Best Practice Stakeholder Participation for Conservation

Mark Reed

Conservation problems are typically complex, uncertain, multi-scale and affect multiple actors and agencies. This demands transparent decision-making that is flexible to changing circumstances, and embraces a diversity of knowledges and values. To achieve this, stakeholder participation1 is increasingly being sought and embedded into environmental decision-making processes, from local to international scales. However, involving people in decisions is inevitably time-consuming and costly – and it may not work. History is littered with examples of failed attempts to work with stakeholders. Old conflicts have been re-ignited, and dominant groups and individuals have been given the power to de-rail or bias outcomes. So why are so many conservationists still interested in participatory approaches? First of all, whether it works or not, there is a strong argument that we should give those who are affected by, or who can affect, proposals to develop the uplands a chance to have their say. Increasingly this is a right that is being enshrined in law. The Aarhus Convention stipulates that all environmental decisions must involve stakeholders. Local communities are now being involved in environmental decision-making across Europe as River Basin Management Plans are developed in collaboration with stakeholders to reach water quality targets under the Water Framework Directive. But proponents of participatory approaches argue that there are also many pragmatic benefits to be gained from working with stakeholders. They argue that the reason why stakeholder engagement has sometimes failed in the past is that people haven’t done it right. Poor engagement may be more damaging than none at all. But to what extent are these claims supported by evidence? There is now empirical evidence showing that environmental decisions that were taken in collaboration with stakeholder were higher quality and more durable. Decision quality can be higher because decision makers can access a wider range of often higher quality information upon which to base decisions, rather than relying solely on text-book answers from researchers. By getting a more complete picture in this way, unintended consequences may be anticipated and avoided. The long-term durability of decisions can be enhanced through participation because the design of interventions, projects and technologies can be more effectively adapted to local circumstances, needs and priorities. Although empirical evidence has yet to be collected, many other benefits have been claimed. For example, by establishing common ground and trust between participants and learning to appreciate the legitimacy of each others’ viewpoints, participatory processes may have the capacity to transform adversarial relationships and find new ways for participants to work together. This may lead to a sense of ownership over the process and outcomes. If this is shared by a broad coalition of stakeholders, long-term support and active implementation of decisions may be enhanced. Depending on the nature of the initiative, this may significantly reduce implementation costs. Surely even if a few of these additional benefits can be realised, it is worth trying to engage stakeholders in conservation? There are numerous ways of conceptualising stakeholder participation in conservation. Early work used the metaphor of a ‘ladder of participation’ to describe different levels of participation from no engagement (one-way communication), through more consultative levels to community empowerment at the top of the ladder. More recently, this has been re-cast as a ‘wheel of participation’, emphasising that different levels of participation are relevant in different contexts. In some contexts (e.g. informing stakeholders about a change in the law), communication may be the most appropriate course of action (indeed anything more would raise unrealistic expectations and waste everyone’s time). But participation is more than either of these metaphors can describe. It is an approach that values and attempts to reconcile multiple (often differing) perspectives, to facilitate learning and progress. There is a philosophy (some have called it a world view) underpinning stakeholder participation that emphasises empowerment, equity, trust and learning. There is a need to replace a ‘tool-kit’ approach to participation, which emphasizes selecting the relevant tools for the job, with an approach that views participation as a process. This view emphasises the people who use the tool-kit in the context of a long-term relationship where the parties develop mutual trust and respect as they learn from each other to negotiate potential solutions. In this context, it is possible to consider best practice principles that can guide the design of effective participatory processes. Box 1 suggests 6 principles based on a Grounded Theory Analysis2 of available literature on stakeholder participation from around the world. Although few of the claims that are made for stakeholder participation have been tested, there is evidence that it can enhance the quality of environmental decisions, possibly due to 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. Deficiencies in this process are most commonly blamed for the failures that have led to disillusionment in stakeholder participation. Often this has arisen from a focus on the tools of participation, rather than the process within which those tools are used. However, by focusing on participation as a process, Box 1 identifies a number of best practice principles from the literature. But for these sorts of approaches to become embedded in conservation practice, 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. Originally published as: Reed M.S. 2008. Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review. Biological Conservation 141: 2417–2431.

Mark Reed (m.reed@abdn.ac.uk) is Senior Lecturer at Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Centre for Planning and Environmental Management, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen.