth of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, have considered a Collaborat...
Stakeholder Participation in Watershed Management - Part II
As mentioned in Part I of this two-part paper, our goal is to explore stakeholder participation in environmental management, focusing on water resources, especially as it relates to EPA's new public participation guidelines. In the previous paper, we introduced two upstate New York case studies to exemplify different approaches to participation. This paper will more closely compare the case studies in terms of the seven-step EPA framework, which serves as a template for civic engagement.