This article differentiates between descriptive and explanatory factors to develop a typology and a theory of stakeholder and public engagement. The typology describes different types of public and stakeholder engagement, and the theory comprises four factors that explain much of the variation in outcomes (for the natural environment and/or for participants) between different types of engagement. First, we use a narrative literature search to develop a new typology of stakeholder and public engagement based on agency (who initiates and leads engagement) and mode of engagement (from communication to coproduction). We then propose a theory to explain the variation in outcomes from different types of engagement: (1) a number of socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional contextual factors influence the outcomes of engagement; (2) there are a number of process design factors that can increase the likelihood that engagement leads to desired outcomes, across a wide range of sociocultural, political, economic, and biophysical contexts; (3) the effectiveness of engagement is significantly influenced by power dynamics, the values of participants, and their epistemologies, that is, the way they construct knowledge and which types of knowledge they consider valid; and (4) engagement processes work differently and can lead to different outcomes when they operate over different spatial and temporal scales. We use the theoretical framework to provide practical guidance for those designing engagement processes, arguing that a theoretically informed approach to stakeholder and public engagement has the potential to markedly improve the outcomes of environmental decision‐making processes.

/pdf/a-theory-of-participation-what-makes-stakeholder-and-public-35o416efd7.pdf

A theory of participation: what makes stakeholder and public engagement in environmental management work?

Carolyn AF Enquist*, Stephen T Jackson, Gregg M Garfin, Frank W Davis, Leah R Gerber, Jeremy A Littell, Jennifer L Tank, Adam J Terando, Tamara U Wall, Benjamin Halpern, J Kevin Hiers, Toni Lyn Morelli, Elizabeth McNie, Nathan L Stephenson, Matthew A Williamson, Connie A Woodhouse, Laurie Yung, Mark W Brunson, Kimberly R Hall, Lauren M Hallett, Dawn M Lawson, Max A Moritz, Koren Nydick, Amber Pairis, Andrea J Ray, Claudia Regan, Hugh D Safford, Mark W Schwartz, and M Rebecca Shaw

/pdf/foundations-of-translational-ecology-3ox02s85h4.pdf

Foundations of translational ecology

Monitoring and evaluation are central to ensuring that innovative, multi-scale, and interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability are effective. The development of relevant indicators for local sustainable management outcomes, and the ability to link these to broader national and international policy targets, are key challenges for resource managers, policymakers, and scientists. Sets of indicators that capture both ecological and social-cultural factors, and the feedbacks between them, can underpin cross-scale linkages that help bridge local and global scale initiatives to increase resilience of both humans and ecosystems. Here we argue that biocultural approaches, in combination with methods for synthesizing across evidence from multiple sources, are critical to developing metrics that facilitate linkages across scales and dimensions. Biocultural approaches explicitly start with and build on local cultural perspectives — encompassing values, knowledges, and needs — and recognize feedbacks between ecosystems and human well-being. Adoption of these approaches can encourage exchange between local and global actors, and facilitate identification of crucial problems and solutions that are missing from many regional and international framings of sustainability. Resource managers, scientists, and policymakers need to be thoughtful about not only what kinds of indicators are measured, but also how indicators are designed, implemented, measured, and ultimately combined to evaluate resource use and well-being. We conclude by providing suggestions for translating between local and global indicator efforts.

https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/kinney/psw_2017_kinney001_sterling.pdf

Biocultural approaches to well-being and sustainability indicators across scales.

Stakeholder engagement in the study and management of invasive alien species

Arguments for the need to conserve aquatic predator (AP) populations often focus on the ecological and socioeconomic roles they play. Here, we summarize the diverse ecosystem functions and services connected to APs, including regulating food webs, cycling nutrients, engineering habitats, transmitting diseases/parasites, mediating ecological invasions, affecting climate, supporting fisheries, generating tourism, and providing bioinspiration. In some cases, human-driven declines and increases in AP populations have altered these ecosystem functions and services. We present a social ecological framework for supporting adaptive management decisions involving APs in response to social and environmental change. We also identify outstanding questions to guide future research on the ecological functions and ecosystem services of APs in a changing world.

Kimberley Landrigan

Papers

Assessing the evidence for stakeholder engagement in biodiversity conservation