Cornell UniversityThe Nature Conservancy

Involving Stakeholders

Involving stakeholders is worth the investmentHunters Helping the Hungry Benefit © Gene Grodzk

Community members who give input to a process that is fair, representative, and inclusive are far more likely to accept and support decisions about deer management.

Choose a level of effort that works for your community

The right level of effort will vary depending on your community's situation. For example, when defining the problem, community leaders may consult with just a few key people in affected neighborhoods. At the other extreme, a community might invest substantial resources to acquire detailed community-wide insights about stakeholder beliefs and attitudes—such as a formal survey.

Stakeholder engagement benefits all four phases of CBDM

  • Problem Definition: Stakeholder involvement helps community leaders characterize deer-related impacts and understand the range of viewpoints, some of which may be conflicting.

  • Decision-making: Be sure to provide opportunities for face-to-face discussion and two-way communication with stakeholders, who can give input on pros and cons of different deer management options.

  • Implementation: Stakeholder engagement benefits this phase by building positive working relationships between residents, community leaders, and wildlife professionals--and can include activities such as serving on a community's deer community, spreading the word about a deer feeding ban, or even participating in a community hunt. 

  • Evaluation and Adaptation: Engage stakeholders through surveys, online forms, or citizen monitoring as part of assessing how well your deer management program is working.

Common Questions

Stakeholder engagement can be accomplished in many ways, so it does not look exactly the same in every community. Some communities get input from public meetings or comments on proposed actions; some collect information using surveys of community residents. Other communities involve stakeholders more directly, using in face-to-face deliberations like focus groups or workshops. Over time communities may gather information using a combination of several approaches. The best approach for engaging people will depend on factors such as: the level of conflict over deer, the number of stakeholders affected, how interested and aware stakeholders are in the deer management issue, how much information decision makers need from stakeholders, as well as any resource limitations your community might have. For more discussion on this, please see Decker et al. 2002.

There are many kinds of experts you might consult throughout your community’s CBDM process. Different experts have different kinds of expertise, including expertise implementing the types of management alternatives a community is considering, expertise on state wildlife management laws and policies, and expertise on process management and public involvement. Some wildlife experts may work for or have worked for a government agency or organization, have university credentials, or be a certified wildlife biologist. It may also be helpful to get a sense of what kinds of experiences the expert you are considering has had with respect to deer management. Your community may benefit from consulting more than one expert for different phases.

The best practices outlined on this site have provided you with some actions that can help create a context that fosters success (stakeholder involvement,  informative communication, education and learning). Also, keep in mind that "success" may be hard to define, and setting goals that you are able to monitor and evaluate is an important component for tracking progress. Decker et al (2004) also suggest the following components of a successful process:

  • A structured process for making community decisions that includes multiple, diverse perspectives
  • Shared understandings about desired goals and a desire for achieving generally acceptable solutions
  • An understanding that this will be an ongoing process. CBDM is not usually a one-off task and often requires a long time-horizon
  • A commitment to evaluation of the decision-making process and the subsequent management program is also critical so adjustments and modifications to a program can be made as needed

Browsing our library of cases may be helpful to you in finding communities that may be similar to your own, in order to get a sense of how those communities’ processes progressed. However, keep in mind that what worked in one community, no matter how similar it seems to your own, is not guaranteed to work in yours.

 

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